"Invisible" Secondary Characters in Ancient Literature

In the traditional sense, a character should be a participant in the story, perform an action, express an attitude towards this or that object or event... This view has  changed, to some extent, by those characters who are only mentioned by others, but are connected to any possible option of the development of the story. In the article, we will discuss the secondary characters of the texts of ancient literature, who do not appear in the development of the story, but have a certain, sometimes, even a key function. Moreover, they do not play an episodic role, but even appear throughout the story. This "invisibility" does not necessarily prevent their individualization.