<P> More is known about Phrynichus . He won his first competition between 511 BC and 508 BC . He produced tragedies on themes and subjects later exploited in the golden age such as the Danaids, Phoenician Women and Alcestis . He was the first poet we know of to use a historical subject--his Fall of Miletus, produced in 493 - 2, chronicled the fate of the town of Miletus after it was conquered by the Persians . Herodotus reports that "the Athenians made clear their deep grief for the taking of Miletus in many ways, but especially in this: when Phrynichus wrote a play entitled "The Fall of Miletus" and produced it, the whole theatre fell to weeping; they fined Phrynichus a thousand drachmas for bringing to mind a calamity that affected them so personally and forbade the performance of that play forever ." He is also thought to be the first to use female characters (though not female performers). </P> <P> Until the Hellenistic period, all tragedies were unique pieces written in honour of Dionysus and played only once, so that today we primarily have the pieces that were still remembered well enough to have been repeated when the repetition of old tragedies became fashionable (the accidents of survival, as well as the subjective tastes of the Hellenistic librarians later in Greek history, also played a role in what survived from this period). </P> <P> After the Great Destruction of Athens by the Persian Empire in 480 BCE, the town and acropolis were rebuilt, and theatre became formalized and an even greater part of Athenian culture and civic pride . This century is normally regarded as the Golden Age of Greek drama . The centre - piece of the annual Dionysia, which took place once in winter and once in spring, was a competition between three tragic playwrights at the Theatre of Dionysus . Each submitted three tragedies, plus a satyr play (a comic, burlesque version of a mythological subject). Beginning in a first competition in 486 BC each playwright submitted a comedy . Aristotle claimed that Aeschylus added the second actor (deuteragonist), and that Sophocles introduced the third (tritagonist). Apparently the Greek playwrights never used more than three actors based on what is known about Greek theatre . </P> <P> Tragedy and comedy were viewed as completely separate genres, and no plays ever merged aspects of the two . Satyr plays dealt with the mythological subject matter of the tragedies, but in a purely comedic manner . </P>

When were the plays held in ancient greece