In movies, or on television or stage, actors interact with one another and speak lines from their scripts. If there's only one actor, it's a monologue. Ancient tragedy began as a conversation between a single actor and a chorus performing in front of an audience. A second and, later, a third actor were added to enhance tragedy, which was a major part of Athens' religious festivals in honor of Dionysus. Since dialogue between individual actors was a secondary feature of Greek drama, there must have been other important features of tragedy. Aristotle points them out.
1. Agon
The term agon means contest, whether musical or gymnastic. The actors in a play are agon-ists.2. Anagnorisis
Anagnorisis is the moment of recognition. The protagonist (see below, but, basically, main character) of a tragedy recognizes that his trouble is his own fault.3. Anapest
Anapest is a meter associated with marching. The following is a representation of how a line of anapests would be scanned, with the U indicating an unstressed syllable and the double line a diaeresis: uu-|uu-||uu-|u-.4. Antagonist
The antagonist was the character against whom the protagonist struggled. Today the antagonist is usually the villain and the the protagonist, the hero.5. Auletes or Auletai
The auletes was the person who played an aulos -- a double flute. Greek tragedy employed auletes in the orchestra. Cleopatra's father was known as Ptolemy Auletes because he played the aulos.6. Aulos
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Aulos was the double flute used to accompany lyric passages in ancient Greek tragedy.
