<P> Plays of the ancient Greek theatre always included a chorus that offered a variety of background and summary information to help the audience follow the performance . They commented on themes, and, as August Wilhelm Schlegel proposed in the early 19th century to subsequent controversy, demonstrated how the audience might react to the drama . According to Schlegel, the Chorus is "the ideal spectator", and conveys to the actual spectator "a lyrical and musical expression of his own emotions, and elevates him to the region of contemplation". In many of these plays, the chorus expressed to the audience what the main characters could not say, such as their hidden fears or secrets . The chorus often provided other characters with the insight they needed . </P> <P> Some historians argue that the chorus was itself considered to be an actor . Scholars have considered Sophocles to be superior to Euripides in his choral writing . Of the two, Sophocles also won more dramatic contests . His chorus passages were more relevant to the plot and more integrated in tragedies, whereas the Euripidean choruses seemingly had little to do with the plot and were often bystanders . Aristotle stated in his Poetics: </P> <P> "The chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be an integral part of the whole, and share in the action, not in the manner of Euripides but of Sophocles". </P> <P> The chorus represents, on stage, the general population of the particular story, in sharp contrast with many of the themes of the ancient Greek plays which tended to be about individual heroes, gods, and goddesses . They were often the same sex as the main character . In Aeschylus' Agamemnon, the chorus comprises the elderly men of Argos, whereas in Euripides' The Bacchae, they are a group of eastern bacchantes, and in Sophocles' Electra, the chorus represents the women of Argos . In Aeschylus' The Eumenides, however, the chorus takes the part of a host of avenging Furies . </P>

List at least 4 different roles of the chorus in an ancient greek play