The drama was the youngest and most perfect of Attic creations, and that great cycle of the arts which had an epic origin, naturally returned into itself by means of this. Tragedy was the purest elimination, and its progress may be easily traced. First, a whole populace assembled in some market-place the miscellaneous chorus, or dance; then the recreation was limited to men capable of bearing arms; and, finally, the people were separated into spectators and trained performers. The lyric hymn of Apollo blended with dithyrambic odes to Bacchus; the strophe was distinguished from the antistrophe, and the epode was added; the dialogue between choragoi and exarchi followed; and, finally, came the separation of the chorus into these speakers and the choreutæ, a distinction as important as the previous one into chorus and spectators. Thus were all the component parts of tragedy completed, before the Persian war, when every thing the Greeks did was great and fascinating, as if created by magic, and their dramatic compositions were the most beautiful of all. The finest genius of a great era always turns toward the highest sphere for exercise, and thus preserves an equilibrium between popular taste and the direction of its talent. When lyrical poetry had transmigrated into choral song, and epic history merged into a dramatic plot and dialogue, the greatest of tragedians extant was appointed to consecrate the union and preserve its worth. Æschylus was born at Eleusis, B.C. 525, about the time Phrynichus elevated the Thespian romance into dramatic personation, and his advent was opportune to impress upon this department of letters a deep and enduring stamp. With an ardent temperament, early exalted by the fervid strains of Homer, he imbibed, in maturity, the ambrosial influence of the above-named precursor, in company with his senior associate, Pindar, and with him wove thoughts to the lofty music of the dithyrambic ode. Passing through this order of excellence to a still higher range, in the same year Athenian valor lighted the flames of the Persian war at the conflagration of Sardis, the son of Euphorion produced his first tragedy. Pratinas and Chœrilus were for a season his competitors; but he soon distanced them all, and won the ivy chaplet, then first bestowed, instead of the goat and ox, as the most glorious literary crown.