232 PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



minor differentiations. The separation between actor and 

 dramatist, though still not complete, has become greater: 

 most dramatic authors are not actors. And then the dra 

 matic authors are now distinguished into those known as 

 producers chiefly of tragedy, comedy, melodrama, farce, 

 burlesque. 



681. We meet here with no exception to the general 

 law that segregation and consolidation are parts of the evo 

 lutionary process. Beginning with Greece we trace the 

 tendency even among the poets. Curtius remarks that 

 &quot; poetry, like the other arts, was first cultivated in circles 

 limited after the fashion of guilds.&quot; And the religious char 

 acter of these guilds is shown by the further statement that 

 &quot; schools of poets came to form themselves which were . . . 

 intimately connected with the sanctuary.&quot; Naturally the 

 process readily took place with those occupied in combined 

 representations; for they, as a matter of necessity, existed 

 as companies. But there early arose more definite unions 

 among them. Mahaffy says, concerning the Greeks, that - 



&quot;Inscriptions reveal to us the existence of guilds of professionals 

 who went about Greece to these local feasts, and performed for very 

 high pay.&quot; 

 And he further states that 



The actors &quot; corporation included a priest (of Dionysus) at the head, 

 who still remained a performer; a treasurer; dramatic poets of new 

 tragedies and comedies and odes ; principal actors of both tragedy 

 and comedy . . . and musicians and singers of various kinds.&quot; 

 From Rome, for reasons already indicated, we do not get 

 much evidence. Still there is some. 



The authorities, out of regard for the Greek Andronikos, &quot; con 

 ceded to the guild of poets and actors a place for their common wor 

 ship in the temple of Minerva on the Aventine.&quot; 

 ISor do modern days fail to furnish a few, though not many, 

 illustrations of the integrating tendency. A slight organiza 

 tion is given by the Actors Benevolent Fund. The dra 

 matic writers have an agency for collecting the amounts 



