This was the material from which Aeschylus created the first tragedy, as we understand the term.  Sophocles (495-406 B.C.) followed, increasing the number of actors, as did also Euripides (480-406 B.C.).

Comedy (komos, revel, and odos, singer) arose from the spring and summer worship of Bacchus, when everything was a jest and Nature smiled again.

The dithyramb (dithyrambos or Bacchic step, [- ’ ’ -]) brought a new step to the dance and therefore a new element into poetry, for all dances were choric, that is to say they were sung as well as danced.

Arion was the first to attempt to bring the dithyramb into poetry, by teaching the dancers to use a slower movement and to observe greater regularity in their various steps.  The Lydian flute, as may be supposed, was the instrument which accompanied the dithyramb, associated with all kinds of harsh, clashing instruments, such as cymbals, tambourines, castanets.  These Arion tried to replace by the more dignified Grecian lyre; but it was long before this mad dance sobered down to regular rhythm and form.  From Corinth, where Arion first laboured, we pass to Sicyon, where the taming of the dithyramb into an art form was accomplished by Praxilla, a poetess who added a new charm to the lilt of this Bacchic metre, namely, rhyme.

And this newly acquired poetic wealth was in keeping with the increasing luxury and magnificence of the cities, for we read in Athenaeus and Diodorus that Agrigentum sent to the Olympic games three hundred chariots, drawn by white horses.  The citizens wore garments of cloth of gold, and even their household ornaments were of gold and silver; in their houses they had wine cellars which contained three hundred vats, each holding a hundred hogsheads of wine.  In Sybaris this luxury reached its height, for the Sybarites would not allow any trade which caused a disagreeable sound, such as that of the blacksmith, carpenter, or mason, to be carried on in their city limits.  They dressed in garments of deep purple, tied their hair in gold threads, and the city was famed for its incessant banqueting and merrymaking.  It was such luxury as this that Pindar found at the court of Hiero, at Syracuse, whither Aeschylus had retired after his defeat by Sophocles at the Dionysian Festival at Athens.

The worship of Bacchus being at its height at that time, it may be imagined that wine formed the principal element of their feasts.  And even as the dithyramb had been pressed into the service of poetry, so was drinking made rhythmic by music.  For even the wine was mixed with water according to musical ratios; for instance, the paeonic or 3 to 2, [’ ’ ’ -] = [8 8 8 4]; the iambic or 2 to 1, [- ’] = [4 8]; dactylic or 2 to 2, [- ’ ’] = [4. 8 8].  The master of the feast decided the ratio, and a flute girl played a prescribed melody while the toast to good fortune, which commenced every banquet, was being drunk.  By the time the last note had sounded, the great cup should have gone round the table and been returned to the master.  And then they had the game of the cottabos, which consisted of throwing the contents of a wine cup high in the air in such a manner that the wine would fall in a solid mass into a metal basin.  The winner was the one who produced the clearest musical sound from the basin.