Note 169 — Chapter I · DRAMATIC CONTESTS AT ATHENS

[Circ. B.C. 330, according to Capps, l.c. p. 84. The date depends upon the conjectural restoration of some fragments of C. I. A. ii. 977, especially fragment u. If Wilhelm’s restoration of C. I. A. ii. 1289 is correct (Urkunden dramat. Aufführungen in Athen, pp. 149, 209 ff.) there is evidence of contests of comic actors in B.C. 307-6; and the inscription 974 c, elucidated by Wilhelm, l.c., p. 43, shows that there were contests in 313-312; but it is not certain to which festival this inscription belongs. Wilhelm, l.c., p. 253, even infers, from a restoration of C. I. A. ii. 977 l (i′ according to his numbering), that these contests existed as early as the beginning of the fourth or end of the fifth century: the restoration is highly probable, and if it is correct, contests of comic actors can be traced back nearly as far as contests of tragic actors; but again it is uncertain to which festival the inscription refers, and it is going too far to use the combined evidence of this inscription, and the Arg. to the Pax, as emended, to prove the existence of contests at the City Dionysia in 421 B.C.]