later, and perhaps elsewhere, was to produce elaborate perspective painting. It spread to the walls of houses, the
house of Alcibiades first, and, like Oxford ragwort, which died out in the gardens, but was found flourishing
centuries later in the walls, this new art of scene-painting survived a long time. Its theatrical origin explains the
continual theatrical allusions in the wall-paintings of Pompeii, where fully developed perspective painting was
several times imitated.
Satyr Plays
It is tempting to call the satyr plays simply pastoral plays, but they are not about nymphs and shepherds in idyllic
countryside. They are usually set in wild countryside, with wild satyrs for a chorus, amoral, humorous, and
pathetic creatures with human weaknesses for drink, sex, and the safety of their own skins. The chorus leader
seems to be their father, but they are always lost, always in search of their master Dionysus. Otherwise there seem
to be no rules about the plot. They receive the stolen fire from Prometheus, or they greet the infant Perseus, born in
a chest floating out to sea, or the Cyclops has them as servants in the cave where he entertains Odysseus. The verse
is somewhere between tragic and comic; it has a comic enchantment without being as boisterous as Aristophanes.
The custom was to present one satyr play with three tragedies, and it is very likely that they preserve something of
the origins of Greek dramatic performance. Tragic solemnity could hardly have coexisted with an animal chorus.
The only complete satyr play we have is the Cyclops of Euripides, which is an interlude half the length of a
tragedy, with tragic, comic, obscene, and religious elements curiously combined.