uman, half- goat servants of Dionysus. They may
             have played drums, lyres and flutes, and chanted as they danced around an
             effigy of Dionysus. Some accounts say they also wore phallus-like headgear.
             It was given a regular form and raised to the rank of artistic poetry in
             about 600 BC. Introduced into Athens shortly before 500 BC, dithyramb was
             recognized as one of the competitive subjects at the various Athenian
             festivals. For more than a generation after its introduction the dithyramb
             attracted the most famous poets of the day.
             The tragedies and comedies of the fifth and fourth centuries BC which
             remain for us today were all written for performance in the Theater of
             Dionysus at Athens (TDA). The TDA was dug out of the slope beneath the south
             side of the Acropolis in the late 6th century BC. It was rebuilt and
             expanded many times, so it is difficult to tell exactly what its original
             shape was. The TDA was only one part of the precinct. Initially the
             precinct contained only the Older Temple of Diony
             ...