The part of the tritagonist emerged from earlier forms of two-actor drama. Where two actors only allowed for a principal character and their adversary, moving the part of adversary to a third actor (the tritagonist) allowed for the second actor (the deuteragonist) to play roles as a confidant or aide to the principal character, and thereby elicit greater character depth from the principal character by having the protagonist explain their feelings and motivations to an on-stage listener.
Cicero, in his
Divinatio in Caecilium, reported that the tritagonist (being a role of lesser importance than the protagonist) would often have to subdue his voice if he was naturally stronger than the protagonist. Notable Ancient Greek actors who worked in this role include the orator
Aeschines, who was held by
Demosthenes to have been untalented as a tritagonist, and Myniscus, who was tritagonist under the playwright
Aeschylus. In some forms of Greek theater, it was traditional for the tritagonist to enter the stage from the left. ==References==