24	OLD     COMEDY	I
rehearsed the music and the dancing of the chorus. There was
a special kind of dance for every chorus, appropriate to the
character it represented in the play, and there were different
melodies suited to the various songs, for example, the exit song
of the chorus ^l Thespis and Aischylos are said to have them-
selves planned the figures of the dances for their choruses,
indeed, the drunken old man in the Wasfs actually challenges
the tragic poets to a competition in dancing, and the Muse is
warned not to admit certain bad tragedians who were equally
bad dancers.^2 The rehearsal of a chorus asked for an almost
military discipline,^3 but even so it cannot always have been
simple to teach the men who formed the chorus to sing and
dance correctly. Some of them may not have been very musical,
and it is doubtful whether the wine always had, as the poet
hopes, the necessary effect.^4 Sometimes there was considerable
strain bet^^_oeLAndchrus , certain
__	__
to have beerLJiate^J^	and Kmesias was called
'the chorus-killer'. ^5 The poet was content if the chorus fulfilled
their task sufficiently well ^6 Sometimes the poet himself was
his own chief actor, and at least he instructed the actors ^7 These,
and perhaps the musicians also, though citizens, were more or
less professionals.^8 But the poet was composer, dance-master,
producer, probably also the technical manager who gave his
orders to the technician about the working of the various stage-
devices such as the ekkyklema^ which occasionally went wrong. ^9
Thus, the task and the responsibility of the poet were immense.
We can understand that Aristophanes did not produce his first
plays, his 'maiden's children', himself ^10 Being very young, he
^1	F loaSf, frg. 678-9, Plat 130 — e§66ioi vopioi, Kratmos 276
^2	W 1479, frg 677 -Wi48of-?78ifF,cf W H97fF
^3	Xen mem III, 5, 18	^4 adesp 468
^5	K 4001", Kallias 13—6 x°p°KT6vo$, Strattis 1 5
^6	The word is H£Tpico$, and used as it is by the chorus when leaving the stage
at the end of the play (01510, Th 1227), it may refer to the extent rather than
the quality of the singing and dancing
^7	Cf Anonymus, Kaibel, Com  Gr Frg , p   jf   For the early tragedians see
Aristotle, rhet 140311, 23
^8	W.i 275 ff   There are only very few suggestions in Old Comedy of the
growing importance of the actors, the most significant is the mere fact of an agon
of the protagonists, which was introduced during our period (cf  Schneider,
P -W. Ill A, 5ooff). For the later development cf in general H Bulk, Festschrift
furj £0^(1930), _5ff.
^9	P 174, Th 265, adesp. 750.	1° A.6a8f, K 512$ C 529^