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292 On the Attic Dionysia. It seems clear from this description that there can be no more reason for identifying the Lenaea, the actual epoch of the performance, with one of the festivals represented in the action, than with the other : and hence analogy would incline us to believe that the former festival was equally distinct from each of them. If however it were necessary to identify it with either, it would be Avith the first rather than with the last. For it is long after the speech of Dicaeopolis, in which he mentions the Lenaea, and after the marketings which follow his defense, that the herald comes to proclaim the Choes : ct/coJere XeW Kara tu Trarpia tov^ X^^^ Ylii^eii^ vrro Ttj^ oraXiTiyyo^' 09 o av €K7rirj llpcoTLaTo?^ aaicov KTrjcnipcovTo^ Xrjyj/eraL. So that the argument on which Ruhnken placed his chief depend- ence may be much more efficaciously turned against his hypo- thesis. But neither can the opinion w^hich he controverted derive any support from the plot of the Acharnians, since it affords not the shadow of a reason for supposing that the play was exhibited at the rural Dionysia. V. We have next to inquire whether the mode of celebrating the Lenaea corresponded with that of either of the other festivals, and with which. This enquiry, from the scantiness of our information, must be confined to one point, the dramatic spectacles exhibited at the several Diony- sia. At the Great Dionysia tragedies and comedies were given, of which the former at least were always new pieces, or, if old, so much altered, that they might be considered as new. At the rural Dionysia old pieces were repeated : and no instance can be pointed out, after the drama had attained a regular form, of a play performed at that season for the first time. It is indeed natural to suppose that the poets would prefer exhibiting their new works in the capital, before they brought them on the minor stages. With regard to the Lenasa, it is certain that both tragedies and comedies were exhibited at that festival : the instances that occur are of new pieces : but the appropriation of the description, Kaivoov TpayMooov^ to the Great Dionysia, seems to indicate that repetitions were admitted at all the others. But as to the Anthesteria, it is very doubtful whether they were accompanied with any dramatic exhibitions, at least of the same nature as those of the other two festivals. Hippolochus indeed, in the