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pouring in. Every soul who could walk must have been there; indeed, I saw one old granddad carried from his donkey to his seat.
    I made sure Demochares took his breakfast watered, buckled him into the panoply of Ares, laid out everyone’s things, and tuned my lyre, which I should have to play for the bridal song. Then I got dressed as the Theban Warrior.
    Everything went quite smoothly, as far as I remember, until about two-thirds through. Lamprias and Demochares were on stage as Kadmos and Telephassa. Meidias had exited as Harmonia, to do his change for Apollo; presently he would appear and prophesy, on the god-walk above the skene. I was still on as a warrior, with nothing to do but hold a spear.
    Standing upstage center by the royal door, I was looking out beyond the theater at the hillside it was carved from. Suddenly I noticed a crowd of men coming down towards it. My first thought was that the citizens of some neighbor town had come to see the play, and got here late. When I saw they all had spears and shields I still did not think much of it, supposing they were going to do a war dance at the festival. Looking back, I find this simplicity hard to credit; but when you work in Athens, you get to thinking the world stops still for a play.
    Lamprias went on with his speech; the men got nearer, till suddenly, down in the orchestra, one of the chorus gave a yell and pointed upward. The audience stared, first at him, then where he was pointing. Then chaos began.
    The troop above gave the paean, and charged downhill. The Phigeleians, all weaponless, started tearing up the wooden benches and their struts, or running away. The women, who had been sitting in their best on the other side, began to huddle, scramble and scream. One young man, a quick thinker, jumped up on stage from the chorus and snatched my spear from my hand. I hope he got some good from it; it was a property one with a wooden blade. I offered him my shield, which he would need still more, but he was off, with his bearded mask pushed back on top of his head.
    I don’t know what I would have thought of doing next. But, booming away close by, I heard the voice of Lamprias, still speaking his lines.
    Those people who did not say that actors are mostly mad, said afterwards that a god possessed us. But in fact there is more sense in going on at such times than you would suppose. At least everyone knows who and what you are; we would have stood a far better chance of being speared or trampled on if we had bolted than we did by staying on stage. Man’s nature asks a reason, say the philosophers, so there I offer one. I doubt if I thought of it at the time. Theater, to me, was still the Dionysia at Athens. I was used to ceremony, respect for the sacred precinct, priests and statesmen and generals in the seats of honor, everything done decently, and the death penalty for violence. This brawling outraged me. We had rehearsed the play especially for this one festival, and I had not done my stand-in as Apollo yet.
    The turmoil was getting worse. Here and there men in the audience had jumped up, paused in two minds, and run round outside to join the oligarchs. Some women had clambered over to the men’s side to grab their kin and keep them out of it. Now men who had run away at first, not in fear but to fetch their weapons, were coming back armed. But Demochares had come in on cue, and was fluting gravely as Telephassa. He even had an audience—one ancient priest in front, who had noticed nothing amiss, and some children, who it seemed were used to faction fights but had never seen a play.
    I had just noticed, startled, that blood was flowing out in front—the first I had ever seen shed in war—when Lamprias ad-libbed something, beckoned me near, and said out of the side of his mask, “Get Apollo on.”
    I made an exit and ran behind. Before I reached the skene-room I knew what I would find, which of course was nothing. I even looked in the hampers. He must have run