this new popular diversion; it suited their policy that the poor
should be entertained at the expense of the rich; the competition of
rival tragic choirs was introduced; and the stage near the black
poplar on the market-place became a centre of the festive merry-
makings in Attica."

Curtius thinks that Pisistratus, as a popular usurper and opponent of
the aristocracy, encouraged the worship of the popular god Dionysus
with the Tragic Chorus, and he gives Pisistratus the credit of this
glorious innovation. A similar policy was ascribed to Cleisthenes of
Sicyon by Herodotus (v. 67).

The Chorus thus remaining wedded to the Drama, parts the action with
lyric pieces more or less connected with it, and expressive of the
feelings which it excites. In Aeschylus and Sophocles the connection
is generally close; less close in Euripides. The Chorus also
occasionally joins in the dialogue, moralising or sympathising,
and sometimes, it must be owned, in a rather commonplace and insipid
strain. In "The Eumenides" of Aeschylus, the chorus of Furies takes
part as a character in the drama; in "The Suppliants" it plays the
principal part.

The Drama came to perfection with Athenian art generally, and with
Athens herself in the period which followed the Persian war. The
performance of plays at the Dionysiac festival was an important event
in Athenian life. The whole city was gathered in the great open-air
theatre consecrated to Dionysus, whose priest occupied the seat of
honour. All the free men, at least, were gathered there; and when we
talk about the intellectual superiority of the Athenian people, we
must bear in mind that a condition of Athenian culture was the