Though lacking the pre-eminence which it apparently had earlier in the development of tragic drama, the chorus remained a central element in the plays of Sophocles. We find in his works, as in those of Aeschylus and Euripides, that counterpoint between heroes and chorus which is a major aspect of the doubleness of Greek tragedy. The fates of Oedipus, Ajax, Heracles, and the rest are not private or claustrophobic (contrast Seneca); on the contrary, they are played out in public, before groups of ordinary people. These groups, again as in the other tragedians, are socially or politically marginal: women (Elec., Trach.), old men (Ant., Oed. Col., Oed. Tyr.), subordinates (Ajax, Phil.). The identity of the groups, far from being a matter of indifference, may materially affect the way in which the plot of the drama is inflected. We know from Dio Chrysostom (Or. 52.15) that, whereas Sophocles’ chorus comprised sailors who had come along with Odysseus and Neoptolemus, Aeschylus and Euripides brought on a chorus of inhabitants of Lemnos. It can hardly be doubted that in choosing as he did Sophocles intended to emphasize Philoctetes’ utter isolation.