ABSTRACT
We come to that form of Greek drama whose outward mark is the use of two actors and the chorus.1 Our task must be to try to gain some idea why this form was brought into existence, why Aeschylus wanted the second actor, why he did not want a third; in other words, what the special virtue of this type of tragedy was. We have been maintaining that it is not necessary to regard Lyrical Tragedy as something immature and incomplete which was waiting anxiously for Aeschylus to give it form and significance; so too we must be careful not to think of Old Tragedy merely as Greek drama without the third actor, another, though less, incomplete form. Regarded historically or biologically it may be a primitive form; regarded aesthetically it is not. It is perfectly adapted to the purpose for which it was designed, and is therefore complete. Aeschylus added one actor and not two, not, fundamentally, because he was conservative and cautious (no dramatist has been bolder), nor because his technique was not yet equal to managing three actors, but because his tragic conceptions demanded this form and not the other.
