If the Greek plays themselves differed essentially from those of our own times, they were even more dissimilar in respect to the mode and circumstances of their representation We have theatrical exhibitions of some kind every evening throughout the greater part of the year, and in capital cities many are going on at the same time in different theatres. In Greece the dramatic performances were carried on for a few days in the Spring; the theatre was large enough to contain the whole population, and every citizen was there, as a matter of course, from daybreak to sunset. With us a successful play is repeated night after night, for months together; in Greece the most admired dramas were seldom repeated, and never in the same year. The theatre with us is merely a place of public entertainment; in Greece it was the temple of the god, whose altar was the central point of the semicircle of seats or steps, from which some 30,000 of his worshippers gazed upon a spectacle instituted in his honour.