Hollowed out of the hillside, the seats of the Athenian spectators embraced rather more than a full semicircle, and this large arc was subtended by a long straight line--the #skênê#, or background of the stage. In front of this wall ran a shallow platform, not coextensive with the #skênê#, but corresponding to the middle portion of it. This platform was the stage proper. It was, in fact, a development of the Thespian #logeion#. The stage was narrow and raised a little above the ground, to which a flight of steps led from it. On the stage, very long in proportion to its depth, all the action of the play took place: the actors entered it through three openings in the #skênê#, of which the central was larger and the two side ones smaller. When they stood upon the stage, they had not much room for grouping or for complicated action: they moved and stood like the figures in a bass-relief, turning their profiles to the audience, and so arranging their gestures that a continually harmonious series of figures was relieved upon the background of the #skênê#. The central opening had doors capable of being thrown back and exhibiting a chamber, in which, at critical moments of the action, such spectacles as the murdered body of Agamemnon, or the suicide of Jocasta, were revealed to the spectators. The Chorus had their own allotted station in the centre of the whole theatre--the semicircular pit left between the lowest tier of spectators and the staircase leading to the stage. In the middle of this pit or orchestra was placed the thymelé, or altar of Bacchus, round which the Chorus moved on its first entrance, and where it stood while witnessing the action on the stage. The Chorus entered by side passages leading from the back of the #skênê#, on a lower level than that of the stage; nor did they ever leave their orchestra to mount the stage and mingle with the actors. The dressing-rooms and offices of the theatre were concealed behind the #skênê#. Above the stage was suspended an aerial platform for the gods, while subterranean stairs were constructed for the appearance of ghosts ascending from the nether regions.