Nymph Cyllene, hiding the baby Hermes from the chorus by the most
barefaced and pleasant lying; later no doubt there was an entrance of the
infant thief himself. Autolycus, Sisyphus, Thersites are all Satyr-play
heroes and congenial to the Satyr atmosphere; but the most congenial of
all, the one hero who existed always in an atmosphere of Satyrs and the
Kômos until Euripides made him the central figure of a tragedy, was
Heracles.
[Footnote: The character of Heracles in connexion with the Kômos, already
indicated by Wilamowitz and Dieterich (_Herakles_, pp. 98, ff.;
_Pulcinella_, pp. 63, ff.), has been illuminatingly developed in an
unpublished monograph by Mr. J.A.K. Thomson, of Aberdeen.]

The complete Satyr-play had a hero of this type and a Chorus of Satyrs.
But the complete type was refined away during the fifth century; and one
stage in the process produced a play with a normal chorus but with one
figure of the Satyric or "revelling" type. One might almost say the
"comic" type if, for the moment, we may remember that that word is
directly derived from 'Kômos.'

The _Alcestis_ is a very clear instance of this Pro-satyric class of
play. It has the regular tragic diction, marked here and there (393,
756, 780, etc.) by slight extravagances and forms of words which are
sometimes epic and sometimes over-colloquial; it has a regular saga plot,
which had already been treated by the old poet Phrynichus in his
_Alcestis_, a play which is now lost but seems to have been Satyric;
and it has one character straight from the Satyr world, the heroic
reveller, Heracles. It is all in keeping that he should arrive tired,
should feast and drink and sing; should be suddenly sobered and should go
forth to battle with Death. It is also in keeping that the contest should
have a half-grotesque and half-ghastly touch, the grapple amid the graves