During the entire period of the creative activity of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, tragic playwrights were required to enter the dramatic competition at the Dionysia with tetralogies consisting of three tragedies followed by a satyr play. This last was a comparatively short mythological travesty, a, 2 that received its name because its chorus is invariably composed of satyrs:3 comical half-men, half-beasts who regularly embody a wide range of shortcomings but nevertheless are possessed of a mysterious fund of knowledge and wisdom.