dramatist, both the formal and spiritual elements of the Athenian stage long retained survivals from the choral group of earlier days. The whole structure of the Athenian theatre, as Müller says, "may be traced to the chorus whose station was the original centre of the whole performance." The orchestra grew out of the χόρος, or "dancing place" of Homeric times, to which we have previously alluded in connection with the choral song-dances of the clan. In the centre of the orchestra the altar of Dionysus, round which the dithyrambic chorus used to dance in a circle, gave way to a sort of raised platform, the thymele, as was called, which, besides serving as a resting-place for the chorus, significantly marked the religious origin of the Athenian drama. The openness of the theatre to the sky and the remarkably long but shallow stage—two formal features of the Athenian theatre not to be overlooked—may likewise be attributed to the presence of the chorus. Again, whatever the mixed origin of the "unities" as expressed by French critics may have been, there can be little doubt that a certain fixity of time and place was in a manner necessitated by the chorus, which could not be easily shifted either in space or time. Finally, the Athenian conception of dramatic authorship, which subordinated the word-composition to the public production of the play, was partially due to the trouble and expense of teaching the choral songs and dances.
§ 55. But the formal prominence of the chorus in the early Athenian drama is scarcely more marked than the spiritual. It is here, indeed, that we find the clearestlinks between the chorus and the social conditions of early Attica. The dramatisation of human action in groups or abstract personages closely reflects the prominence of group life and unindividualised thought in
