GREEK DRAMA: the actors The actors in ancient tragedies were hired and paid by the state and assigned to the tragic poets probably by lot. By the middle of the fifth century three actors were required for the performance of a tragedy. In descending order of importance of the roles they assumed they were called protagonist ‘first actor’ (a term also applied in modern literary criticism to the central character of a play), Dueteragonist ‘second actor’ and tritagonist “third actor’. The protagonist took the tile of the most important character in the play while