We must now say a few words about the external details of the performance, the public, and the reception of the pieces. Originally, admission to theatrical representations was free, as to a religious festival in which the whole population were to take part. But when the crowd of spectators became greater this had its disadvantages, and very often quarrels for places ensued between citizens and strangers. We know little of the conditions in other places; but at Athens, when in 500 B.C. the old wooden theatre fell down during a performance, and the new stone theatre of Dionysus was erected, they took advantage of the occasion to levy an entrance fee, the amount of which is uncertain. Even at the beginning of the fifth century the income from this source seems to have belonged to a theatrical lessee, whose duty it was in consequence to keep the building in proper condition. He paid a fixed sum to the State, and in return received the entrance money. It is well known that Pericles, partly with a benevolent desire of making the theatre accessible for the poorer class of citizens, and partly also in order to increase his popularity by this democratic measure, introduced a law by which every citizen received the price of admission from the State. This was the “show-money” (θεωρικόυ), an institution which seems to have lasted for centuries, but the arrangements connected with it are by no means clear. In the first place, it was probably calculated for the poor people only; but the rich, too, made use of it, if only to escape from possible reproach of pride or haughtiness by some of the numerous informers who at that time existed at Athens. There was a special board entrusted with the distribution; the show-money was allotted to the citizens according to tribes by cashiers appointed by lot, whose duty it was to see that none received it without proper claim. It was therefore distributed in the separate tribes according to the registers of citizens in the demes. The statements of the ancients do not agree about the amount of the money; but the most probable of the newer hypotheses is that for one day it amounted to two obols, for the three days of the great Dionysia one drachma. The money was paid, on admission into the theatre, to the lessee, who either received it in person, or levied it by means of his controllers or cashiers; the same people took the fees from those who had not received the show-money, such as the resident foreigners, strangers, etc. It is very difficult to decide whether this was paid in coin or not; one hypothesis is that, instead of money, the citizens received tickets, which had the value of money, and simplified the paying out as well as the paying back; many such counters bearing theatrical emblems, have come down to us, and are supposed to have been admission passes. Still, weighty objections have been made to this hypothesis; and it is more probable that the citizens