f;.M, • ,,'» : <>811^ * **, "life * 4 °- VSi^* ^°%- ' .4* * W22?, * * a? -%* */v<&^„* *£*. A** tVrfW> .-0» . ^ « •■ ..V A •J vi-' a~. L-t^jk-j ,7. DISSERTATIONS ON THE EUMENIDES OF .ESCHYLUS DISSERTATIONS ON THE / EUMENIDES OF ^SCHYLUS PROM THE 4* GERMAN OF C. O. MULLER SECOND EDITION, REVISED. 1867 LONDON : JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. CAMBRIDGE: JOHN DEIGHTON. MDCCCLIII. .6^ LONDON: SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHAND09-8TREET, OOVENT GARDEN. ADVERTISEMENT. The Greek Text of the Eumenides which formed part of the first edition of this work, is omitted from the present, as it may now be had in a separate form. The circumstances under which a re-publication of the Dissertations was called for, were such as admitted of no delay, and the present Editor found it impossible, with the limited time allowed him, to do all that he wished for the improvement of the Translation : he has, how- ever, revised it throughout, and, in many places, has substituted a fuller or more accurate rendering of the Author's meaning, and inserted matter which was omitted in the former edition. April, 1853. K •*-, TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE First Dissertation. On the Representation of the Play 1 I. THE CHORUS. A. MANAGEMENT OF THE CHORD'S. a. Number of the Choreutce (§ 1) The Chorus for the Trilogy was furnished by one Choregus, and (§ 2) distributed by the Poet among the com- ponent plays. — (§ 3) Accessory Choruses. — (§ 4) Union of three Choruses at the end of the Eumenides. — (§ 5) Forty- eight the probable number of the collective Chorus : there- fore (§ 6) twelve the original number of the individual Chorus. — (§§ 7, 8, 9) This number established in the Aga- memnon ; but (§ 10) fifteen in the Eumenides. b. Arrangement of the Chorus 20 (§ 11) Station of the Chorus. — (§ 12) Rank and file. — (§ 13) Regular order and dispersed position. B. THE CHORAL ODES 23 (§ 14) Ode 1. Commatica. Paracataloge. — (§ 15) Ode 2. Chorus in double file. Seeming inequality in the antistrophe. — (§ 16) Ode 3. Anapaests, as a Marching-measure, as Paro- dos. Manner of delivering them. — (§ 17) Method of ar- ranging the Chorus. — (§ 18) Ode 4. First Stasimon, vfivos Beo-fitos. Accompaniment of avXoi without Kiddpai. — (§ 19) Phrygian Mode, vo/ios opdtos. — (§ 20) Musical and rhythmi- cal character of this Ode. — (§ 21) Orchestral performance of the Stasima. — (§ 22) Ode 5. Second Stasimon. Relation of Viii CONTENTS. PA( catalectic orders to the fundamental beat of the metre. — (§ 23) Trochaic rhythm. Lydian Mode. — (§ 24) Odes 6 and 7. Commatica. — (§ 25) Odes 8, 9, 10. Third Stasimon. Anapaestic systems. Concluding Ode. II. THEATEE 49 (§ 26) Stone Theatre at Athens. — (§ 27) The Stage repre- sented the Pythian Temple with the Omphalos, and the Or- chestra the Front Court, in which the Prologue is spoken. — (§ 28) The sudden appearance of the Erinnyes not effected by an Eccyclema, but (§ 29) by a curtain. — (§ 30) The scene shifted to Athens by turning round the Periacti. — (§ 31) Scene laid in and about the Temple of Athene Polias to the end of the play. III. COSTUME..... 63 (§ 32) General character of the stage-costume. — (§ 33) Distribution of the parts in the Orestea among three players. — (§ 34) Garb and personal appearance of the several actors. Second Dissertation. On the Purport and Com- position of the Pla.y 69 I. POLITICAL POINT OF VIEW. A. INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF ATHENS 71 (§ 35) Abasement of the Areopagus by Ephialtes. — (§ 36) Not effected at the time of the composition of the Eumeni- des. — (§ 37) The trial for homicide withdrawn from the Areopagus. .^Eschylus upholds that court in its ancient jurisdiction. — (§ 38) The same aristocratic sentiments ex- hibited by the Poet in the Persse and Septem c. Thebas. Issue of the affair. B. FOREIGN RELATIONS OF ATHENS 81 (§ 39) League with Argos. Orestes the representative of that State. — (§ 40) The same sentiments towards Argos in the Supplices.-— (§ 41) The Poet's views of domestic and foreign affairs reconciled. — (§ 42) His warnings against civil discord, and encouragement to foreign war. CONTENTS. IX PAGE II. JUDICIAL POINT OF VIEW. A. AVENGING OF BLOOD, AND PURSUIT OF THE BLOOD-SHEDDER. a. Duty of avenging blood, at Athens and in the earlier times 87 (§ 43) Exclusively incumbent on the relations of the deceased, by Attic law. — (§ 44) Interference of the State in wilful murder and manslaughter, and limitation of vengeance in those cases. — (§ 45) Greater extent of vengeance and neces- sity of flight in the heroic Age. b. Duty of Orestes according to the tenor of the my thus,.. 97 (§ 46) Strict obligation of Orestes to avenge his father. — (§ 47) Instigation to vengeance by Apollo, exhibited in the hero's companion Pylades. — (§ 48) ^Eschylus's views on the duty of Orestes vindicated against Euripides. — (§ 49) Ven- geance of the Erinnyes upon Orestes. c. Position of the fugitive Homicide 103 (§ 50) Dread of miasma from the shedder of blood. — (§ 51) Eespect and compassion (al8Ss) for the blood-guilty suppliant. Meaning of irpoo-Tpoiraios in iEschylus. B. ATONEMENT AND PURIFICATION FOR BLOODGUILTINESS. a. In general. 106 (§ 52) Sanction of the practice by Attic law, and greatei extent of the custom in heroic times according to Homer. — (§ 53) Expiation for blood founded upon the legends of Ixion and Hercules. b. Difference between the rites of Atonement and those of Purification (Rilasmos and Katharmos) 112 (§ 54) Atonement (Hilasmos) its constant reference to the Chthonian deities. — (§ 55) Demonstrated in the Cultus of Zeus Meilichios and Laphystios as a chthonian God, and (§ 56) in the festival of the Delphinian Apollo as having reference to a chthonian divinity. Hence its connexion with the pro- X CONTENTS. PAGE pitiation of the dead in the Hydrophoria. — (§ 57) Method of atonement, servitude for eight years, and (§ 58) sacrifice of an animal, especially a ram, to the chthonian Zeus. Origin of the Greek ransom (ttoivy]). — (§ 59) Purification by the blood of expiatory sacrifices, and by water. — (§ 60) Apollo the proper God of purification. — (§ 61) Other Gods of puri- fication, especially Dionysus. c. Purification of Orestes 128 (§ 62) The several places where Orestes abode during his exile and was cleansed from his guilt. — (§ 63) Orestes puri- fied, but the Erinnyes still unpropitiated. C. THE COURTS FOR THE TRIAL OF BLOOD, AND THE JUDI- CIAL PROCEEDINGS. a. The Attic Courts and Tribunals t 133 (§ 64) Historical relation between the Areopagus and the Ephetae. — (§ 65) Separation of these Courts in the cases of wilful murder and of undesigned and justifiable (i. e. re- deemable) homicide, effected by Solon's legislation. — (§ 66) A Supreme Board, formerly administering justice in five Courts (Areopagus, Palladium, Delphinium, Prytaneum, Phreatto). — (§ 67) The meaning of these localities in con- nexion with the Courts held there. — (§ 68) Vindication of the mythus which refers the trial of Orestes to the Areo- pagus, and not to the Delphinium (§ 69). b. On the Judicial proceedings in JEschylus 1 44 (§ 70) Athene, as President of the Court, holds the pre- liminary enquiry. — (§ 71) On the challenge of Orestes by the Erinnyes to take oath. — (§ 72) Proceedings in Court. — (§ 73) Ballot. D. THE EXEGESIS OF THE SACRED LAW 151 (§ 74) Its reference to the unwritten law. — (§ 75) Propaga- tion by the Eupadridic families. — (§ 76) Emanation from the Cultus of Apollo, whom iEschylus introduces in the capacity of Exegetes. CONTENTS. XI PAGB III. RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. THE ERINNYES. a. Meaning of the term and mythical conception of the Erinnyes 1 55 (§ 77) Definition of Erinnys, and connexion with Ara. — (§ 78) Comprehension of Erinnys as a divinity without strict personality. — (§ 79) Mythical fixation of the idea of the Erinnyes, and extension of their agency. b. Cultus of the Erinnyes and Eumenides or Semnoz 160 (§ 80) Origin of the Cultus of the Erinnyes in the religious service of Demeter-Erinnys, or Black Demeter. — (§ 81) De- meter-Erinnys, the predominant principle in the Theban legend : first in Cadmus's fight with the Dragon. — (§ 82) CEdipus a victim of Demeter-Erinnys ; his grave in Bceotia. — (§ 83) CEdipus's grave at Athens and Colonus; system of religious services at Colonus. — (§ 84) The CEdipus Coloneus of Sophocles. — (§ 85) Demeter-Erinnys the destroyer of Thebes by means of Adrastus. — (§ 86) Dissemination of the Cultus of Demeter-Erinnys in other quarters, and transition of it into that of the Erinnyes or Semnae. — (§ 87) Develope- ment of the idea of the Eumenides upon this basis. — (§ 88) The Eumenides as beneficent beings in iEschylus. c. Religious Service of tlie Semnoz at A t/tens 177 (§ 89) Site of their Temple ; connexion of their Cultus with that of Ares ; sacrifices and libations to them. d. jEschylus's Conception of tJie Erinnyes and tlwir Figure 181 (§ 90) Opposition between the elder and younger race of Gods. — (§ 91) The two systems reconciled by ^Eschylus ; succession of the Pythian deities. — (§ 92) iEschylus's selec- tion among the mythi relative to the extraction of the Erin- nyes. — (§ 93) His construction of the figure and appearance of the Erinnyes. Xll CONTENTS. PAGE B. ZEUS SOTER 190 (§ 94) The idea of Zeus Soter, as the third, carried all through the trilogy. — (§ 95) Dissemination of this cultus, and its bearing upon the opposition between the Olympian and chthonian deities. IV. POETICAL COMPOSITION 197 (§ 96) Tragedy as KaBapais tw ivaO-qparcov, developed out of the Dionysian Cultus. — (§ 97) Train of emotions in the Agamemnon, (§ 98) the Choephorce, (§ 99) the Eumenides. — (§ 100) Trilogic Unity. Satyric drama. Appendix. Calculus Minervce 215 Index 220 EEKATA. Page 13, line 9 from bottom, for liveliest read lively. — 78, line 8, for 640 read 540. — 87, line 2 from bottom, for Mgypt read Egypt. — 98, line 6 from bottom, for toioltols, read toiovtois — 170, note 1, line 1, for 'Hpcoov, read 'Hpaov. — 183, line 8, for what, read which. DISSERTATIONS ON THE EUMENIDES. FIRST DISSERTATION. ON THE KEPKESENTATION OF THE PLAY. I. THE CHORUS. A. MANAGEMENT OF THE CHORUS. a. Number of the Choreutce. 1. When iEschylus had determined to present him- self as a candidate for the Tragic prize at the Dionysian Festival at which he produced his play of the Eume- nides, he was first of all obliged, by the regulations of the Athenian Festivals, to apply to the Chief of the Nine Archons for a Chorus. He obtained one/ and we learn from the Didascalia that the Chorus assigned to him was that which a wealthy individual, Xenocles of Aphidna, had engaged, in the capacity of Choregus of his tribe, to collect, maintain during their training, and equip for the stage. Our Poet then proceeded to train 2 this Chorus for his four plays, that being the number which by established custom the Tragic Poet was required to produce on the stage at the same time; these were the Agamemnon, the Choephoroe, the Eume- nides, and the Proteus, a Satyric drama. As the judges, in estimating the merits of each candidate, could only look to outward and visible results, and the prize was not for the best poem as such, but for the play which was most effectively brought out upon the stage, this training was in the eyes of the State the most essential part of the Poet's whole performance j accordingly, by 1 xopov cXa/3e. B 2 4 NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. custom established from the first, it was not to the Poet as such, but invariably to the Teacher of the Chorus 1 that the prize was awarded. Now the question is, how many persons did Xenocles — for according to the Didascalia he was the only Cho- regus with whom iEschylus was concerned on this occasion — assign to our Poet for the performance of the Choral dances and Odes in this Tetralogy ? It is well known that the ancient Grammarians state the usual number of the Tragic Chorus, even with iEschylus, to have been fifteen (for fourteen, the number given in their statements, only means fifteen without the Leader, or else is to be accounted a mere error of transcription) : whereas in an ancient Life of Sophocles, as also in Suidas, we are informed that Sophocles was the first who changed the number of the Chorus from twelve to fifteen. It has indeed been suggested that these numbers ought to be transposed ; but that such a transposition is inadmissible here, is sufficiently evident even from the fact (which will appear in the sequel) that the Grammarians, in all that they tell us of the arrangement and distribution of the Tragic Chorus, have constantly the number fifteen in view : for, of course, in all their remarks on this subject, they must have been thinking of the Drama as brought to its perfection by Sophocles and Euripides, rather than of the comparatively antiquated form in which it appears m iEschylus. Now, as far as I am aware, these accounts have been universally understood to mean, that the said twelve or fifteen individuals acted as Chorus in all four plays one after another ; that is, in the present instance, as Chorus of Old Men in the Agamemnon, of Female Mourners 1 x°P°v SiddcTKaXos. NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. 5 in the second play, of Furies in the third, and of Satyrs in the last. — It is a point of considerable importance that we should see clearly how entirely unfounded this opinion is, and how necessary it is to adopt a different hypothesis. 2. What? are we expected to believe that the same individuals, and those assuredly not accomplished artists like the principal stage-actors, but men of the ordinary class, and such as could not be supposed to have received more than the usual education of Athenian citizens, — were actually so well taught and so perfect in their parts, as to execute successfully all the various figures* of those numerous long dances — and we know that to the most ancient Tragedians in particular ' The Dance imparted movements manifold, As in the stormy night the immeasurable sea Heaves sequent ivave on wave' — all the complex systems — which, in the older Tragedy come three and four together without intermission — of the many odes which occur in the Agamemnon, the Choephorce, the Eumenides, and a Satyric drama to boot ? And furthermore, that these self-same indivi- duals were alike skilful in personating, both in song and dance, the characters of old Men, of gentle Females, of wrathful Furies, of wanton Satyrs ? Nay, even as a question of physical possibility, whence were they to get the enormous bodily power that should enable them to sustain the choral movements (and we know that these were often violent and impetuous, even in the solemn tragic dance 3 ), and at the same time to support the exertion of voice accompanying the dance, through all four plays ? And lastly, considering the number of o-xhiiara. 3 e/x/ieXeia. 6 NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. tetralogies that were crowded into the compass of a short Festival, where was the time to be found between the several plays for transforming old men into mourning- women, women into furies, and these last into satyrs ? But supposing all this to have been possible, and to admit of some rational explanation, still there are other and more conclusive arguments against that opinion. 3, It is a sufficiently obvious remark, that besides the proper Chorus in the several tragedies, iEschylus almost invariably employs in his dramas a considerable number of persons who are neither Actors nor Choreutse in the proper sense of the term, and yet evidently bear a great resemblance to the latter. To go no further than our tetralogy, we have first in the Agamemnon the female- attendants, who spread the purple carpets for the vic- torious Prince to walk upon from his chariot to the palace ; and then in the Eumenides the Areopagites and the female-escort of the Furies. It cannot be doubted that these characters made their entrance on the stage in solemn and symmetrical order, conformably with the spirit of ancient Art : the procession of the Areopagites and females at the conclusion of the Eumenides more particularly requires well-trained dancers; and in fact the female- escort, by singing the closing ode, approves itself at last to be a kind of Chorus. Moreover, there is an evident congruity observable in point of general character, first, between the Old Men in the Agamemnon and the Areopagites ; next, between Clytsemnestra's female-attendants, the female-mourners, and the female- escort of the Eumenides. All this considered, it is a very obvious conjecture that we have in these instances the self- same Choreutse under a slight change of garb : and consequently, that besides the proper Chorus of any individual drama, that belonging to some other play of the same tetralogy often does duty as accessory Chorus ; NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. 7 whence it necessarily follows, that the Chorus of one play must have been quite distinct from that of another, in respect of the persons of whom it was composed. But there is a still stronger fact by which we are even compelled to adopt this supposition ; the fact that in the second play of this very tetralogy, besides its own proper Chorus, the one belonging to the third play actually comes on the stage ; and that too, not as in the above-mentioned instances under a different cha- racter and costume, but to all intents as a Chorus of Furies. This appears from a passage towards the end of the play (v. 1044), where Orestes exclaims : dfiwal yvvcuKEQ, aide Topyovojv dtKT)v TTVKVOIC; dpa.KOV(TlP' OVK ET u.v fj.£ivaifx' kyu>. It is true, the Choephorce do not see the Erinnyes, of whom Orestes speaks here ; and hence it has been inferred that in fact they exist only in the fancy of Orestes ; — a conception which, in my opinion, most peri- lously assails and indeed goes near to destroy the entire poetic and religious consistency of the trilogy. For, assuredly, according to iEschylus's idea, the Erinnyes are as really present here, where Orestes first beholds them, as they are where they are pursuing him to Delphi and Athens ; and it would have been nothing less than wilfully annihilating all truth of the poetic picture, had the Poet begun by treating the very beings, whom he meant to produce in the sequel as corporeal and actually present, — nay, on whose real presence the whole plot of the following play depends, — in the light of a mere fancy, the phantom of a diseased brain. Euripides, indeed, has done so, but iEschylus was of all poets the least capable of committing such a blunder. We con- fidently assert that the spectator whose eyes did not 8 NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. actually behold the Erinnyes on this their first appear- ance, must needs have remained blind to their presence in the sequel. True, the Chorus of Choephorce does not perceive them, but that is because these daemonic beings are visible only to such as have their eyes opened to behold the realities of the supernatural world, into which the Poet conducts us. Accordingly, in the third play, where the Erinnyes eompose the Chorus, iEschylus has carefully avoided bringing characters of an ordinary stamp into communication with them. There, except Apollo and Athena, who sustain the principal part in the action, none see them but Orestes, who bears their tortures in his heart, the inspired Pythoness, and the Shade of Clytsemnestra. The Areopagites and the female-escort cannot be taken into account as an exception to the truth of this remark, inasmuch as these do not properly bear a part, as acting characters, in this Drama of Deities. The spectator on the contrary does and must behold the Erinnyes from their very first appearance : it is for him that the Poet draws asunder the veil from the invisible world, which lies revealed to the deeper intuitions of his inspired mind ; and if its denizens be visible at all, they must be present to his view from the very commencement of their supernatural operations. But fortunately for such as credit only what they have external evidence of, it is on record that such is the fact. At least we are informed by Pollux 1 that the Erinnyes of Tragedy (and what tragedy more obviously occurs to us than this very trilogy of iEschylus ?) were raised as it were out of the infernal world through trap- doors 2 near the flight of steps 3 leading from the Orchestra to the Amphitheatre. Now the only occasion on which IV. 132. cf. 121. 2 dvcnriecrfiaTa. 3 dvaftaOfioi. NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. 9 the Erinnyes can and must be conceived to be so repre- sented as rising out of the infernal world is at the conclusion of the Choephorce. At the commencement of the succeeding play they have long been in this upper world : they have already chased Orestes from the home of his fathers to Delphi. Consequently the statement of Pollux affords an indirect confirmation of the assertion I have advanced, that the Chorus of Erinnyes really did appear on the stage, besides the Chorus of Choe- phoroe. At the same time his statement serves in some sort to explain how it was that the Chorus did not see them, namely, because the Chorus, as it faced the stage, had its back turned upon the doors in question. Though it is also likely enough that there were particular con- trivances by means of which the spot on which the Erinnyes first appeared was concealed from the view of persons on the level of the Orchestra, and visible only from the elevated stations of the stage and Amphi- theatre. 4. After these explanations the relation between the accessory and the principal Chorus in each of the three tragedies may be thus arranged : Principal Chor. Accessory Chor. I. Old Men. Women from II II. Women. Erinnyes from III. III. Erinnyes. Old Men from I. and Womenfrom II . At the close of the Eumenides, in order to afford the people a splendid spectacle, which also from the contrast of the characters would be very impressive and signi- ficant, all three Choruses move off from the Orchestra in the same order as they entered ; the old men at the head of the procession (v. 965); then the escort of maidens, women, and aged matrons with torches and b 3 10 NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. votive offerings of purple garments; 1 and lastly the awful figures of the Erinnyes. The proper Chorus of the play leaves the Orchestra last of all. From the preceding exposition we obtain this un- questionable result : the Choregus appoints the Poet a much larger Chorus than one of twelve or fifteen, and it is the Poet's business to distribute this large Chorus into Choruses for the individual Tragedies and Satyric Drama composing the tetralogy. Perhaps the con- sideration of this collective Chorus may help us to ascertain the original number of tragic Choreutse with greater precision than has hitherto been done. 2 5. The Tragic Chorus, as we learn from Aristotle and others, was derived from the Dithyrambic, which we know from various sources 3 consisted of fifty persons. This being the case, it is quite natural to suppose that the Choregus furnished the same number of dancers for the Tragic Chorus, as he had previously been accustomed to provide for the Dithyrambic, and that the distribution of these fifty persons into the component choruses of the tetralogy was left to the discretion of the Poet. On this view, the well-known statement of Pollux, that the chorus of Eumenides consisted of fifty, 1 V. 982. From this passage we may infer that the Choephoroe were not all elderly women, although their Leader was aged, Choeph. 169. 2 Accounts from later times, when the ancient importance and signifi- cance of the Chorus had been quite overborne by the domineering pre- tensions of insolent Actors, of course do not count for much in this ques- tion. Still it is worth mentioning, that in an anecdote of Alexander's times, preserved by Plutarch in his Phocion, c. 19, a tragic actor who desired to act, claimed the part of a queen, and demanded for this pur- pose a number of splendidly dressed female-attendants — which the Cho- regus refused. It appears that it still rested with the Choregus to ap- point such persons : only this had become optional. Cf. Boeckh Civ. Econ. t. i. p. 487, n. 646. 3 Simonid.Epigr. 58, Br.— Scholl. in ^schin. c. Tim. p. 721, R. Tzetzes Prolegom. in Lycophron, p. 1, Pott. NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. 11 may still be defended, if we suppose Pollux to have misconceived something that he had learnt relative to the number of choreutse for the whole tetralogy, of which number, as we have seen, at least three-fourths were on the stage at the end of the Eumenides. Still however the number fifty requires some modifi- cation. The Dithyrambic Chorus , was cyclic, and sang the dithyramb in a circle about the altar, passing round it first in one direction, then in the other. But the Tragic, as well as the Comic and Satyric Chorus was quadrangular, TtTpayuvog, 4 which latter expression is clearly and pointedly opposed to the former. Now a quadrangular chorus is one that is divided into rank (Juya) and file (aAyoi, aroiypi), so as to form a quad- rangle. Its number therefore must always be the product of a multiplication, such as 3x4=12; 3x5 = 15. But as it appears that the component numbers are never so far apart that the one is double of the other (3 x4 or 3x5 is the tragic, 4x6 the comic chorus), a quadrangular chorus of 5 x 10 is not at all probable. If the tragic chorus of earlier times came on the stage as an undivided whole, it is much more credible that its number was forty-eight, 6x8. And here by the way I may be allowed to express my conjecture that the singular term, arrjai^opog or Master of the Chorus, 5 given by the Greeks to the number eight in the game of dice, may refer to the ancient custom of arranging the chorus in eight ranks. 6. Now an equal division of this chorus of forty- eight gives twelve choreutae for each of the four plays. Twelve therefore, recommends itself, even in this point 4 See Tzetzes, u. s.j Etym.M.s.v. TpaywSta. Schol. Dionys.Thr. p.746, Bekkor ; and Villoison's Anecdota, II. p. 178. 3 See Stesich. Fragm. Ed. Kleine, p. 27. 12 NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. of view, as the probable number originally employed by JSschylus. Moreover, twelve is just half the number of the comic chorus, which consisted, in all, of twenty- four persons — as it should seem that Comedy, a form of the Drama which received much less encouragement from the state than Tragedy, was obliged to content itself with half the number of persons required for the collective chorus of a tragic tetralogy. The original number of choreutse in each tragedy cannot have been fifteen, because in that case either the collective chorus must have extended beyond fifty, whereas its intimate connexion with the dithyrambic chorus forbids us to suppose this ; or there would be only five left for the Satyric Drama, which would be too small a number for a festive chorus, and far too meagre and scanty a representation of the merry crew of Bacchus, a spectacle so delightful to an audience in that early age especially. But, it will be asked, did not iEschylus unquestion- ably employ a chorus of fifteen, as the old Scholiasts 1 have remarked with reference to the Agamemnon and Eumenides, and Hermann 2 has proved to the general satisfaction in respect of the former tragedy ? The fact is, we have here a remarkable instance of the force of a confident assertion ; which may for a time obtain such authority, even with the most clear-sighted inquirers, that it scarcely ever occurs to any of them to doubt its truth, though all the while it may be radically false. The very passage produced in proof of fifteen choreutse furnishes conclusive evidence in favour of twelve, as we shall now proceed to show. 7. The Chorus in the Agamemnon represents a Su- preme Council, 3 left by the Prince in administration of 1 Schol. Aristoph. Equit. 586. I 2 De Choro Eumen. Diss. I. Eumen. 575. j 3 y € p 0V(T l a> NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. 13 the realm during his absence. 4 Suspicious of Clytsem- nestra's evil disposition and deeply affected by Cassan- dra's predictions, this company of elders is filled with an anxious presentiment of the horrible event so nearly impending. On a sudden the death-cry of Agamemnon is heard from the interior of the palace (v. 1343 Well.): first, one of the elders draws the attention of the others to it ; a second declares it is the very perpetration of the deed they dreaded ; a third proposes that they should hold a consultation upon it. 5 Young men would in- stantly have hastened to the spot and forced their way in; but these old men, who with all their integrity of sentiment betray throughout the tragedy a degree of weakness and irresolution, proceed to debate on the course they ought to pursue, and the question with them is, whether they should summon the citizens to their assistance, or should endeavour to prevent the crime by forcing their way into the palace : or, lastly, as they would most probably arrive too late to prevent the deed, whether they should not rather bring the murderer to trial. The suffrages are given in iambic distichs (the three preceding hasty utterances of the Chorus on the first alarm are in the liveliest trochaic metre), and of these distichs there are just twelve. The first proposal is carried by a considerable majority, 6 and is confirmed by the last voter, probably the same person who moved the debate, for the offices of €7ri\pr)(piZaiv and hiriKvpovv usually fell to the same individual. The next moment the Gerontes are inside the palace ; that is, the interior of the palace, — the apartment containing the silver laver, the corpse of Agamemnon enveloped in the fatal 4 See v. 855, 884. 5 KoivoxxrOai fiovkevfxaTa, v. 1347. 6 [Klausen, in I, makes the pro- posals only two, of which the second has the majority of voices.] 14 NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. garment^ and Clytsemnestra still standing, with the bloody weapon in her hand, on the spot where she struck the blow, 1 — is wheeled npon the stage by means of the machine called e/c/cu/cX^a. 2 The expression, earrjKa 8' evO' iiraiaa, shows that Clytsemnestra, although wheeled out by means of this machinery, is still to be imagined within the apartment : of course, therefore, the Poet would have us conceive the Chorus to have forced its way in, although m fact it was still outside. Hence it is evident that the debate was over, and had been closed in due form ; and hence again it follows that all the elders have given their votes. For, indeed, so well acquainted were the Athenians with the mode of proceeding in the debates of a BouXri, that they would not have been very well satisfied, had iEschylus suffered three of the Gerontes to remain quite silent, nor have been put off with the lame explanation that the other three had called the attention of the rest to what was going on, (1344, 6, 7,) since this could not prejudice their right and duty to give their opinion. 8. Thus in the above transaction there are evidently twelve choreutse; and the same number also appears in other parts of the tragedy. For instance, the Chorus in their colloquy with Cassandra preceding that trans- action speak twelve times in iambics, and this in such manner, that the speeches are related to each other three and three, so as to form a whole. 3 Thereupon, as the 1 earrjKa §' ey#' erraiaa, v. 1379. Cf. v. 1472, 1549. 2 Cf. § 28, for an account of this machine. 3 The Choreutse, by whom these Iambics are spoken, 1047 (= 971 Kl.) to 1113, probably ranged thus: 6 12 9 3 5 11 8 2 4 10 7 1 It will be seen, namely, that on each occasion the third speaker, 3, 6, 9, 12, does not address Cassandra, but only speaks of 'her ; these, therefore, seem to form the hindmost rank, i. e., farthest from the stage. Also 1 and 4 speak three iambic verses each : the rest only two. [But 7 also only speaks ofQ. v. 1083, Kl. 1007.] NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. 15 Gerontes, possessed by dire forebodings of evil, are borne away from their calm self-possession just in proportion as the Prophetess recovers hers, they break out into song, and perform (perhaps in pairs) six odes replete with emotion of a lyrical character, in continuation of those sung by Cassandra, at first with and afterwards without iambics (beginning at v. 1119, Kl. 1044). And then again (1198, Kl. 1119) of three principal choreutse each holds a dialogue with Cassandra on her gift of prophecy and on the purport of her predictions, each dialogue regularly commencing (1198, 1243, 1298,) with four iambic verses, and then proceeding in single verses, [6 (or 5, with distich at 1204), 5, and 8.] And again, after the murder, the Chorus in dispute with Clytsem- nestra (1448, Kl. 1370) sings six Strophes and the same number of Antistrophes, which apparently belong to the individual members of it. 9. Lastly, with this exactly tallies the fact we have asserted above, viz., that the Gerontes in the Agamem- non reappear in the Eumenides in the character of Areopagites. Twelve, we know, was of old the favourite number for a Council, and there arises a probability that iEschylus would assume this number for the Areopagus from the heroic age, — which was also con- sidered to have been the original number, by those who referred the first institution of the Areopagus to the contention of the Twelve Gods. This conclusion, how- ever, results more directly from the whole course of the proceedings in the balloting for Orestes, beginning at v. 700. Athena there charges the Areopagites to rise from their seats, take each of them a ballot from the Altar, and cast it into the Urn provided for the purpose. Of course it is not to be imagined that the old men would perform this act in a confused, irregular fashion ; we may be quite sure that the entire proceeding took place in a manner strictly conformable to the law of 16 NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. measured rhythm and symmetry which pervades all ancient Art. Now, during this proceeding, from the point where Athena has bidden the judges to rise, to that where the Goddess herself takes up the last ballot from the Altar, we shall find that Apollo and the Eumenides speak eleven times, an iambic distich each time except the first and last. This makes twelve nearly equi-distant intervals or pauses, and there can be no doubt that at each pause, one of the Areopagites cast his ballot into the urn, and as the xpy^og Sikckjtikti struck against the vessel, the sound KoyZ, so familiar to the Athenian ear, was distinctly audible through the Theatre. For, that we are to reckon by the intervals between the speeches, and not by the speeches them- selves, is evident even from the fact that the number of the speeches is uneven, whereas the number of ballots was even ; it is not till Athena gives the casting vote that the whole number becomes odd, and Orestes is acquitted by a majority of one vote. 1 10. There is no other play which exhibits the chorus of twelve so plainly as the Agamemnon ; for it does not by any means follow as a matter of course, that because the chorus of twelve was certainly employed in this one instance, the same must have been the case in all the other dramas of iEschylus. It is very possible that after Sophocles had extended the number to fifteen, iEschylus may now and then have adopted the enlarged number. Nevertheless I think I can shew some pro- bability of the chorus of twelve having been employed in the Persians, the Suppliants, and the Seven against Thebes ; and among the lost tragedies of iEschylus that was beyond doubt the number of the Chorus of Titans 1 The same conclusion is drawn from this passage by Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. II. p. 311. NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. 17 in the Prometheus Unbound. 2 In the play of the Per- sians, the Chorus represents a Council of Elders, or Senate, for which twelve might be the regular number, as established in the Agamemnon; and the same appears admissible also in the Antigone of Sophocles. 3 More- over, in the evocation of Darius from his grave (v. 625 — 658), six voices are distinguishable, and the like number join in singing the concluding Ode. In the Suppliants, we must bear in mind that each of the Danaids has a female attendant with her (v. 956) : therefore the Chorus composed of both must contain an even number ; and as the chorus of fourteen appears to have been a special peculiarity in the Suppliants of Euripides (in which play there is good reason for assuming that number 4 ), we must in this instance also abide by the chorus of twelve, among which number the closing ode readily admits of being distributed. In the Seven against Thebes the demonstration is less concise than in the other instances : I will therefore merely state it here as my opinion, that this play ranks with those above-mentioned with respect to the amount of its chorus. But in the Choephorce and the Eumenides the number of the chorus is not to be inferred, as a matter of course, from that in the Agamemnon. Out of fifty choreutse JEschylus might allot twelve to the first play and allow fifteen for each of the two follow- 2 See Welcker Aeschylean Tri- logy, p. 39 (German). Supplement, p. 67. Against this now, at least, the objection no longer holds : Satins erit, opinor, quod ususpostu- labat, quindecim. In the Seven, Pas- sow (Prooem. Lect. Univ.) assumes the number fourteen, which in my opinion was a rare exception. 3 On the character of the Chorus in the Antigone, cf. v. 159. 835 of that play, and Boeckh on the Anti- gone, Essay I. p. 45. (German). 4 Reisig (Enarr. (Ed. Col. v. 1308,) failed to perceive this circumstance, owing to his not viewing the chorus as a whole, without regard to the particular circumstances and feelings of the individuals composing it. Elmsley speaks most to the pointon this subject in the Class. Journal, Vol IX. 4, xvii. p. 56. 18 NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. ing ones, thus leaving eight for the Satyric Drama, which are not too few to form a Chorus. 1 Nay, in the Eumenides, independently of the testimony cited above (§6), which there is no decided reason for rejecting in this case, every thing speaks in favour of the chorus of fifteen. For in such of the choral odes as are com- matic (i. e. sung by single individuals), seven distinct voices are frequently apparent; which number is to be accounted for by the withdrawal of the Leader, so that seven pairs remained, among whom the several odes had to be divided. This must be made to appear by analysis of the several odes : I wish however to draw attention here to one passage in the dialogue, in which this number seven very clearly presents itself, though in a way that, to our modern conceptions, may appear trivial. The Chorus of Erinnyes is awakened from deep sleep by the agitating presentiment that Orestes has fled from them. Half dreamingly they howl upon each other to look to and seize upon the prey. In the MSS. the verse, with the scenical annotation, runs thus : \afie, Xa/3f, \pa£ov — Xaj3e, Xa/3e, \a/3f, \a(3e, Xaj3e. 1 Pausan. v. 16, NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. 19 And I do not hesitate with him to depart from the MSS. in placing pa£ov. Voices 2, 3. Xa p{ 4 > 5 - Xa/3e 6 > 7 - Xd(3s S, 9. Xa/3.' 10, H._ Xa/fc ™> 13. Xd(3e H, 15. Xa/5e. Of course this arrangement of the Poet's is not to be viewed, as we moderns may be apt to view it, in the light of a petty and overstudied conceit, but as the sub- stratum of a vigorous and spirited dramatic effect. Imagine a wild, fierce howl, as of coupled hounds giving tongue, pair by pair, in unison, and this harmo- nized yell running through the whole line of Erinnyes with the utmost rapidity and without interrupting the beat of the verse. 20 NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. b. Arrangement of the Chorus. 11. In place of a lengthened disquisition I shall here give, from the statements of the Grammarians on the subject, the arrangement of the chorus of fifteen, the number of which it usually consisted in the subsequent period of dramatic art. The annexed figure exhibits the chorus in two positions; the first, at its entrance by the side-passages of the Orchestra; the other, in its place in the centre of the Orchestra, about the Thymele. As the Thymele was derived from the Dionysian Altar around which the Cyclian Chorus executed its move- ments, it is natural to suppose its place to have been the centre of the Orchestra, as represented in the figure. But usually the Chorus stood nearer to the stage than to the amphitheatre; 1 therefore, between the Thymele and the Proscenium; and the lines have been drawn accordingly. 2 The cardinal points of the heavens are assigned from the position of the Athenian Theatre on the south side of the Acropolis. They are taken into account in Soph. Ag. 874, 877, Eur. Orest. 1258. 12. The entire management of the Chorus is pervaded in a remarkable manner by its analogy to a Ao-^og of soldiers drawn up in order of battle. Hence lochos is a favourite expression of iEschylus for the chorus; in the Agamemnon he even makes the Gerontes advance against Aegisthus with hand on sword exactly like lochitse. The same thing appears in the divisions of the chorus and the various terms used to designate them. The chorus of fifteen, in the annexed plan, enters in ranks (Ivy a) three abreast. The files of five 1 Schol. Aristoph. Pax. 735. , Orchestra for the several ranks of 2 In the old Theatre these lines j the Chorus, v. Hesych. s. v. ypafi- were traced upon the floor of the | pal. E NUMBER OF THE CHOHUS. 21 deep are called ariyoi or aroiyoi? Besides the entry in file we find mention made of the entry Kara £u-ya, i. e. in ranks of five abreast; 4 but this, from the import of the terms %uyov and aAyoQ, cannot have been the original arrangement. The choreutse ABCDE, fronting the audience, are called apioTzpoGraTai f whence it follows that the Chorus usually entered the Orchestra by a western door. The place of these left-hand men, as being most in view of the spectators, was deemed the most honourable. Among these the third, rpirog or jjlegoq apiGTEpov, is the principal ; it is the place occu- pied by the Ilegemon of the whole Chorus, who in the earliest times was the same individual with the Choregus who furnished and equipped it. 6 When the Chorus takes its station on the lines in the Orchestra, his place comes to be on the Thymele itself. In fact he must needs be elevated above the other choreutse to be enabled to converse over the heads of the other two ranks with the acting persons of the drama. LMNOP are the Sz^ioaTarai, right-hand men : FGHIK are the XavpovTUTcii, so called from their standing in the alley formed by the other two files. Being the least exposed to view, inasmuch as in all the evolutions of the chorus they were covered by the other two files, they were naturally those on whom least attention and care were expended. Hesychius denotes nearly the same situation, perhaps GHI in particular, by the term vttokoXttiov tov -%opov. The expressions Try) wroaraTrjc, $zvTzpooTaT7)Q, &c, according to strict usage, are not to be understood 3 Pollux iv. 108. Phot. s. v. rpiros apiorepov, where read rpiwv ovratv err. iea\ tt€VT€ £. 4 Pollux iv. 109. 5 Phot. Pollux, and Schol. on Aristid. Miltiades, p. 202, 1, Fr. or 535, 20. Dind. where for EIIEIXON read 2TOIXON. 6 Phot, and Bekk. Anecd. p. 444. 22 NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. of the members of the first, second, &c. GTiyog, but must be taken to mean the first, second, &c, in each oriyoQ ; namely, AFL the 7rpwro<7rarcu, JBGM the SevrepoGTarai, &c. Hence Hesychius explains the TrpwToaTaTai to be the first on the wing in battle-array (irapa to Kepag Tr)g irapaTa^eiog). The term Coryphaei seems not always to be taken in the same sense, for in Plutarch 1 we find the Coryphaei as the foremost opposed to the KpaaTrectiTai as the hindmost and most remote from them, which can scarcely denote any other than the rank AFL who were foremost in entering. Whereas when Posidonius in Athenaeus 2 compares him who sits in the middle place of a ring with the coryphaeus of a chorus, he must plainly mean the Hegemon; and this agrees with Demosthenes' s 3 expression of a Hegemon- Coryphaeus. Accordingly all five apidTepoaTaTai ABC DE, as being the foremost towards the audience in the stationary position of the chorus, may perhaps be called coryphaei. The term coryphaeus is always connected with the notion of one who stands at the head or front. 4 Hence to the coryphaei Aristotle 5 opposes the TrapaaTaTai, which term seems to denote any of the rear ranks rela- tively to the front rank. 13. Such was the proper and stated arrangement or placing of the chorus (araoiq). In this order the chorus might make its first entrance, and very often did so. But it is by no means true that it always took up its position according to this plan from the beginning of the play. On the contrary, we know that the Chorus of the Eumenides does not form in rank and file until it is about to sing the Binding Hymn (v/mvog ^eajuiog) to 1 Sympos. v. 5, 1. 2 iv. 152. 3 c. Mid. 533. 4 Aristoph. Plut. 954. 5 Politic, iii. 2. NUMBER OF THE CHORUS. 23 Mother Night. There is no mistaking the express testimony afforded by the words of the Chorus itself (aye S?? /cat x°P° v axpuyjuievj v. 297), especially when taken in connexion with the discrepancy observable in the structure of the preceding and subsequent odes. And with this coincides the ancient account given in the Life of iEschylus, that the Chorus of the Eumenides entered , dispersedly. But the manner in which the Chorus of the Eume- nides made its first entrance and executed its evolutions, until it took up a regular position, can be learned only from the construction of its odes, which we now pro- ceed to examine in detail. B. THE CHORAL ODES. First Ode. Y. 138. 14. There is this difference between the Eumenides and all the other Greek Tragedies we are acquainted with, that the Chorus does not enter the Theatre at the beginning of the play, but is there from the very com- mencement. We see the Erinnyes at first sunk in sleep on the stage, reclined on benches, until one after another they wake, start up, and range themselves in their places on the stage. All this time the Chorus is not in its proper place, the Orchestra, but on the stage itself, the Proscenium : this is evident ; for they are conceived to be within the Delphic Temple (v. 170), but the Orchestra represents the area in front of the build- ing, as we shall endeavour to shew in the following section, when we treat of the local and scenic arrange- ments. In taking this their first position on the stage, the Hegemon probably is in the middle, the rest right 24 THE CHORAL ODES. and left, so that the one portion of them is nearer to the station occupied by Apollo, the others to the place where the Shade of Clytsemnestra appeared, which, doubtless, was as remote as possible from the eyes of the God Phoebus Apollo, whose nature is abhorrent of such spectral apparitions. This is, perhaps, the expla- nation to be given of the circumstance that in this Ode the first and second antistrophes are addressed to Apollo, while the preceding strophes rather depict the impression and feelings called forth by the apparition from the infernal world. Perhaps the choreutae, who sang the antistrophes, stood fronting Apollo, the others nearer to the Eidolon of Clytsemnestra, on its approach towards them. At last, however, they all unite in a common sentiment of hatred and revenge against Apollo, and the object of his protecting care. In reference to its interior structure we desig- nate this ode Koi^/naTucd. In general, namely, it should be remarked that the odes of ancient Tragedy divide themselves into two classes, marked by a distinc- tion which seems more important than any other : that is to say, Odes of the entire Chorus, the chief of which are the Stasima; and Odes sung by individuals. The latter are either such as are sung by one or other of the Dramatis Personam alone (ra awo a^rivrig, or /uov(i)§iai) ; or Odes divided between the acting persons and the Chorus, which are called ico/u/uoi, because in the earlier form of Tragedy lamentations for the dead formed their principal subject ; or, thirdly, portions sung by the chorus, but in single voices, or in smaller divisions of their whole body. For these latter Aristotle 1 has no technical name, probably because these portions of song belong to the older form of Tragedy, as the monodies 1 Poet. 12. THE CHOEAL ODES. 25 became more predominant in the later age of Dramatic Art. But that the Chorus in iEschylus frequently per- formed its part in this way has often been remarked, and the play of the Eumenides exhibits two leading examples of the kind. The epithet Commatic, derived from Ko/n/uLog, is by the ancients themselves applied to such Odes. 2 The affinity between these Commatica and the Commi and Stage-odes, as also their radical dif- ference from the Stasimon, is evident from the very fact of their insertion into the main course of the action. The Stasima divide the Tragedies into acts ; they form pauses in the action; allow opportunity for the entry of new characters, and indicate perceptible lapse of time. In respect of their intrinsic purport, they serve to im- part to the mind that collectedness and lofty self-pos- session which the ancient Tragedy labours to maintain even in the midst of the strongest excitement of the passions. 3 On the contrary, the Commatica, and the species allied to them, are component parts of the indi- vidual act or section, (so that they might often be replaced by dialogue, of which, indeed, they do but form a kind of lyrical climax) and as such contribute essentially to the conduct of the action by their lively expression of will and purpose, passionate desire, con- flicting or accordant inclinations and endeavours. Now, as to this first Ode of the Eumenides, it is evident at a glance, and without our needing to be in- formed of the fact by the Scholiasts (Ko/m/^aTiKiog tKaarov kclt iSiav wpoevzKTtov) that it was not sung by the whole Chorus simultaneously, but by individual members of it : and the number fourteen being assumed or known beforehand, the whole may readily be divided into por- tions corresponding to that number of voices. In the 2 Schol. Eumen. v. 139. 3 Comp. § 100 C 26 THE CHOKAL ODES. first strophe it is plain that the words of the first speaker are interrupted by a second voice falling in, and are then resumed and continued. The same must be assumed, for symmetry's sake, in the antistrophe, and may very well be so ; for, since Apollo's reception of the fugitive parricide exhibits more of the swindling character (kniicXoTrog) which the Erinnyes ascribe to him, than of his trampling upon the elder Deities, the first and third lines of the antistrophe cohere more closely than the second and third. The second and third strophe and antistrophe do not seem to admit of being apportioned in a symmetrical and pleasing manner to single voices; therefore, if we adhere to the number fourteen, we must assign each strophe and antistrophe to two voices conjointly. 1 Second Ode. V. 244. 15. The Erinnyes in obedience to the injunction of Apollo rid his temple of their hated presence and disap- 1 Observable in this Ode, the nep\ Kapa. Perhaps the same may metre of which is dochmiac, a rhythm j be said of the syllables irepifiapv, v. expressive of violent passion [denoted [ 155, and dpopevov, v. 161, on the by the vehement stamping character ! removal of which the verse forms a of the rhythmical beat, dochmius. In the former passage w ' > w f] j even, the Paracataloge, strictly taken, , | is reducible to the four syllables vtto is the napaKaraXoyrj, As far as <£p e W. What follows is a Cretic anything has hitherto been made j p t does not appenr why the whole out on this obscure subject, the Pa- j verse> in eac h instance, should be racataloge consists in a number of accounted other than a dochmius short syllables inserted in the midst w i t h the first syllable long, and the of iambic and dochmiac rhythms, ' antispastic long syllables resolved • and uttered almost like prose (Kara- j / / " / Xoydbrjv) in a uniform suspensive ^^ C7^ C^ ^ — J This iEschy- tone of voice, thus forming a sort of lean Paracataloge, seemingly formed climax to the seeming irregularity on the model of the old Tambists, ap- of those metres. Instances of such pears to have been very temperately a Paracataloge are v. 153, vtto i\ovq v. 261, and ivepOe yfiovoq v. 264) ; which seems to disturb the antistrophic equilibrium. But when I consider not only the general correspondency of parts which pervades the whole, but in particular the energetic thought which precisely in these few redundant syllables is flashed upon Orestes, I find no supposition more probable than that the pair of voices which sang the correspondent portion of the strophe fell in with the antistrophic pair at these supernumerary words, ?} tokzciq ^/Xovc, and so again at eyepOe yfiovoq. I know indeed that no instance has hitherto been alleged of such a blending of voices, but this is no more than may be said of many other technical details of Greek dramatic art. On these several assumptions the Ode may without any violence be portioned out to fourteen voices ; at the same time I do not mean to deny that other views may have something to recommend them. 1 1 This Ode bears some resem- I It is plain that the old men engaged blance to the first section of the first in the search after (Edipus enter Commos in Soph. (Ed. Col. v. 116. crnopddrjv, and expanding them* THE CHORAL ODES. 29 Third Ode. V. 296. 16. The moment for the Chorus to arrange itself in stated order arrives in v. 296, with the Anapaestic March. Anapcests are a metre, from their nature, adapted to accompany a firm vigorous step. The equality in respect of quantity between the arsis and thesis in the metre, between the stronger and the weaker portion of the rhythmical beat, imparts to it a staid and measured character. The reason why the arsis follows the thesis is because, by the natural law of the human pace, in advancing a step the stronger foot remains stationary in order to propel the body: when the impulse is given the foot follows after it, and does this with the more weight and force the more the body is accustomed to depend for its motion on that foot principally. For this reason the march-songs of the Greeks were in general ana- paestic; and agreeably with this arrangement it is found that wherever anapaests occur in Greek Tragedy, they accompany a steady pacing or march. This may be proved to be the case almost without exception. 2 It is in anapaests that the Chorus sings at its entrance, at its exit, and when it moves towards a person or accom- panies him. Everywhere they remind us of those marches or battle-songs of the old Dorians {kfx^ar^pioi TraiavEg), the very acclamation in which (fXcXtu e\b\ev 3 ) selves in two lines sing in strophe and antistrophe, but evidently in se- parate divisions. The first strophe and antistrophe may perhaps best be apportioned between 2x3, and the second pair between 3x4 voices, not reckoning the Anapaests and the portions sung by OEdipus and An- tigone. In the Odes of the (Ed. Col. all is commatic till the Parodos evtmrov, i-eve, ra?6V x&pas, v. 668. Compare § 16. 2 See Bockh on the Antigone, p. 46. 3 Hence e\e\i£eiv is to strike up the War-Paean. The eXeXet), it is plain, belongs strictly speaking to the Paean. It is, as Plutarch Thes. 22, says, the accompanying oXoXuy/zds. Compare iEsch. Sept., 30 THE CHORAL ODES. accorded with the anapaestic rhythm in which they were composed. In those long series of anapaestic systems which we find at the beginning of the Persians, Sup- pliants, and Agamemnon of iEschylus, we may perhaps see the original form of the Parodos, strictly so called ; that is to say, of the entrance of the Chorus into the Orchestra drawn up in regular form, by rank and file. Subsequently, the grand simplicity of these long marches (which in iEschylus moreover are often very full of matter), fell into distaste. In consequence, either anti- strophic odes were mixed up with the anapaests, as in the Antigone, or superseded them entirely : and from this deviation from the old procedure have arisen the difficulty and obscurity which now beset ojir conceptions of the Parados. 1 At times, however, there was a recur- 250. Hence Apollo derives his name 'EXeXevs Macr, Sat. i. 17. The dXaXdfciv ra> 'EvvaXia comes after the eXeXi£ew. Xenoph. Anab. v. 2, 14. Comp. Hellen. ii. 4, 17. But Anab. i. 8, 18, Xenophon puts eXeXi£eiv for aXa\d£eiv. Comp. Demetr. de Eloc. 98. Schol. Aris- toph. Av. 364, and Suid. s. v. iXeXev. 1 Not, however, to such a degree as to justify Hermann in calling that a Ildpodos which is in reality the first stasimon. . The passage of Aristot. Poet. 12, 7, Udpoftos peu rj 7rpd>Tr) Xe£is oXov x o P°v, o~rdo~ipov 8e peXos xopov to civev avcnraicrTov Kcurpoxaiov, which Tyrwhitton the whole understood rightly, makes it very clear that the Parodos was es- pecially distinguished from the sta- simon by anapaests and trochees, that is, systems or longer verses of those metres. Hephsest. tt. ivonqp. c. 10, p. 128. iv. o"qpeia>v c. 15, 3, p. 135. Gaisf. assigns to the Tldpoboi the unequally measured anapaestic systems. As instances of Hdpoboi I find the following adduced. Soph. (Ed. Col. 668. evtnnov geve. El. 121. co ttcu Tval. Eur. El. 167. 'Ayapepvovos. Orest. 140. &lya, crlya Xenrov l\vos dpfivXrjs (which is remarkable). Phceniss. 210. Tvpiov oldpa. See Plutarch an Seni. 3 ; Lysand. 15 ; Schol. Soph. El, ad 1. Metr. Schol. Phceniss. 210 ; Hypoth*. ,Esch. Pers. In the Prometheus the Parodos lies before the Ode crrei>co ere rds, which is the first stasimon, Schol. Vesp. 270. To add examples from the Comedians, Aristoph. Nub. v. 326, devaoi Ne- (peXai, and Vesp. 230, x^P €l npd- (3aiv eppwpevas are described as Ildpodoi. Although these exam- ples by no means all agree with each other, still the greater part of them serve to confirm the definition given by the Schol. Phcen. 210. Ildpodos Se iuTiv codr) xopov /3a6V- £ovtos, adopevr) apa rfj ecroSa). — THE CHORAL ODES. 31 rence to the simpler form of the elder Tragedy in this matter, as in the Hecuba of Euripides. The time and rate of motion observed by the Chorus in singing off these anapaestic systems may perhaps be gathered from the circumstance that the Gerontes in the Agamemnon sing 118 and in the Persians 123 double anapaests in traversing the interval from the door of the Orchestra to the Thymele, which in the Athenian Theatre must be taken at from 150 to 200 feet. The Danaids mea- sure out the same space in 76 double anapaests : it is clear these young fugitives move at a swifter pace. As to the oral delivery of these anapaests, we may gain some conception of it by recurring to the analogy of those same Embaterian Paeans. In these the General strikes up the singing, and in some sort may be said to take the lead (k^apyjti is the expression of Xenophon and Plutarch 2 ), but of course the whole army took part in it. In the same manner the Cretans sing the Paean, in the Homeric Hymn, as they move in measured time from Crisa to Pytho ; Apollo himself is the leader, apvcc. Indeed in the Paean we regularly meet with an Qapyjujv. If in connexion with this it be observed that in these anapaestic Choruses we generally find three systems standing in a more intimate relation to each other than to the rest; and, further, that in the three Tragedies now mentioned {Persians, Suppliants, Agamemnon), the Strange, that Hermann, while com- ; citative. Such a mode of delivery plaining of the dearth of ancient au- thorities on this point, should have made so little use of those we do possess. Aristot. Poet. 12, 7; El. Doct. Metr. p. 724. As to Hermann's might with equal propriety he called by the above cited Scholiast (odrj, and by Aristotle Xe|ij. In like manner the dancing paces of the Parodos as ip^aT^ptoL are to be dis- assertion that these anapaests were ! tinguished from those which are only spoken, not sung, I look in vain | strictly ^opevTiKoi. Comp. Athe- for any proof of it. The probability j naeus, i. p. 22. a. is that the anapaests of the Parodos 2 Xen. Hellen. ii. 4, 17 ; Plut. were chaunted in the manner of re- Lye. 22. 32 THE CHORAL ODES. entire mass of anapaests in each Parodos resolves itself into 3x3 systems, as also that this number three per- vades all the anapaestic systems in the same tragedies, it will appear highly probable that the three protostatae of the three files [aroiyoi) were the z^apyovTzg, each of whom was accompanied by the other voices of his own aroivoe, and each performed one system, so that at the end of every three systems the order commenced afresh. There is no difficulty in reconciling this view with Aristotle's definition of the Parodos ('the first speech of the entire Chorus') by which I understand him to mean, in the first place, that the Parodos was sung by the Chorus as a united whole regularly drawn up in rank and file ; and, secondly, that all the Cho- reutae bore a part in it, not indeed simultaneously, but in an order of succession. 17. Now between these regular marches which ac- company the ordinary entrance of the Chorus, and the anapaests now under review, there is this difference. These latter are sung by the Chorus when already in the Orchestra, and now for the first time falling into rank and file. In accordance with this object the anapaests themselves exhibit a peculiar structure. They resolve themselves into shorter verses, not indeed in all cases marked as such by a catalexis, but nevertheless clearly defined by other indications of a close to the verse, as well as by the order and dependence of the several portions of the sense. The separation effected upon these principles yields of its own accord seven verses of the following dimensions : I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. pentam. tetram. dim. tetram. dim. tetram. hexam. catal. cat. cat. acat. cat. cat. cat. Here, in the first place, we have visibly the antithetic arrangement so frequently found in anapaestic systems THE CHOKAL ODES. 63 on the larger scale ; VI. answers to IL, and V. to III., and the equipoise between VII. and I. is only disturbed by the addition of a double anapaest. At the same time the number seven which appears in these verses, and the strongly marked interpunction between them all make it not only conceivable but very probable that here as before we have the fourteen Choreutae, omitting the Hegemon, singing in pairs. And if further it be con- sidered that in falling into their places on the three lines of the Orchestra, the Choreutae of one arolyoQ must needs have to move through a greater space than those of the next, and these again than those of the third, and that the Ode here sung by them in the act of falling in presents us with verses of three different dimensions (2, 4, 6 metres), the following view of the evolution offers itself with some degree of evidence in its favour. Conceive the persons of the Chorus to have previously formed into one line, nearly straight, in front of the thymele and facing the audience, the hegemon in the centre. After uttering the words vfivov S' Ilkovotq tovSe $£g/ulioi> azQzv, the Hegemon ascends the thymele. Hereupon the Choreutae, first those of the one side, then those of the other, fall into their places in pairs, in an order the symmetry of which may be better exhibited by a few lines. This leaves only one circumstance unexplained, namely, why the Vllth pair sings a double anapaest more than c 3 34 THE CHORAL ODES. the 1st ) unless the reason is to be sought in the desire of obtaining a full and impressive close. Fourth Ode. V. 311. We are now arrived at the first Stasimon, or Ode sung by the Chorus as a whole, and regularly drawn up in rank and file. This sublime and majestic composition beginning, Marep a jjl 'Itiktsq, w fxartp Nu£, is a Hymn addressed by the Children of Night to that Primal Mother- Goddess, and in it they proclaim now with passionate vehemence, now with more of a haughty confidence, their indefeasible right to the person of the shedder of maternal blood. By this proclamation they would deter every child of earth, and Orestes in parti- cular, from the vain attempt of evading the power of the Erinnyes ■ by it Orestes is to be fettered as with indis- soluble bonds : a purpose undoubtedly symbolized to the view of the spectators by peculiar evolutions accom- panying the dance. On that account the Ode is called, f a magically binding hymn/ (v/nv^g Segjuioq). It therefore bears a certain analogy to the Kara^eaeig of the ancients addressed to infernal Hermes, Earth, and similar divinities, with the object of devoting a person to destruction. This character is confirmed by the burden of the first strophe and antistrophe, kirl §1 tw TtOv/Lihit), &c. Such iteration of the particular passage which marks the proper object of the whole procedure was usual in incantations and in songs of destiny : thus in the love-charm of Theocritus we have the perpetually recurring burden ''Iuy£ eA/ce tv ty]vov ejhov ttot\ c^tm tov ai>fy>a, and in the song of the Fates in Catullus's Epithalamium of Thetis, ' Currite ducentes subtemina, currite fusi/ No doubt the accompanying evolutions of the Chorus were directed towards the stage with a motion expressive of encompassing, confining, narrowing THE CHORAL ODES. 35 in : men's own eyes beheld how the victim was arrested and spell-bound with mysterious fetters. The musical character of this Ode we must conceive to have been such as would impress the mind with a feeling of gloomy solemnity. The Cithara, which, as it was handled by the Greeks, operated upon the Grecian temperament in a way that always tended to composure, cheerfulness, or equanimity, is silent here ; the avXoJ, alone are heard, the tones of which produce sometimes ecstacy, sometimes bewildering delirium, always (such is the uniform judgment of antiquity) a mood opposed to the calm equipoise of thought and feeling. For assuredly that expression aXvpog vfivoq is not a mere form of speech, any more than the aXvpot eXeyoi of Euripides, Iph. T. 147. Indeed we are certain we have here a purely aulodic and not a citharodic performance (see Aristoph. Ran. 1263). Upon the same grounds as here, the avXoQ is the sole accompaniment in a ter- rific scene of the Hercules Furens of Euripides, where Frenzy (personified) is instigating the hero to the murder of his children. ' Hercules/ says the Chorus, ' shall dance to the maddening flutes of Lyssa/ /uavidcnv XvaaaQ yopivQzvT kv avXolq, v. 874. And again says the Chorus, v. 891, vyy, te/cj/, ^op/uare' Saiov roSt, Satov /heXoq t7ravXuTai. An Ode in the Trachinise of Sophocles, sung in the highest emotions of joy, is likewise aulodic : aupo/Li oi»S' airCyaofxai roi> avXov, u) rvpavve rag kfiaq (ppEVOQ (v. 216). 19. And nothing could better accord with this aulodic character than the musical mode in which this Stasimon was composed. I am persuaded it was the Phrygian mode, and am not to be disturbed in my confidence by an obscure passage of Aristoxenus, who in his Life of Sophocles speaks of that Poet as having been the first to introduce the Phrygian mode in the Tragic Odes — 36 THE CHOKAL ODES. a notice which relates only to the i'Sia aafiara, that is to say, Monodies (comp. Aristot. Poet. 12). For it is quite inconceivable that the Phrygian mode, admirably adapted as it was to Tragedy by its enthusiastic and yet solemn character, should not have passed over from the Dithy- rambic Odes, to which it peculiarly belonged, 1 to their offspring the Tragic Odes. The following appear to me to be the principal data upon which we are to proceed in order to ascertain what kind of rhythms were usually connected with the Phrygian harmony. (1) A Monody in the Orestes of Euripides, v. 1381 sqq. It is sung by a performer whom Euripides, to gratify the effeminate taste of that already degenerate age, brings upon the stage in the character of a Phrygian Eunuch, trembling for fear. The Poet, evidently wishing to shew off this piece of musical art and let all the world know what it is meant for, makes the Phrygian himself announce that he is singing a apjuaruov /utXog fiapfiapio fioa. Now it can hardly be doubted but that the 'Ap/naruog v6{ioq (which was aulodic, and belonged to the enharmonic order) was composed in the Phrygian mode : for the most competent authorities 2 derive it from the Phrygian musician Olympus ; and though others differ as to the person of the inventor, all are agreed as to its Phrygian origin. 3 That it is here sung by a Phrygian, that the singer himself describes it as barbaric and ungrecian, and compares it to l a mournful song or dirge (atXivog) which the barbarians with Asiatic voice utter at the death of their kings' (v. 1392), all these circumstances indicate the Phrygian kind of music. (2) We may claim as Phrygian the extant fragment of a Dithyramb of Pindar's. The length of the stro- 1 Aristot. Polit. viii. 7; Plut. I 2 Cited in Plutarch Mus. 7. Mus. 19 ; Procl. Chrestom. p. 345. | 3 Etyniol. M. s. v. THE CHORAL ODES. 37 phes, — a symptom of the approximation, even then, to that dissolution of the antistrophic form which befel the Dithyramb at a later period, when it was altogether withdrawn from the Choruses, and given up to be per- formed by individual professors, — and also the multipli- city and peculiar character of the rhythms, indicate a different mode of music to any which Pindar has used in his Epinicia, in which it is well known only the Doric, iEolian, and Lydian, are to be traced. (3) A passage in the first Chorus of the Bacchse, v. 159, plainly shews it to have been an Ode sung to the flute, in the Phrygian mode. To go no further than these examples; out of the great variety of metres which present themselves to one's notice in the Odes which have been mentioned, what strikes us as particularly characteristic are the cretics, especially the resolved cretics or pseons. 4 Let it be remembered, too, that these very rhythms are said to have found their way into the compositions of the Cretan Thaletas from the flute-music of Olympus the Phrygian; 5 and that a notion of magnificence, /.izya\o7rpE7TEQ, 6 was attached to these, above all other rhythms. Another rhythm of frequent occurrence in the above-mentioned Odes is the galliamb (a rhythm known to have origi- nated in the hymns addressed to the Phrygian mother of the Gods 7 ) ; this metre however is of a softer and less noble character than would in all places be suitable to the Phrygian mode, one of the characteristics of which is sublimity. The impetuous rhythm of the trochees is 4 Comp. e. g. in the Bacch. Xcotos ramb Tov Bp6p,iov tov 'Epifioav re orav eu/ceXaSo? UpbsUpaTra.iyna.Ta KaXeofievyovovvTraTOiv pevnaTepcou (3pep.rj avvoxa — pa KkvTai — pLvqcrrpa. 3 Comp. Agam. 1124. 4 Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 1308. 5 Mus. 28. 6 I perceive an indication of these feet in the passage of Pindar, 01. ix. 109. The whole ode— a lofty eulogy on godlike physical power — is very peculiar in its metrical com- position, and seems to have a touch of Phrygian in it; especially the epode, in respect of the accumulated bases and ecbases. Now the poet in the last epode — precisely in the weightiest passage of the whole poem, summons himself to sound in orthian the cry that his hero, hy the godlike power of his nature, is a THE CHORAL ODES. 39 drawn feet/ when combined with impetuous cretics and fleet paeons, were much better adapted to the en- thusiastic Phrygian mode, delighting as it did in wild starts and contrasts, than to the purely symmetrical flow of the Doric. It is also known that the Paeon Epibatus/ a foot counting as ten times, was used by Olympus for the Phrygian mode. 9 The circumstance that the vojxoq opOiog was connected, not indeed necessarily (for the cithara is sometimes found with it), but more commonly, with flute-music, and the fact that the deep-toned bent av\6g, the Phrygian horn, was particularly used with it, 10 well accords with the repre- sentation here given. 20. These data and inferences respecting the Phry- gian mode, when applied to our Chorus, leave scarcely a doubt as to its musical character. The passages in the first strophe, 1 so plainly in the orthian style. and [xartp a fx tri/crte, u) \ /narep Nu£, aAaotcrr kcii StSopKoaiv | iroivav |.: again in the last Strophe, /jLtvti yap tv re fiviqfxovtq twyavoi rt Kai rtAei | 01 /ca/cwv 8 1 ae/avai and Aa)^ Otujv SiyoGTciTovvT avi]\io> \ Xa/unra mighty athlete ; and this is done in rhythms, which we have every right to call orthian. "OpOiov a>pvo~ai 6upcrea>v rovb' avepa daip.ovla, ye- ydp.ev Evxeipa de^toyviov opcbvr akKav. In the passage of the Aga- memnon, 1124, in the places pre- ceding the dochmii, la), la) rakaivas and io), loo Xiyeias, I seem to myself' to catch the orthian tone. 7 Arist. Quint, p. 38, 98. 8 Id. Ibid. 9 Plut. Mus. 33. 10 Lucian Bacch. 4. 11 Cf. Herm. Doctr. Metr. p. 661; Opusc. ii. p. 121. 40 THE CHORAL ODES. the cretic periods following the former, and the turbu- lent paeons at the close of the first and second strophes — all this palpably evinces the Phrygian mode. It also appears from Euripides 1 and the fragments of the later Dithyrambs, that repetitions of the same word and the jingle of homceoteleuta were particularly affected in Odes set to the Phrygian mode (probably this was the case in the native songs of Phrygia). Some touch of this appears in the Trapa/cona, irapafyopa of our Ode. In those passages where the tone of feeling in the Erinnyes is of a more composed character, and which rather express a proud consciousness of their rightful power and dignity than a fear of its being disparaged, the rhythms (long dactylic orders with spondaic termi- nations and annexed trochaic closes) approximate to those used with the Doric mode; indeed it would be a probable conjecture that this harmony here takes place of the Phrygian, were it not that the latter in many cases readily admits of very long dactylic orders. 2 21. With this first stasimon the Chorus has taken up a fixed position in the middle of the orchestra, and now leaves this place no more until the end of the play. The notion entertained by many, 3 that the Chorus, in performing the strophe and antistrophe of an ode, moved towards opposite ends of the orchestra, and ad- vanced to the left and right by turns, is palpably erro- neous, for in that case the Chorus would be no araaig 1 Comp.AristoplianesE.an8e. 1315. 2 So at the close of the ode in the Bacchae, fjdopeva §' apa naiXos arras apa parepi (popfiddi k£>\ov iiyei ra-)(yTrovv aicip — rrjpaa-i Bdic- Xov. That the Phrygian mode ad- mits of long verses, formed of dac- tylic orders, is decidedly instanced in a Fragment of the 'Opeoreia of Stesichorus preserved in the Schol. on Aristoph. Pax. v. 727. roidde Xpr] Xaplroov da — pwpara KaXXi- Kopoav vp. — veiv (ppvyiov peXos e£;ev — povra 'A(3pa>s rjpos eVep^o- pevov. Its metrical scheme (see p. 48) is 3 ( _ _ _ _ ) _ w _ „ _ ww _ ww _. 3 Hermann on Aristot. Poet. 12, 8 ; and Doctr. Metr. p. 727. THE CHORAL ODES. 41 (at it is often termed in the Tragedies themselves 4 ) and its ode no stasimon. 5 There is no need to adduce a whole host of Scholiasts 6 to prove the fact that in a sta- simon the Chorus did not leave its place. The very- name speaks for itself. Only, I think it does not war- rant the inference that the Chorus in a stasimon was motionless as well as stationary, 7 for that would be for the Chorus, in the most and the longest of its odes to forego, I might almost say, what is its very essence as a chorus, the yopkvuv. But just as the old cyclian chorus, as described on the shield of Achilles in the Iliad, circled in the dance now to the right, now to the left, like a potter's wheel ; 8 so the antistrophic move- ment of a chorus is to be conceived as such that, while the individual members change places, the whole occupies, throughout, one and the same portion of space. For this very reason it was that the old Masters of Tactics gave the name of 'the choral evolution' (yJ>ptioq E&Xiyfiog) to that evolution of a lochos, by which the foremost came to be hindmost, and vice versa, while the lochos as a whole did not leave its place. Hence it may be inferred with a considerable degree of certainty that in the strophe of the choral dance (just as in the lochos), the 7rpa>Toararat afl (see the following dia- gram) passed in a curved line to the position ekp; the $svTEpo .-' -\* 1 Hephsest. it. ttoly]^. 14. p. 131. Comp. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 512. 2 This is the meaning of avri- (ttolx^Iv in Xenoph. Anab. v. 4. 12, comp. Sympos. 2, 20. Siivern on Aristoph. Equit. p. 102. (German). Kolster de Parabasi, p. 13. THE CHOKAL ODES. 43 Fifth Ode. V. 468. 22. The character of the second stasimon is very simple, the rhythms consisting mostly of trochaic orders, some short, some long, blended into larger metrical periods. The shortest orders look like cretics, but from the general character of the ode and the manner of con- nexion it is sufficiently clear that they are to be read with a pause at the end as catalectic trochaic dipodiae, so that the trochaic rhythm runs uninterruptedly through the whole verse, and consequently through the greater part of the ode. Now when the catalexis of one of these broken orders (— ^ — ) falls at the middle of a word, which is therefore divided between two consecutive sub- stantive portions of metre, as we can hardly imagine that the word would be allowed to be split in two by the sensible intervention of the proper pause, we must of necessity suppose that the vacant interval of time be- longing to the regular pause would be thrown into the time of the syllable preceding, thereby lengthening it. Words thus situated would hence acquire a very marked and quite peculiar emphasis and weightiness in the deli- very ; and accordingly it does in fact appear the words which occur in these same places are often peculiarly energetic. In the present Ode, rovSe ^-TpoKrovov, kvyjEpti-a (jvvap/LiocFEi) TraOta 7rpo(jfxevei TOKtv-aiv pera t clvQiq ev xpoyw, may serve as examples. I know not whether this remark may not at least help somewhat towards the solution of the question concerning the ground of the difference observable in the manner of connecting rhythmical orders into choral verses. I mean the question, why trochaic and logaoedic orders, which can scarcely be imagined to have been meant as entire verses by themselves, often stand detached and unconnected as if they were complete verses, and then 44 THE CHORAL ODES. again in certain places are found closely attached to the succeeding portion of rhythm by means of a word run- ning over into this. 1 That the Poet's aim in such places was to gain a peculiar emphasis for a particular passage, I at least have often sensibly perceived : and scarcely anywhere more forcibly than in the Chorus of the Agamemnon at the words aal-vh)v and cl-tclq, v. 725, 735 ; the more so, as their exact coincidence at the same place of the strophe and antistrophe gives them the appearance of being, as it were, the two opposite poles on which the whole idea revolves. What mind would not be forcibly struck by the representation in the strophe, of the young lion-whelp (Aegisthus) brought up in the house like a dog, caressed by all and fawning upon all — iroXia (T k(TK kv ayicaXaig peorpotyov tekvov %Lko.v, (JMlldpWTrOG TTOTL X El P a <7CU V0)V EV 7 a(T Tp6g avdyKCLlQ. And then the contrast in the antistrophe, of the grown- up lion no longer concealing his native thirst of blood : Jxiiayov aXyog oliciraiQ €K Oeov e. g. the ode xpvcrea (poppiy^, JL ^ — \^f , JL ^ ^ — wv_y — I JL w , JL ^ w _, &c.) the time is regulated by the equivalence of the dactyl to the double-trochee. Cf. Anhang. p. 32.] 48 THE CHORAL ODES. That the Goddess during these anapaests changes her position is indicated also by their purport. At first she addresses from the stage the Council of the Areopagites, or rather the assembled people of Athens, and, in so doing, speaks of the Eumenides in the third person. It is only towards the end that she personally addresses the latter; then she expresses her good wishes towards them also, and makes known to them that now she will discharge the duty of escorting the Dread Goddesses into their sacred Thalamos. We see plainly that Athena has gradually descended from the stage into the Orchestra, and ends with placing herself at the head of the Chorus, to which the Areopagites also and the escort of maidens now attach themselves. To these maidens belongs the last Ode ; short indeed, but pecu- liarly solemn, and (its sense rightly understood) winding up the action with a strain of majestic simplicity. 1 [Note. — In the metrical notation nsed in this work, the rhyth- mical orders of which the verse is composed are separated by- commas, the pauses are denoted by full stops. Also, when the same rhythmical order is repeated, this is compendiously denoted by the Arabic numeral prefixed. Thus the verse (for it is but one) 362-365, consisting of four iambic dimeters, one monometer, and an ecbasis, would give this scheme, 4 w ~ w — w — w — , kj — \j — , — x — ; and the longest verse in Pindar, Isthm. vii. 5, u A 5 JL v - \J\J — , — w — ww — w — , ~ w — w. The distribution of an ode into verses, and of verses into their component orders,is essentially dependent on rhythmical consider- ations, but the determination of the close of a verse is aided by observation of the occurrence of a syllaba anceps or hiatus. For this reason, besides others, the principles of the higher metrical science are best learned from Pindar, since the continual recur- rence of the same strophe throughout an ode furnishes a larger induction of probabilities, and therefore more evident results than can be obtained from the single strophe and antistrophe of the Tragedians. For an introduction to the study of the lyrical metres and of their relation to the musical modes, the student may be referred to Thiersch's Preliminary Dissertation prefixed to his edition and German version of Pindar. For uEschylus, comp. the Metra et Numeri of Elausen.] II. THEATRE. 26. The play of the Eumenides was acted in the large stone Theatre near the Temple of Dionysus. The erection of this Theatre wa3 commenced after 01. 70. 1, (b.c 500), but the building was not completed till about 01. 110 (b.c 340), during the financial administration of Lycurgus. But a theatre might, in the same manner as an ancient temple, or a Gothic church, be used for centuries without being quite completed; and we certainly have no authority for supposing that the pro- ductions of the great tragedians still continued to be exhibited in a wooden structure, whilst even the insig- nificant Epidaurus had obtained from the hands of Polycletus, a contemporary of Phidias, a magnificent theatre of stone. The Athenian Theatre, which was erected at the time above mentioned — a structure, the perspective arrange- ment of which had given occasion to scientific investi- gations even by the most distinguished among the physical philosophers of the Periclean age, Anaxagoras and Democritus — was no doubt the original model of the Greek Theatre described by Vitruvius ; and this can be proved in detail. Accordingly, for information con- cerning the general plan of the whole structure, the divisions of the orchestra, stage and amphitheatre, etc., we may refer our readers to the works of Genelli and other modern writers, who with much taste and erudition have reduced the rules and statements of Vitruvius into a connected form. The only peculiarity in the exhibition 50 THEATRE. of the Eurnenides was the arrangement of the stage — called by the Greeks irpoaKr\viov and \oyuov ; the term irpooviica<;). For in the first place, this was really the most important part of its jurisdiction, nearly the whole of which, according to Plutarch, it lost at that con- juncture: and moreover, it gave the Areopagus, especially in times of civil commotions and riots, considerable political authority, the very thing of which Ephialtes wanted to deprive it. In the next place, it was scarcely possible to sever a portion only from that jurisdiction, because whatever could be detached from it had already been transferred to other courts, namely those of the Ephetae : at the same time it is very likely that certain actions for impiety (a to) ei; 'Apeiov ivdyov, a> kol narpiov ecrri Ka\ e(f> vpa>u a7ro8eSorat rov (povov ras dims 8iicd£eiv, 8iapprjdrjv e'lprjTai tovtov prj KaTayivGMTKeiv (povov. I cannot understand this passage in any other sense than that winch I have given. 78 INTERNAL AFFAIRS (and this evidence is quite as conclusive and convincing as any historical datum), it is palpably the design of iEschylus to support the Areopagus in its authority in actions for bloodshed; consequently it must have been in this quarter that its rights were attacked. It is true he also dwells much upon the circumstance, that this court of judicature is at the same time a deliberative council (v. 640, 654, 674), whereby no doubt he means to vindicate its claim to consult, as it had hitherto done, for the preservation of good morals, 1 as well as on dangers menacing the constitution and the public safety; and in calling that council ' a watchful safeguard under which the State might sleep securely' (v. 675), he dis- tinctly implies his opinion that it is desirable the Areopagus should maintain a continued superintendence, and not merely interfere as a tribunal in cases where it might be called upon to decide. But the whole scope of the play is to exhibit the Areopagus in its highest dignity and sanctity, as a conscientious criminal court, entrusted of old by the National Goddess herself with the important charge of putting a termination to a long series of troubles and miseries. 38. Such were the political principles pursued by iEschylus in this business, and such we find him main- taining through life. As an Athenian citizen and a patriot, iEschylus on every occasion recommends to his fellow-citizens temperance and moderation in their en- 1 In the early times the Areo- pagus exercised a moral censorship in the manner of the Spartan Tepovaia, and after the time of prerogative it retained in the time of Ephialtes is a very difficult ques- tion. We can only assume it in general as a very prohable case that Demetrius Phalereus it was re- the democracy, which even then invested with that authority in conjunction with TvvaiKovojxoi, SaxppovMTTcii, and other Boards of Inquisition j but how much of that was powerful and throughout Greece a decided enemy to such control, had left but little of it remaining. OP ATHENS. 79 joyment of democratic liberty, and in their ambitious schemes against the rest of Greece. iEschylus was a zealous partisan of Aristides, and opponent of Themis- tocles, those two statesmen being then opposed to each other in a similar way to that in which Cimon and Pericles were afterwards. As early as 01. 76, 4, in which year the Per see was acted, we find evident symp- toms of this partiality ; the share Aristides had in the victory at Salamis, the massacre of the Persians at Psyt- talia undertaken and executed by him, is dwelt upon by our Poet with delight (v. 439, sqq.) in comparison with the exploits of Themistocles, whereas Herodotus's ac- count of the affair (vin. 95) by no means implies that it deserved to have so great a stress laid upon it. Again, in the same play it is said (v. 341) that men are the safeguard of a city, and not walls (avSpuv yap ovtwv tpKog karlv aatyakkq), a sentiment which stands in oppo- sition to the opinion of Themistocles, whose schemes required that Athens, and especially the Peirseus, should be fortified in the strongest possible manner. But the Poet's political bias is still more clearly marked in the Seven against Thebes, which was acted, it is true, after the Persce, 2 but still during the lifetime of Aristides, probably about 01. 77. It is well known that the beautiful verses on the wise and virtuous Amphiaraus were universally applied by the audience to Aristides, s and there is not a doubt that in this animated and glowing portrait iEschylus was inwardly elevated by the thought of that e just' man. Now Amphiaraus is placed among a set of overbearing, boastful, and ambitious men, and exhibited as the only excellent character of them all, one whose heart gives birth to honest desires 2 Vid. Schol. Aristoph. Ran. v. I 3 Plut. Aristid. 3. 'Ano^y^. 1048. I /3av didolev. 84 FOREIGN RELATIONS towards the Argives, and regarded the liberty of the people in that state as a support of their own republican constitution : true, no league was as yet formed with them, but the compacts made for the mutual adjustment of lawsuits shew that this was in contemplation. Such, in all probability, was the state of public feeling at Athens as early as the end of Ol. 79, when Cimon suc- ceeded, though not without considerable difficulty, in his desire to be sent with an army to the aid of the Spartans. 1 It was at this conjuncture (01. 79, 3), that Athens first carried the war with the Persians into Egypt, and those very conclusive arguments adduced to shew how little Greeks need dread a contest with Egyptians, (v. 742 and 931, ' papyrus-fruit and barley- wine would never stand against wheat -bread and the juice of the grape/) must have told admirably upon the war-loving Athenians, who were soon to come to blows with that nation on the banks of the Nile. In this way we arrive with others 2 at the conclusion that the Trilogy to which the Suppliants belonged was exhibited only a few years previous to the Orestea ; and if there is an apparent objection to this in the circumstance of there being three Actors throughout in the Orestea, whereas in the Suppliants there are only two (one acting the characters of Danaus and the Herald, the other personating the King), the only inference deducible from that circumstance is, that iEschylus did not follow the example of Sophocles in the constant adoption of a third Actor till quite at the end of his career. 41. This friendly feeling towards Argos, which had so much influence on the dramatic compositions of iEschylus in the 79th and 80th Olympiads, may perhaps 1 Plut. Cim. 16. I Princ. p. 54. Also Haupt. ^sch. 2 See particularly Boeckh Trag. I Suppl. c. 7. OF ATHENS. 85 subject our Poet to another charge from those who expect to find in him a decided political bias, the spirit of a thorough-going partizan. For in fact the Alliance then formed between Athens and Argos was neither more nor less than a manoeuvre of the party whose aim was to disengage Athens from the Peloponnese (to the entire abandonment of the Confederacy which the inde- pendent states of Greece had formed among themselves for the purpose of repelling the aggressions of the Persian power), and to constitute her as sovereign of the seas, islands, and maritime cities of Asia : and this very same party it was which overthrew all the bulwarks and defences of the Old Constitution, in order to allow of their hurrying along the Demos, in the bold imagi- native flights of their Orators and Leaders, to the execution of those daring schemes. Now here is iEschylus, a man of aristocratic sentiments, labouring upon Cimon's principles for the preservation of the Areopagus, and yet running counter to Cimon's aims by eulogising the league with Argos. If this procedure be alleged against iEschylus as an inconsistency, it is sufficient to reply that, correct as may be this repre- sentation of the connexion between the domestic and foreign policy of the Athenians of those times, it by no means follows that iEschylus was bound to attach him- self to a party exclusively, and thereby run into extremes unworthy of an enlarged mind. As a moderate man he might be of opinion that Athens was compelled by the general aspect of her position to disengage herself -from Sparta and pursue her plans independently, and yet hold that the real welfare of the State demanded the strict maintenance of civil order, reverence for ancient institutions and vested rights, and the upholding of the aristocratic element embodied in the Areopagus ; and on the whole this was perhaps the most rational view of 86 FOREIGN RELATIONS things. Athens, indeed, reached by a shorter road the splendid destiny appointed for her, namely by demo- lishing the safeguards of her internal constitution ; she shone, but it was with a brightness which rapidly con- sumed that which was to feed the splendour; a lamp blazing too fiercely to last long. He who endeavoured, as iEschylus did, to retard the eager impetuosity of the times did his best to defer the day which was to see that light extinguished. 42. But there is in our Tragedy an idea which forms a point of union to both of its political aims, and for that very reason is everywhere prominent in the latter part of the play. It is, the desire — very natural to a patriotic spirit in such dangerous conjunctures — that foreign war, that the thirst after conquest and glory among the Greeks, might damp and stifle the incentives to domestic broils. This train of ideas opens with the wish expressed by Orestes for the Athenians, that they might be ever victorious (v. 746) : next, it is followed up by Athene's conjuring the wrathful Erinnyes not to incite the minds of the citizens to factious strife, nor ' intoxi- cate them with a fury which is not wine f not to let civil discord rage, but to kindle war abroad, 1 wherein the love of glory might have free scope. And when the Erinnyes are propitiated, and under their new name and character of Eumenides are about to pronounce their benediction, Pallas invites them to promise the city such blessings and gifts of nature from heaven and earth as may conduce to the attainment of glorious and honour- able conquest, 2 that the city might never lack either 1 In v, 826, ov [xokis 7rapd>v dearly does not suit. iEschylus certainly does not mean to repro- bate the noble conflict with the Persian Empire. I have adopted the emendation dofxow, though with some hesitation. 2 'Oiroia vUrjs fiff koktjs erri- a-Koira. Certainly no one who has entered into the train of ideas will entertain a thought (as Hermann does) that the passage requires vetKrjs. OF ATHENS. 87 provisions or men, as the means of defeating her enemies : bnt the award of victory to her citizens in the strife of war is a boon which she, the Warrior God- dess, is resolved to retain in her own gift. The citizens are told to turn all their feelings of enmity in one and the same direction, on the ground that ' unanimity even in hatred' relieves mortals from many miseries (v. 942). And again, at the conclusion of the blessings it is inti- mated in few but emphatic words, that every boon sent up by the Eumenides is to aid the city in conquest. Indeed, the idea of conquest forms the setting in which the Ode is enclosed, and thus considered, it aptly intro- duces a Triumphal Ode, such as could not fail to affect every Athenian heart. Conquest then, be it over Greek or Barbarian, Conquest both by sea and by land, gained by the exertion of all their powers, great as ever city has summoned up, this is the idea which iEschylus dwells upon in his endeavours to divert the Athenian citizens, engaged at that very time in the fiercest heats of contention, from the obstinate schemes of their several parties. And how strenuous the efforts of the Athenians for conquest actually were at that period, is evidenced by a record as unassuming as it is striking and imposing, namely, in an obituary inscription of an Attic tribe, belonging to the very next year, 01. 80, 3. It runs thus : ( Of the Erechthean tribe these fell in battle, — in Cyprus, in JEgypt, in Phoenicia, in Halice (the Argolic), in JEgina, at Megara, — the same year/ At the close of this Section we may notice a political allusion, which does not so materially pervade the entire composition as the preceding. In v. 375 sqq. Minerva says, ' she heard the voice of Orestes from afar at the banks of the Scamander, where she had forestalled fo7 >eign usurpation by taking possession of the country assigned as a meed of honour to the Athenians and to 88 FOREIGN RELATIONS. herself by the Allied Greeks before Troy.' This is obviously the meaning of KaTcKpOarovfievr) ; not simply = KaTaKTcofievi], as Hesychius explains it, but = (pddvovcra Kara/era fievrj. It is well known, that from the time of Phryno and Pittacus the Athenians were engaged in a dispute with the Lesbians respecting the coast of Troas round Sigeum. Both parties attested their claims to it by mythic arguments ; the Lesbians asserting their ancient right to the whole of that coast on the ground of their descent from the Pelopid Achaeans (cf. Scholl. a. 1. and Strabo, xiii. p. 509), whilst the Athenians founded their claims to it on the extensive worship of Athene in that district, especially the Temple G-laucopeum at Sigeum. From this historical fact iEschylus has drawn the very ingenious fiction of Athene be- taking herself to that coast shortly after the Trojan War, for the purpose of taking formal possession of the region assigned as a yepas to the Theseids, and at the same time dedicated to her ; thus establishing her claim to it, and preventing all foreign en- croachment on her rights. II. LEGAL AND JUDICIAL RELATIONS. A. AVENGING OF BLOOD, AND PURSUIT OF THE MURDERER. a. Duty of avenging blood, at Athens and in the earlier Times. 43. The sacred duty of avenging blood, recognised by the earliest customs and national laws of the East as well as the West, formed at Athens the basis of a great portion of the penal code. Even at the period when personal affronts to an Athenian were in most cases indictable by any of his fellow -citizens as outrages upon the public peace and safety of the commonwealth, the prosecution for murder devolved exclusively upon the relatives of the deceased; not as though homicide were no violation of the peace nor dangerous to the security of the State, but because the avenging of it was deemed a sacred office, which could no more be taken out of the hands of the relatives than that of burying the dead, or the right of succession to his patrimony. The words of the law 1 are to the following effect : ' The kinsmen of the deceased, within the degree of first-cousins (inclusive), shall issue a proclamation in the market-place, charging the homicide to hold aloof 1 Demosth. c. Macart. 1069. There is clearly a distinction here between avc-fyicov 7rai8es, consobri- novum filii, and dveyjnaboi, solrini, though these expressions may other- wise from their nature be used in either sense. See Bunsen, Platner, and especially Klenze, Fam.Recht d. Cogn. u. Affin* p. 153. 90 DUTY OF AVENGING BLOOD. / from the altars and temples in the city, as also from all assemblies in the exercise of religious rites : and they shall be supported in the prosecution by the sons of the first-cousins of the deceased, by the fathers-in-law and sons-in-law, by the second- cousins and the members of the same Phratria/ The prosecution was not legal without an oath on the part of the prosecutors attesting their affinity to the de- ceased. 1 Slaves were herein reckoned as members of the family/ not because they were part of their master's property, but by reason of their participation in the family worship and in the sprinkling of sacrificial water. 3 When we read of instances where this regulation does not appear to have been observed (as in Plato's Euthyphron), we may be sure that in all such cases a strict Interpreter of old Customs and Laws (e^rtyrirri^ hpiLv koi odLtJv) would have pronounced the proceedings to be illegal. Even on the murder of an inmate not being a kinsman or slave of the family, the master of the house was not allowed to prosecute, but merely to plant a spear — the symbol of prosecution — upon the grave at the time of the burial, and there proclaim the murder, that the rightful and bounden avenger might come forward and pluck up the weapon. Thus in every case the prosecution of the slayer proceeded from the duty of avenging the slain; and the obligation was equally binding, whether the latter had expressly charged his relatives to prosecute ^ttictkyjitteiv k-rr^dvai) — a charge which might be directed even to the child yet unborn, 4 — or whether the duty was presupposed on the 1 Dem. c. Euerg. 1160. Cf. Pol- lux, viii. 118. Hesych. s. v. a-y^tcr- rlvh-qv ofxpvvai. 2 See also Eurip. Hec. 295. 3 KoivaivoixepviftaVfMsch. Again. 1007. Cf. Isseus, Ciron, § 16. 4 Lysias, c. Agorat. § 42. DUTY OF AVENGING BLOOD. 91 principle of ' Blood for Mood.' It was only when the dying man forgave his slayer that the prosecution did not take place ; and in such cases it was prohibited. 5 44. Thus the idea of vengeance as a claim due to the murdered kinsman was nothing strange to the Greeks even in the time of iEschylus, but was still entwined in the most intimate union with all that was deemed sacred and venerable. The only distinction between the earlier and the later times was, that the State had now assumed the office of mediator, and as such, upon the application of the relatives, it either took the charge of inflicting vengeance entirely off their hands, or else assigned cer- tain means and limits for its execution. It is true, the avenger, 6 even in Athens, began with issuing in person J a public and solemn notice charging the homicide to hold aloof from market-place and altars (rrpoayopEvei etpytaOai tCjv vo/lu/lhov), but then he was required in the first place to lay a formal indictment before the proper authorities for previous investigation, and then before the Areopagus or the Ephetse, according to the nature of the case : if the action was for wilful and malicious murder, it was brought into the former court; if for manslaughter or for excusable homicide, into the courts of the Ephetse. In either case the defendant was at liberty to take to flight before sentence was passed ; no one was allowed to hinder him. None but the pa rricid e was prohibited from flight, and such an one was instantly arrested. It is on this law that Euripides has founded his representation in the Orestes (v. 438, 507). If the verdict returned was wilful mur- der and the accused still remained in the country, he 5 Dem. c. Pantaen. 983. 6 'Ai>8p77Xar?7s,Eum.212. Agam. 1393, 1568, sqq. Sept. 619. Soph. (Ed. T. 100. Hesych. s. v. dvtyei- drrjs, which Kiister has properly corrected dpdprjXdrrjs. 92 DUTY OF AVENGING BLOOD. fell under sentence of the law; his execution was the business of the State, and the prosecutor might look to it. 1 Draco's 0£ ix p 865> 2 Apollod. ii. 7, 6. I 4 Antiph. Chor. 4. Cf. Herod. 87. DUTY OF ORESTES. 97 in Homer (II. ix. 64), where Nestor in his admonitions against civil war says, Cl(j)pr]TU)p, CldifjLMTTOQ, aVEffTLOQ koTIV EKEtVOQ, QQ TToXifJiOV tpCLTCU ETT ify fX LOV , OKpVOEVTOC. In fact, when we consider the matter, every wilful murder is a breach of the peace, and the work of "Aprjg £/u,v\iog. b. Duty of Orestes according to the Mythus. 46. Clytsemnestra has murdered her husband. Now by the law, as it existed alike in the historical and in the heroic age, she is expected at least to flee from her home and shun the altars of her country. And in fact that is the sentence pronounced upon her by the Council of Elders in the Agamemnon. But having the support of iEgisthus she fancies herself as superior to the laws of the State as she is insensible to the reproaches of con- science. The reason why the Erinnyes forbear to drive her out of the land 5 is, when we look to the principle of the matter, no other than her having contrived to pacify her conscience with a sophistry of the passions, which we find exhibited with great psychological skill even by iEschylus. 6 Agamemnon's natural Avenger is his son Orestes ; it is his bounden duty to take vengeance ; the ghost of his murdered father and the Delphic God demand it of him. The strictness of the obligation and the infamy attending the neglect of it are very emphatically dwelt upon by iEschylus in Apollo's admonitions and menaces to 5 Emn. 574. 6 Agam. 1347. 98 DUTY OF ORESTES. Orestes, which the Poet makes the latter recount in the following passage (Choeph. v. 267 — 294) -, 1 ovtol 7Tj00C)wer£i Ao&ov fiEyaoQevriQ yj)r)iovei 7rpog(3oXag 'EpLWviov, ek T(ov irarptouiv aif*ariov re\ovf*ivag, opajvra \af*7rpdv kv ckotco viof*u~)VT otypvv. to yap aKOTEivbv riov kvEpTipiov fiiXog ek 7rpogrp07raiu)v kv yivEi ttetttlokotlov, koX Xvffcra, ical /*arawg ek vvktwv (po(3og KLvei, rapaaaet, ical Biioketul iroXEtog j(aXKt]XaTio TzXaoTiyyi Xvfxavdkv Bif*ag. Kal roig roioiroig ovre Kparijpog /*ipog Eivai f*EraayEiv, ov (j)iXoa7r6vBov Xifiog, ficofiwv r a.7rEipy£iv ov^ 6ptof*£VT]p Trarpbg l*ijvLv Bij^Ecrdaij rov re ovXXvelv riva. TravTtov B' ddpTco j*6pco. 10 1 In v. 273 [which Kl. transposes lower, after opwvra Xa/x- npov, &c] the xPW aTa are opposed to the person (avros rfj "fyvxfi)- The loss of the xPW aTa f°ll° ws from Apollo's injunction to the people to offer the produce of the earth (to. ck yrjs) as neiXiyfxara to hostile divini- ties. Then in v. 292 I read rov re instead of ovre, and construe thus : yjf\viv dneipyeiv j3a>ncov, — namely (cos) decadal riva avrovs els /3co- /jlovs, — rov re avXXveiv riva avrois. AvXXveiv rivl stands for o~uv nvi KaraXveiv, as in Pindar Xvais for KardXvais. DUTY OF ORESTES. 99 47. It has already been observed elsewhere 2 that Apollo, in the character of a punishing, avenging God, also presides over the avengers of blood : we will here only notice a beautiful trait of the old mythus in its representation of Apollo as influencing Orestes by the intervention of Pylades, a main character in the heroic mythology. Pylades, son of Strophius the son of Crisus, was a Crisaean. Now it was in the domain of the town of Crisa (as we learn from the Homeric hymn to Apollo) that the Pythian Temple was originally situated ; whence Pindar calls the Pythian domain the rich land of Pylades (Pyth. xi. 15). It is at Crisa that Orestes dwells as an exile (Soph. El. 181); and it is thence also that Pylades accompanies him in the character, as it were, of a minister of the God, to admonish Orestes con- tinually of the duty incumbent upon him. The very name of Pylades is probably in reference to the HvXaia, or Amphictyonic Assembly held at Delphi, of which on that account Pylades is said to have been the founder. 3 This feature of .the old mythus was perfectly clear to iEschylus, however lost sight of by later poets ; nay, in the Choephoroe he has managed to impress it on the thoughtful spectator with great spirit and depth of significance. Pylades is a mute character. Once and once only does he break silence. It is at the very moment when Orestes is almost overcome by his mother's agonizing entreaties, and hesitates to commit the bloody act ; whereupon Pylades exclaims, 7rov drjra Xonra Ao&ov /jLQ.vrevfiaTa to. 7rvQ6^t](TTa, 7riora h' evopKojfiara ; aTrai'TCiQ kyQpovQ tHjv deioy ?/yov 7r\iov. 4 Choeph. 887 sqq. 2 Midler's Dorians, and Prole- I 3 Agathon Schol. Trach. 639. gomena to a Scientific Mythol. 4 Cf. sup. § 33. F 2 100 DUTY OF ORESTES. It is evident that Pylades is introduced here, not on the score of his far-famed league of friendship with the hero of the play/ but as a monitor from Apollo ; and on that very account he does not appear in the Eumeni- des, because Apollo there comes forward in person as Orestes' conductor. This fine connexion Euripides, though he also makes Pylades a Delphian (Orest. v. 1092), destroys by banishing him from his country after the bloody end of Clytsemnestra (v. 755). Sophocles on the contrary has preserved in addition an unquestionable feature of the old legend. He makes the bearer of the feigned intelligence of Orestes' death profess to come from Phanoteus the Phocian, a war-friend (Sopv&voc) of Clytsemnestra (El. 45, 670). Now this Phanoteus or Panopeus is no other than a hostile brother of Crisus, 2 and the hoary -headed sovereign of the city bearing the same name which, according to the local traditions, was the resort of all the giants and warriors who hated Apollo; as Tityus, Autolycus, Phorbas, and the Phlegyans. This Phanoteus therefore is the natural ally of Clytsemnestra, while all who desire to see the house of Agamemnon re-established by a righteous in- fliction of vengeance on his murderers look for support, as Electra does, to Strophius the Crissean. For the rest, it is pretty clear that Homer's silence about Orestes' residence at Crisa 3 proves nothing against the antiquity of the legend, for no one would think of taking Pylades for a character of later invention. 4 48. But notwithstanding such motives to vengeance, 1 Westrick, de Msch. Choeph. p. 191, holds this opinion. 2 Paus. ii. 29, 4, et al. 3 Od. hi. 307, vulg. * 4 In Pacuvius it was Pylades who conducted Orestes into the Delphic Temple for harbour and protection against the Erinnyes (Servius ad J£n. iv. 473). It is very remarkable also that in the mythus of Aristode- mus's death the sons of Pylades and the God Apollo are placed on an equality. DUTY OF ORESTES. 101 it would, according to Grecian conceptions, have been impious in Orestes to have pursued his mother, had she taken to flight ; whereas, daring as she did to sacrifice at the public altars, it was justifiable in the eye of the law, even of historical times, to put her to death on the spot. Nay, this summary vengeance in her case was absolutely necessary, seeing that recourse could be had to no higher powers for her punishment, herself and iEgisthus being supreme. Euripides, indeed, who in his criticism of the earlier Poets attacks even the my- thus itself, and ventures to cast the imputation of impiety on the accredited oracular behests of the Gods, asserts more than once 5 that Orestes ought to have brought his mother to public trial, and expelled her from the palace : to which suggestion ^Eschylus would probably have replied, that on the strength of iEgisthus' countenance and support she had already set all law at defiance, and had long since abandoned all thoughts of expiating her crime by flight. iEschylus, therefore, retaining as he did so much deeper an impression of the sacred duty of f blood for blood/ makes Orestes declare that, though he cannot but admit having violated a mother's rights (for otherwise his mother's Erinnyes could not have per- secuted him), still he never repented of the deed : /ecu devpo y ael Trjv Tvyyv ov fx^i^ofxai^ he exclaims before the Areopagus (v. 566). Euripides, on the contrary, exhibits Orestes as the remorseful sinner condemning his own deed as needless and impious: in his soft-hearted- ness he thinks that even his father, could he have been asked, would have bid him spare the murderess (Or. 283); nay, he apprehends in Apollo the voice of a spirit of evil (aXao-rwp) come to destroy mankind (v. 1685): ex- pressions of a weak and puling humanity derived not 5 Orest. 492. 102 DUTY OF OKESTES. from depth but from shallowness of feeling, and calculated to undermine the main pillars of Grecian religion and civil order. And yet even Euripides admits the hereditary duty of vengeance. His iEgisthus takes care not to marry Electra to a man of rank and power, lest the fruit of such a marriage should yet rouse the dormant spirit of vengeance. 1 49. So much for the vengeance wreaked by Orestes. Now, with respect to the vengeance directed against Orestes, the mythus, or, it may be, the suppletory hand of mythologists, invented all sorts of persons who might lawfully undertake and execute that duty; as, for instance, Clytsemnestra's father Tyndareus, or her cousin Perilaus, or iEgisthus' daughter Erigone. 2 ./Eschylus, however, 3 recognises only the Erinnyes as the pursuers of Orestes ; and, undoubtedly, the circumstance that the murderer and his rights are contrasted, not with human avengers, but with divine agents, personify- ing the accursedness of the deed itself, adds considerably to the effect and sublimity of the whole contest. More- over, the expulsion of Orestes from his country was peculiarly the office of the Erinnyes, and could not be lawfully undertaken by the relatives of the deceased, in- asmuch as Orestes was a constituted avenger of blood, and, therefore, justified in the act he had committed. We next proceed to take a somewhat nearer view of the picture of the fugitive homicide which iEschylus has delineated in its main features with so much clearness and vigour of expression. 1 El. 28, 39, 269. Cf. Soph. El. Natal. Com. Mytli. ix. 2. Creuzer, 964. Meletem. i. p. 82. 2 Eurip. Orest. Fragm. Accii Eri- 3 And also Hellanicus, Frag. 98, gon. Paus. viii. 34. Tzetz. in St. Lycophr. 1374. Etym. M. p. 42. POSITION OF THE FUGITIVE HOMICIDE. 103 c. Position of the fugitive Homicide. 50. The feelings with which the Greeks from the earliest times regarded the fugitive homicide were of quite a peculiar kind. On the one hand, the shedder of blood was avoided with a feeling of dread, like that with which in the East a leper was shunned. At Athens the prosecution for homicide began with debarring the criminal from all sanctuaries and assemblies consecrated by religious ob- servances ; nay, even in the judicial proceedings all the arrangements were made in such a way that there was no need to be under the same roof with him. The race of the Athamantida3 in Thessalian Achaia lay under the ban of a very ancient act of bloodshed, and on that account all of that race were prohibited from appearing in the Xrj'irov or Town-hall. 4 The blood- guilty individual himself, as though infected with a miasma, shunned all contact and conversation with other people, and avoided entering their dwellings. The pro- hibition against his addressing a word to any man is always a main characteristic in his treatment. 5 A frag- ment of one of Euripides' plays 6 has the words : T« aiyaq) fxwv tyovov tip upyavot)', and in another play of the same Poet, we find Orestes describing his reception at Athens in the following terms : eXflwj' c)' ekeloe, irpCoTa fxiy \x ovSeIq Ziviov ekujv ede^ad'tog Oeoiq aTvyovfiEVOV o'l & (.a^ov alZu), ^Evia fiovor paTrs^a jjloi TrapEa\ov, oikiov ovteq ev tclvto) ariyEi, (Tiyrj o' ETEKT7]VaVT CtnotydEyKTOP /J,', OTTOJQ dairog yEvoifirjv 7r(jjfxar6g r avruiv ^iyo.. K. r. A.. Iph. T. v. 947, sqq. (Dincl.) 4 Herodot. vii. 197. I Rh. iv. 693. Amphis in Athen. vi. 5 Eumen. 268, 426. Apollon. 224 E. Alexis ib. x. 421 E. 6 Schol. Eum. 272. 104 POSITION OF THE FUGITIVE HOMICIDE. a legend which at Athens, according to the testimony of Euripides and others, was brought into connexion with the origin of the convivial usages at the festival of the Choes. 1 51. On the other hand, however, the fugitive homicide was the object of a certain peculiar respect and awe, such as the principles of humanity among the ancient Greeks, required to be shown to every needy and dis- tressed person, without making inquiry about the cause of his distress. The blood-guilty fugitive everywhere appeared as an iKtrrig, one that demands protection; nay, it is probable that in the early times the term iKerrig was applied particularly to a person in that situation. As such he was entitled to a hospitable reception, as far as that was compatible with the feelings of dread above- mentioned. 2 He was to be treated with alSug, a term of the earlier Greek ethics which cannot be fully rendered in our modern languages ; the notions of awe and compassion are combined in it. It was the duty of every one ai($e'i(i6ai rov £kvov,Tov iKerrjv. The same word, alSuaOai, was used to denote the feeling with which the avenger pardons the object of his pursuit, and in the language of Attic law, the term was retained in the sense of making reconciliation after manslaughter. This strangely-mingled state of feeling is very deeply marked in a passage of the Iliad, where the feelings ex- cited in Achilles by the sudden entrance of old Priam are compared to it : TicrTos eVe- fii%€ OvaTols. Pindar. Pyth. ii. 32. 2 Pherecydes, Fragm. 69. 3 Coinp. Apollodor. iii. 13, 3. 4 '1£l, dyirr)s, dytcrreuo), also ayos or ayos (fear, or that which is to be feared), evayrjs, evayfjs, 7ravayf)s, also a£co (formed from c Ar by this same process, as pe'^co from 'PEr). As this a£eiv denotes reve- rence of that which is holy as well as dread of that which is wicked and polluting, so this double refe- rence pervades all these words. Comp. Hanovii Exercit. Crit. p. 11. HILASMOI AND KATHARMOI. 113 daemonic beings of the infernal world that the propiti- atory cultus properly and immediately appertained. 55. In the first place, as regards the often mentioned ZevQ MaA/^ioe, propitiatory Zeus : this Deity, in the cultus of the Attic gens Phytalidse, stood in combination with Demeter ; which circumstance of itself carries one to a Zeus Chthonios or Hades. 2 With this accords the circumstance that in the Attic cultus of Meilichian Zeus, the victims sacrificed were swine, the animals devoted to the Earth-Mother Demeter, and moreover as holocausts, just as was the practice in the service of Infernal Zeus : 3 in this way Xenophon on his return from Asia propiti- ated the God according to the rites of his country. 4 Moreover the sacrifices to Meilichian Zeus were held by night f and at Olympia a Zeus Chthonios stood near to a Zeus Katharsios, which again closely coheres with Zeus Meilichios. 6 Near akin to the Meilichios is un- doubtedly the Zeus Laphystios of the old Minyse, to the cultus of which God the mythi concerning the family of Athamas and the Argonautic expedition are so closely attached, that it is only from it they can be derived and explained. Zeus Laphystios is a grasping and devour- ing Power, a god of vengeance and death f his significant victim, the ram, often meets us again in offerings to the dead and in evocations of the Manes, even in the Odyssee. But what is most remarkable is, that the fleece of this propitiatory victim, which the terrified Phrixos ('the Shuddered) had suspended in the grove of 2 Pausan. i. 37, 2. 3. Comp. Plut. Thes. 12. 3 See on Virg. Mn. v. 253. 4 Anab. vii. 8, 4. 5. and Schneid. adl. 5 Pausan. x. 38, 4. 6 Pausan. v. 14, 6. 7 The name Aa (in d[i(f)LKa(f)r]s, Xa- (pvpov), as is also Xa/3pd?, which in signification is much related. Thus both explanations of the ancients are admissible, 'the devourer* and the ' putter to flight.' 114 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN Ares in a distant land, must be fetched back as a holy thing, while at the same time the soul of Phrixos must be brought home by means of an Anaclesis, 1 a ceremony derived from ancient times : for this procedure evidently is most closely connected with the circumstance that in the Attic ritual of propitiation for blood the fleece of the ram sacrificed to Zeus Meilichios, the Aiog kwSiov, 2 formed one of the principal means of atonement and purification (§. 59). Of a kindred nature was un- doubtedly the cultus of Zsvg u£ioc (Zeus of Flight), to whom Pausanias the Spartan sacrificed, in order to propitiate the soul of a girl whom he had killed. 56. In Zeus, the different, nay opposite sides of the world meet together, as in a culminating point; al- though, as to the predominant conception, a God of Heaven and of the Upper World, he appears in many of the more obscure and mystical kinds of worship as an infernal God, and therefore requiring to be propiti- ated. These opposite aspects recede further apart in Apollo, who is altogether a bright and pure God, manifesting himself in light and order. Yet even in the ritual of this God (not to mention the Hyacinthia) there is one festival of a clearly propitiatory character, 1 Pindar. Pyth. iv. 159, and in- terpp. 2 The same Dioskodion also oc- curs in expiatory solemnities relative to the seasons; for this was the name given to the skin of the victim sacrificed to Zeus Meilichios, with which were performed the icadapfxol (called IlofXTrcua or AioirofXTraia, Eustath. Od. xxii. p. 1935, 8. R.) at the end of Msemacterion (the Month of Storms): these Kadap/Aol plainly refer to the approaching storms of winter, which they were intended to propitiate. That the Atocr/ccoSea were also used at the Scirophoria (at the time of the summer solstice), tallies with the circumstance that the worshippers who sacrificed to Zeus Actseus on Mount Pelion at the beginning of the dog-days, girded themselves with fresh fleeces of rams (Dicsearch. Pelion). Here again are the old expiatory usages, by which Zeus as God of the hot weather is to be propitiated. See the rest concerning the Aios Koodiov (on which Polemo wrote) in Lobeck, Aglaopham. p. 183 sq. H1LASM0I AND KATHARMOl. 115 the Delphinia, at which Theseus was said to have pre- sented himself in the temple of Apollo Delphinios with seven boys and seven girls, in order to propitiate him ; which ceremony was observed even in later times; 3 so in Sicyon seven boys and as many girls conducted the propitiatory service of Apollo and Artemis. 4 But here again various considerations intimate that the Daemon to be propitiated and appeased was not properly Apollo but the Chthonian Dragon, the guardian of the old Earth-Oracle, with the slaying of which monster the Sicyonian cultus also is connected. Delphinia is doubt- less the Festival of the slaying of the Python, whose name, Delphin or Delphine, 5 preserved by the antiqua- rian poets of Alexandria, can have been derived by them only from old legends or religious poetry; although at that time, and indeed down from the time of the Homeric Hymnists, the notion connected with Apollo Delphinios was that of the marine Delphine and sea- voyages. But what decides for the assertion here advanced is, first, the circumstance that the Delphinia at Athens were held at the very time (6th and 7th Munychion) at which Apollo slew the dragon at Delphi (7th Munychion), on which ensues the Delphic Festival, the Pythia : 7 and secondly, that the Attic Court Delphi- nion took cognizance only of justifiable homicide; plainly an institution of very early times, when it was still generally understood that the Delphinios is the God 3 See esp. Plut. Thes. 18. 4 Pausan. ii. 7. 7. 5 AeXcjilvq, Apollon. Rhod. ii. 708. 4eX$iV, Schol. Eur. Phcen. 232. Tzetz. on Lye. 208. Etym. M. s. v. { Ekt](36Xos. But even from Ae\(f)ivr}, Ae\(f)lvios is according to analogy, as KvXkrjuios from KuX- Xrjvr). The fern. AiK^lvq better suits the notion of a dpaKaiva (Horn. H. Pyth. Apoll. 122) than 6 HvBoiv. 6 See also Artemidor. Oneirocr. ii. 35. 7 Boeckh. Corp. Inscrip. p. 814. The question whether the month Bysios corresponds with Elaphebo- lion, or not rather with Munychion, I here leave without discussion. 116 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN triumphing over the hostile serpent (§ 67). Now at Delphi dirges were sung over the grave of the Delphine ; Apollo himself must do every thing to appease the Dragon — must undergo exile and servitude; and thus it is very probable that the Delphinia also had this object. In Corinth too fourteen children were sent into the temple of Hera, where with shorn heads and black clothes they were to appease the children of Medea by penitential offerings and mournful hymns : l now these children of Medea are either themselves infernal powers, which is indicated by the name of one of them, Mermeros (the Dreadful 2 ); or, to forbear at present a deeper investigation of the origin of this my thus, at least they are infernal spirits and objects of alarm to the upper world. As the servitude of Apollo begins with the slaying of the Python, as the service of the fourteen Athenian children commences with the Delphinia; so the residence of the fourteen Corinthian children in the temple is a periodic servitude, and there- fore called cnrzviavTiafAOQ? In iEgina the festival Hydrophoria was held during the Delphinian month, as it was at Athens in Anthesterion, the month appointed in the Attic Calendar for the worship of the dead. It may be more conveniently proved in detail upon some other occasion, that these Hydrophoria in Greece were 1 Parmenisc. ap. Schol. Med. 273. Pausan. ii. 3, 6. Philostrat. Her. 19, 14, Gsetulicus in the Palatine An- thol. vii. 354. 2 In Apollodor. and Pausan. ii. 3, 6- The hideous shape of a woman on the grave of these children, called Aei/xa or AetjLi«»,is probably the Mop- fio> yvvrj Kopivdla of the Schol. Aris- tid. p. 18. Frommel. Those children and this Moreno kill little children.. 3 Hence it seems very probable that Androgeos, Eurygyes, Minotau- ros, who are propitiated by the four* teen Attic boys, are obscured forms of the monster hostile to Apollo. The tithes of men were undoubtedly sent as a peace-offering to the Chthonian Daemon overcome by Apollo. The Thessalians dedicated the like to Apollo KaTaifidrris, which I take to be, as Adolph Scholl (de Orig. Graeci Dramatis, p. 59) has with great penetration re- marked, the God descending into the infernal world. HILASMOI AND KATHARMOI. 117 generally vernal solemnities, at which water was poured into chasms, especially such as, according to the old legends, the earth-born brood of dragons proceeded from; the water was a mortuary and propitiatory offering for the death-gods overpowered by the energy of spring. On the one hand these water-pourings related, as one sees from the tenor of the legends, to the running off into these chasms of the unfertilising swamps left by the wintry torrents (avrXog, 7tAt? /m/uvpig) : on the other hand the pouring of water into trenches was conceived as a bath for the dead (ydoviov Xovrpov, airovijujua), and was in Greece a widely diffused ceremony of the worship paid to the dead. Now if these Hydrophoria came to be connected with the Delphinia, it is plain they must have belonged to the propitiatory ceremonies paid to the earth-dragon, which is said to have had its den in a cave of the Temple of Earth, in the low bottom of Delphi beside the source of the Styx. 3 Thus, then, in the cultus of Apollo also it appears that the hilastic ceremonies of the Grecian religion were not originally addressed to the serene Olympian Gods of the upper world, but to daemons belonging to a dark world and state of nature, repressed indeed, but still ob- jects of terror. Now as regards the customary expiation for blood, there can be no doubt that in this case the soul of the slain, which itself is now a Chthonian Daemon, the resentment (the Erinnys) of this soul, and in fine the 3 It was this fountain (of which also Plutarch speaks, de Pyth. Or. 17), and not, as is commonly sup- posed, the Castalian, that the Py- thian Dragon, guardian of the old Earth- Oracle, kept watch over. Here must have been the £d0€a avrpa SpdicovTos, Eurip. Phcen. 239. The fountain probably bore the name Delphusa (Steph. Byz. s. v. Ae\ayrj ai/j-arog) fell upon the hands of the slayer; thus the human blood which still cleaved to his hands was con- ceived to be washed away by the sacred swine's blood. 3 At Athens, women whom we otherwise find employed at sacrifices to the dead, the Enchytristrise, are actively engaged in this rite ; they received the swine's blood in vessels and poured it over the culprit. 4 In this pro- cedure the person to be purified stood on the fleece of the ram sacrificed to Zeus Meilichios, 5 that primeval symbol of expiation and redemption from divine wrath 1 See J. Grimm, Deutsche Recht- salterthiiiner, p. 670. foil. 2 So likewise in the lustrations of the Pnyx by the Peristiarchi be- fore the opening of the Ecclesia, and of the Council-Hall before the admission of the new Bouleutse (orav elo-iepai fieXkaxriv, elcrir-q- pia). Here, it seems, the swine were previously castrated ; as indeed it was a common practice for the Manes and Infernal Powers to re- ceive hostias exsectas. We read of a sort of worthless vagabonds, called Triballi, who prowled about the ccBinceferales of Hecate, to make a meal of them, that they scrambled for these op\eis when flung away, and ate them ! Demosth. c. Conon. p. 1269. 3 Eumenid. 273, 427, and more in detail in Apollon. Rhod. iv. 704. 4 Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 301. comp. Lobeck Aglaopham. p. 682. * Hesysch. s. v. Atos ko>Siov Phry- nichus in Bekker Anecd. p. 7. HILASMOI AND KATHARMOI. 125 (§ 55.) ; the washed-off blood was then collected in the fleece and from that scattered out. 6 The funda- mental idea on which all this rests is the endeavour to bring the individual, to whom the expiation is adminis- tered, into the closest possible contact and most intimate connexion with the victim which is his vicarial repre- sentative ; for the same reason, the parties concerned in oaths and covenants solemnized with sacrifice, stood on the limbs of the dismembered victim — the type of what their fate should be if they violated their pledges — dipped their hands into the bason of blood, and perhaps, when the oath was meant to be peculiarly awful, even tasted a little of the blood. Besides the blood, water was used, which as a means of lustration also entered into the ordinary sacrifices to the dead (§ 56.) It is Achelous, the mighty river (whose name in fact denotes water), that purifies Alc- mseon from the stain of his mother's blood; 7 in the case of Orestes also the streams of water wherewith he was purified are often mentioned f in particular, the oracle is said to have directed him to the seven rivers of Rhegium. The water with which the offender had been purified, called the Aponimma, was poured out in some appointed spot f from the lustral water so poured out (Xv/LLciTa,) after Orestes's purification at Troezen, a laurel, we are told, sprung up : a miracle which is sup- posed to be the subject of a picture on an ancient vase. 10 60. Now that we have thus distinguished between This is evidently the meaning of nrjo-eis to the cultus of Zevs 7rpo(r- d7ro8io7rofX7T€l(T0aL as a rite of nadap- a is- See Timseus Lex. Plat. s. v. and Rnhnken ad 1. Phrynich. s. v. in Bekker, Anecd. p. 7. Of the pas- sages from Plato, Legg. ix. 877 re- fers specially to the expiation for blood ; and the Seholl. on the Cra- tylus and on Legg. ix. p. 120, 14, Bekk. appropriate the dnobioTrofi- Tpbiraios. 7 Apollod. hi. 7, 5. comp. 15, 8. 8 Eum. 430. comp. Pausan. ii. 31, 11. 9 Athen. ix. p. 410. Eustath. on Od.i.l37.p.l401. Pv.,comp. Apollon. Rh. iv. 710. 10 Laborde, Vases de Lcmberg, pi. 14. 126 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN the two ceremonies, the belief on which they are grounded presents itself clearly to view, and in a con- nexion which has its roots in the fundamental ideas of all Grecian religion. In Hilasmos, the beings atoned and propitiated are the powers of the infernal world, the Chthonian divi- nities, the Erinnyes, the Manes of the slain. Supreme over the whole presides Zeus — at once a celestial and a chthonian God. As Meilichios he must be atoned and propitiated. He becomes a purifying God, Katharsios, partly as he is an incensed Meilichios, partly as God of the house and of such as approach it in the character of suppliants (Zeus Herkeios, Ephestios, Xenios, Hikesios 1 ). Even in Solon's Laws Zeus, as a God of solemn oaths and covenants, was named Hikesios, Katharsios, and Exakesterios. 2 As protector and re- ceiver of prostropsei he is himself named Upoarpo- 7raiog. 3 But after all, the true and proper Purifier, according to the ancient institution of Themis, is none other than Phoebus- Apollo, the radiant God, who teaches to over- come the terrors of the darksome world by heroic con- flict or rites of averruncation ; he, whose festivals in all parts of Greece are connected with purifications of men and countries ; who in the mythi belonging to his worship himself submits to expiation and purification ; 1 Comp. Herodot. i. 44. 2 Pollux viii. 142. Comp. Eur. Here. F. 925. 3 As TrpocrrpoTratos, therefore, denotes both him who TrpoaTpeirerai, and him to whom a person rrpoo-- Tp€7T€rai, so the words formed from ikco have the same twofold significa- tion. Not only the suppliants are luerai, l/tropes (hence iKropeveiv Sophoel. ap. Hesych.) dcpUropes, but Zeus also is iKroop, or iKTijp, dcptKTcop, iEsch. Suppl. i. 474. Hence I explain Eumen. 118. My enemies have found 7rpoaiKTopas, i.e. Gods who protect them as npocr- (.KTopas. Moschion (ap. Arsen. p. 363. Walz.) calls the staff of the hiketes borne by Orestes, npoo-lKTrjv BaXkov. HILASMOI AND KATHARMOI. 127 whose ancient paeans, or religious hymns, were originally without doubt chaunts of expiation. He it is, who exterminates the monsters, the swarming dragon-brood sent up by the powers of the earth and the infernal world in their wrath because of ancient guilt, 4 banishes contagion and pestilence, the hostile operations of the same Gods, and brings order, light and welfare in their stead. To him his priestess justly leaves it to purify his own temple ; as Iatromantis and portent-seer he can account for the presence of these terrific beings and do away the curse which evoked them ; as Katharsios he can remove the pollution they have occasioned, vv. 62, 63 ; a combination of ideas which, though in the earlier poetry, it is not expressed in the same way, is as old as the Apollinary cultus itself. 61. We do not mean to deny that other divinities also administer purification, of which probably Hermes and Athena /ire instances in the old heroic poem, the Danais : 5 but we maintain that in no other cultus does purification form so important a feature, so integral a portion of the religious service, as in that of Apollo. Achilles makes a voyage from Troy to Lesbos, as Arc- tinus (in Proclus) relates, in order to be purified, at a distance from the camp, in the temple of Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, from the blood of a fellow-combatant. It is a fine trait in the legend of Heracles, that the hero, when seeking to be purified from the blood of Iphitus, is refused by the Pylian Neleus, but is entertained by Deiphobus of Amyclse, 6 and by him actually purified : 4 Conip. on Eumen. 62. the beau- tiful passage Suppl. 265. concerning Apis. Apis (i. e. v Hins, "Hmos) is the son of Apollo ; he comes from northern Greece and purifies Pelo- ponnese. As he, an larpo/jLavris, exterminates the KvoodaXa ftporocp- Bopa, the dpaKcov opuXos, so the Pythoness will have Apollo, as Iatro- mantis, destroy those KpotdaXa, the Erinnyes. 5 Apollod. ii. 1, 5. 6 Apollod. ii. 6, 2. 128 PURIFICATION OF ORESTES. which is clearly meant to indicate Amyclse, that spot peculiarly sacred to Apollo as the place where from the time of the heroes a suppliant for purification always found a peculiarly kind reception. The cultus of Dionysos has also its ritual of expiation and purification — the connecting link here being the idea of the Chthonian God, Dionysos-Zagreus — a ritual which was subsequently formed by the men of Orpheus into a peculiar ascetic discipline. But although the Dionysian Katharsis (through its common origin in the cultus of the chthonian powers) may blend at its source with that of Apollo, yet the religion of Dionysos forms, in Greece, an independent system of itself, so detached from public life, that a momentous political institution like that of expiation for blood can by no means have been derived from such a quarter. In all orgiastic religions Katharsis is, no doubt, an important feature : the Dionysian Katharsis, in particular, releases from the Dionysian mania, the frenzy of the Baccheia, as it did the God Dionysos himself according to Eumelus, and as it did the Prcetidse according to ancient poems ; but that it also frees from pollution of blood I can find no evidence. 1 Concerning the Dionysian Katharsis as a point of great importance for the history of tragic poetry, I shall find occasion to say somewhat in a subsequent part of these Essays. c. Purification of Orestes. 62. The virtue of Apollinary expiations is strikingly exhibited in the mythic tale of Orestes. The story of 1 Compare Hoeckh, Kreta iii. p. 235 foil. 266 foil.— It is true Poly- idos, the Melampodide, exercises at once the expiation for blood and the cultus of Dionysos, Pausan. i. 43, 5 ; but that does not prove a systematic connexion between them. PURIFICATION OF ORESTES. 129 his residence at Delphi, whence he sets out as avenger of blood, and whither he returns in the character of prostropseus, is undoubtedly of very ancient origin. The representation of the Crissean Pylades as his faith- ful companion, and of Orestes himself as defender of the Pythian temple against Pyrrhus, indicates a close con- nexion between the hero and the God, such as I cannot account for otherwise than by referring it to actual historical relations and matters of fact. The glory, however, of having cleansed Orestes from his guilt was claimed by several other temples, especially by such as were consecrated to Apollo; in the same way as the tale of his persecution was repeated in different temples of the Erinnyes. Thus (1) Orestes is said to have spent the period of his exile among the Azanes in Parrhasia, a district of Arcadia, and the natives derived the term Orestium from his name. 2 In this district, which abounded in very ancient temples of the Earth-goddesses, there was shown, as late as the time of Pausanias, a temple of the mad Goddesses (Manise), not far from the site which Megalopolis subsequently occupied: here it was that Orestes was seized with madness, and in his delirium bit off one of his fingers, to which also there was a monument erected (Sa/cruAou fivrj/ma) : further on was a spot called ''Akt? (Healing), where the Goddesses were said to have appeared to him, on that occasion, white, and where as Eumenides they had a temple. It was farther related that to the black Erinnyes Orestes offered kvayiajxaray and dvaiai to the white. In con- junction with these deities there were sacrifices offered to the Charites. (2) Upon the overthrow of Mycenae by the Argives in 01. 97, a portion of the Myceneans fled to Cerynea in Achaia, and, as usual in such cases, 2 Eurip. Orest. 1663. Tzetz. Lye. 1374. G 3 130 PURIFICATION OF ORESTES. carried with them their forms of worship and the mythi connected with them. Hence arose the report that in Cerynea there was a temple built and consecrated by Orestes to the Eumenides, who made every offender mad r 1 Orestes was said to have converted them from Erinnyes into Eumenides by holocausts of black sheep — so ran the legend, transferred from Mycenae to Cerynea. 2 (3) In Laconia, there was a rude stone on which (it was said) Orestes happening to sit down, experienced an alleviation of his madness : it was called f the Stone of Assuaging Zeus, Zzvg Kcnnrwrag). 3 (4) The purification, however, was said to have been performed upon Orestes at Troezen, otherwise celebrated as a place of expiation for blood, by nine men in front of the temples of Apollo and Artemis. 4 (5) But the inhabitants of Khegium, who derived their origin partly from Chalcis and partly from Messenia, and called themselves sacred colonists of Apollo, also claimed for themselves and their seven rivers the honour of having performed this ceremony. 5 These, and perhaps also the traditions that Argos, in the country of the Macedonian Orestse, was founded by Orestes in the course of his wanderings, 6 were probably the stories which iEschylus had before him. No doubt the Greeks, in conveying their mythi with them in their 1 Paus. vii. 25, 4. 2 For there is no doubt that in the Schol. (Ed. C. 42, instead of iv Kapvviq, the reading of the Cod. Laurent., which was changed into iv Kapviq, iv Kapvq (by the (rocjid)- raros Triclin.) we ought to read Kepvveiq. 3 Paus. iii. 22. 1., and Siebelis in I. 4 Paus. ii. 31, 7, 10. Cf. i. 22, 2. The Rhegian legend is discussed by Fr. W. Schneidewin in a learned treatise, Diana Phacelitis et Ores- tes apud Rheginos et Siculos, Gott. 1832. From the Messenian colony the Rhegians derived the cultus of the Orthian or Tauric Artemis ; but this must even then have been con- nected in Laconia with the story of Orestes in the form in which we find it at a later period. 6 The passages from Strabo and others may be found in Raoul-Ro- chette, Hist, de l' Etablissement des Col. Gr. V. ii. p. 451. PURIFICATION OF ORESTES. ]31 migrations to all parts of the ancient world, and every- where attaching them to localities of their new abodes, added to the original story a number of fictitious circumstances resting for the most part upon mere ety- mology: for instance, the Cappadocian mountain Amanon was marked as the place of liberation from madness ; Comana, as the spot where the hair was shorn, and so on. 7 iEschylus also goes upor. the supposition of several acts of purification having been performed upon Orestes, the first and principal of them at Delphi, very shortly after the commission of the deed; 8 but there is an evident allusion to several in the passage, 7raAcu 7rp6g aWoig ravr acptepwineda oiKotcri, kcu floral. vocal pvroiQ nopotg. v. 429. Cf. 220. 275. Before other temples, he says, because an unhallowed person was not admitted into the abodes of Gods or men. Hence the cabin in which Orestes sojourned at Troezen stood in front of the temple of Apollo, and the trials for blood at Athens were held not in, but near the Delphinium, Prytaneum, &c. In the long interval of time which must be imagined between v. 225 and 226, Orestes visits even remote countries beyond the seas (77. 241.) : probably the reference is to Rhegium, although the Rhegian legend places the arrival of Orestes after his Tauric wanderings. The Tauric voyage of Orestes, as also the return of Iphigenia with him, is entirely omitted by iEschylus, as foreign to the develop- ment of his plot : how Euripides and others connected it with the legend of the Areopagus is a question which 7 Raoul-Roch. ib. iv. p. 399. There was, however, in Cappadocia, a family of priests called Orestiadce, as appears from an inscription found in the Catacombs of Thebes. Trans- actions of the Royal Soc. ofLiterat. V. ii. 1. 8 Choeph. 1031. Eum. 272. 132 PURIFICATION OF ORESTES. does not fall within the compass of our present inquiry. But that a considerable period of time had elapsed between the sojourn at Delphi and the arrival at Athens, our Poet himself intimates to his audience, where he says that besides the purifications and intercourse with mankind the very lapse of time must have removed all stain from Orestes (276). 63. A greater difficulty may appear to he in the cir- cumstance that, although the purification of Orestes restores him without spot or stain to the intercourse with men and Gods, it does not rid him of the Erinnyes, nor even mitigate the keenness of their resentment against him. This difficulty cannot perhaps be satis- factorily cleared up in any other way than by the distinction we have above drawn between expiation and purification for blood. Orestes is no longer a polluted person, and therefore no longer an outcast from society : he now appears internally also more tranquillized than at the conclusion of the Choephoroe ; he has no stain of blood upon his hands or upon his conscience. But the resentment, of his mother's Manes, of the infernal powers, the Erinnyes, is not yet removed ; it is for the Gods to rescue Orestes from that by a formal trial. Fundamentally, indeed, the two considerations, which iEschylus here separates, are one and identical; for the curse of the infernal powers manifests itself in the dis- tracted condition of the criminal, and their appeasement brings with it his purification, which clears the gloom from his countenance and restores him to human society. But, in the process of the positive development, these ideas, intimately as they were connected in the first instance, had become separate ; therefore iEschylus was at liberty to exhibit Orestes as purified, and yet under the ban of those infernal powers; and the more so, as it is probable that, although the rites of purification might PURIFICATION OF ORESTES. 133 be administered in foreign states, the soul of the murdered person could in general be appeased only in the country where the deed was done, where the grave of the slain was situated. Hence it is that iEschylus never makes mention of that part of the rites which has expiation for its object; namely, sacrifices to the Erinnyes and to the dead, melicrata, and the ram of Zeus Meilichios, but constantly confines himself to the ceremonies of purification — though, where the whole was complete, the latter were only a continuation of the former. It must be confessed that, if the deep and heartfelt truth which speaks in the primitive legend is somewhat obscured even in this modification of it, still, iEschylus has so managed the story, that, whether one reads it as an ordinary narrative of facts, or even medi- tates on its ethical and religious ideas, all is as consistent and consequent as it well could be, compatibly with the ultimate aim of his composition. C. COURTS FOR THE TRIAL OF HOMICIDE, AND THE JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS. a. The Attic Courts and Tribunals. 64. We will begin this Section, as we did that on the Avenging of blood and pursuit of the bloodshedder, by giving a concise description of the institutions of historical times, with which we are better acquainted; and then go back to the more obscure regions of the earlier ages. By Solon's Code the jurisdiction in cases of blood was committed to two several Colleges, the Areopagus and the Ephetcs. The Areopagus, or, more correctly speaking, the Council on the Hill of Ares (17 tv 'Apeiio 7rayw j3oi»Xt)), consisted of such as had held the dignity 134 ATTIC COURTS AND TRIBUNALS of Archon, and whose conduct in that station had been irreproachable. According to Solon's regulation, none but the rich could fill the office of Archon, and those only by election ; but after the time of Aristides every Athenian was eligible to it by the falling of the lot. The Areopagus was intended for the supreme court in cases of homicide, as it took cognisance of wilful murder (6voq sKovaioQ or e/c irpovoiaq), as also for malicious attempt to kill, by maiming, poisoning, and arson. The Ephetse were fifty-one men, above fifty years of age, of noble family (apiariv^riv), and eligible only on the ground of irreproachable character. They sat as a collective body in one or other of the four several courts of justice. 1 In cases of manslaughter they held their sittings at the Palladium ; in cases of justifiable homi- cide (such as killing another in self-defence, taking the fife of an adulterer in vindication of family honour, killing a tyrant, a thief, or robber, and also man- slaughter in the gymnastic games), they met at the Delphinium. Sometimes their sittings were held at the Prytaneum, where by a singular old custom judg- ment was passed on the instruments of murder in cases where the perpetrator of the act was either not forth- coming or not detected. Lastly, when a person who had gone into temporary exile for manslaughter was indicted for murder, they held trial upon him at Phreatto or Zea. 2 In this particular case the defendant 1 This is the meaning of 7repi- iovtcs in Photius. In Suidas, Zonaras and the Scholia on Dem. c. Aristocr. p. 98 R, this expression, from a misconception of the abbre- viation Tt.iovTes (= Trepuovres) has been changed into 7/ (=■ oybor)- Kovra) ovres. 2 These are undoubtedly identi- cal. Phreatto was the name given to a spot of ground, et-aOev rod ILeipaiws (Helladius in Phot. My- riob. p. 535 Bek.) Zea was the most inland and northern of the three havens at the Piraeus, but so situated that at one spot it was separated from an outer bay only by a narrow tongue of land : it was on this the court of justice stood. See Stuart's or Kruse's plan, PL ill. § 3. In Wachsmuth's Antiqq. in. p. 320, a slight correction is needed. FOR CASES OF HOMICIDE. 135 pleaded his cause on board ship, being prohibited from landing by the vengeance awaiting blood : if con- demned, his uTrzviavTiGfAOQ became a banishment for life (§ 44). 65. Now if it be asked why Solon committed the cognisance of wilful murder, and that of the last specified kinds of homicide, to two diiferent courts, we may first of all confidently answer thus much, that it was not because such a severance had been customary in Greece from the earliest times. For, to say nothing of the very slight distinction made in the earlier times between wilful murder and manslaughter (§ 52), there is not a trace to be found in all Greece of such a severance of jurisdictions, and it must be admitted that in practice it would necessarily give rise to many inconveniences and circuitous procedures. The nature of the case, as well as all historical analogy, obliges us to assume that in the first instance, even in Attica, the same authorities (although perhaps at different tribunals) investigated the degree of heinousness attaching to an act of homicide, and determined whether it ought to be punished with death — with which, in the view of the Greeks, perpetual banish- ment stood pretty nearly on a par — or whether it might be atoned for by a temporary avoidance of one's native land, and consequently was capable of expiation at home. In these last words we assign at the same time the reason why the court of Ephetse was separated from the Areopagus, and it needs but one step more to arrive at the conclusion that this separation could only have been brought about by Solon. Namely : The atonement for blood and purification of the bloodshedder came under the Sacred Law of Athens (the upa Kal ocna), which remained in the hands of the old nobility even after they had lost their political authority (the proofs of this will be given in the following Section on the Exegetse) : 136 ATTIC COURTS AND TRIBUNALS so that the administration of the rites of expiation could not be taken away from the old aristocracy of Athens, even when the constitution underwent in other respects a complete change. None but an aristocratic court was competent to pronounce an act of homicide expiable, and itself to preside over the rites of expiation and cleansing. Accordingly, the cases reserved for decision of that court were those in which a person was accused of unpremeditated manslaughter — for here expiation came in after the flight : further, where the plea put in by the accused was that of justifiable homicide — in this case there was no punishment, nor was the indi- vidual obliged to flee his country, 1 but still it was neces- sary, at least in certain cases, 2 that he should undergo purification : further, the case in which an unpremedi- tated was followed by a premeditated act of homicide, it being then a question whether expiation were still admissible or not : and lastly, the formalities observed in holding judgment on the weapon with which blood had been shed, since these formalities necessarily devolved upon the managers of ancient rites of expiation. As wilful murder, on the contrary, could not be expiated but by the hand of the executioner — such no doubt was the principle expressed in the stern Qsa/moi of Draco — there was no need in this case to refer to expositors of ancient Sacred Law ; so that Solon was at liberty here to vest the cognisance of such cases in a corporate body which, in accordance with the spirit of his legislation, 1 He was said to commit the act VT)7roLve\, Dem. c. Aristocr. p. 637, 639. Killing of a fiords was deemed no 6vos : Lys. de Era- tosth. Csed. § 30. 2 This is seen quite clearly by comparing the law in Demosthenes with Plato, Legg. ix. p. 865 : el' ns iv aycovi Kal a&kois drjfioaioLs aKcov — a,7reKT€ive — Kadapdels Kara top e< Ae\(p£)p KOfiLcr$€VTa nepl rov- TOiv vopov eo-Tco Kadapos. This applies to the cases in which ven- geance was not allowed. On the other cases Plato's expression ix. p. 874) is not quite definite. FOR CASES OF HOMICIDE. 137 he formed out of the most affluent of the Athenian citizens who had filled the office of Archon, and which, as he himself expressed it, he intended to make the anchor of his Constitution. 66. If the matter be viewed in this light, it seems impossible to doubt that the separation of the court of Ephetae from the Areopagus took place at a period when 'the domination of the Athenian nobility was brought to an end, and stripped of whatever could be withdrawn from it, consistently with the respect for religious tradi- tions. And such a period, we know, was precisely the age of Solon. Besides these reasons, there are others of a subordinate kind which lead to the same result. 3 Thus, in Pollux, we find it stated, probably upon Aristotle's authority, that the Ephetae formerly ad- ministered justice in five courts, not in four only: and Draco, in his laws, never spoke of any but Ephetae, although the antiquity of the jurisdiction held by the Areopagus, in cases of bloodshed, is attested by so many legends, and admitted also by Aristotle (Pol. n. 9). These circumstances also lead us to infer the early existence of a Senate at Athens, invested, like the Spartan Gerusia, with the jurisdiction in cases of homi- cide, and encroaching upon the office of avenging blood, as far as the views of the age, resting as they did upon a religious basis, allowed such interference. This council, which also watched over the preservation of morals and good order, and, no doubt, had in the first instance great administrative power, had, in reference to its 3 See Luzac JExercitt. Acad. Spec. iii. p. 181. Platner Process und Klagen, vol. i. p. 21. Scho- mann, however, takes a different view of the matter (Attischer Pro- cess, p. 15.) He is of opinion that Draco took the cognisance of homi- cide entirely out of the hands of the Areopagus and transferred it to the Ephetae. But would not this have been a material change in the Con- stitution, such as we are told, upon the testimony of Aristotle, was no part of Draco's design ? 138 ATTIC COURTS AND TRIBUNALS cognisance of actions for homicide the title of Ephetse fE^frat,) 1 a term more correctly derivable from the permission of blood-vengeance, than from the appeal of the accused against it, inasmuch as the very point on which all depends in this branch of the judicature is how far the slayer should be given up to the vengeance of the relatives, or rescued from it. This title occurred so frequently in Draco's laws, that it gave rise to the opinion which we find in Pollux, that Draco instituted the college of Ephetse. While on these grounds we deem the separation into different courts to be of later date, and to have arisen out of the political views of after-times ; on the other hand, we hold the distinction of different tribunals for different degrees and kinds of crimes and guilt to be of very ancient origin, inasmuch as the choice of these tribunals has reference to religious ideas, which carry us back to times in which the various Grecian worships were in course of formation, whereas, in later times, these ideas had become obscured and fallen into oblivion. We may be permitted to pursue this subject somewhat further. 67. The worst cases of murder were tried on the Hill of Ares, whose temple was at the top, and that of the Erinnyes at the bottom of the hill (infr. §. 88). Judg- ment was there held on such as had broken the peace by maliciously murdering a citizen. 2 The special resent- ment of the deceased, the Erinnys (§ 77), rested upon 1 'Ecperai, ol icpidcn rat dvftpo- (povco rbv avbprjkaT-qv. The expla- nation of e(p€Tr]s as ' a person ap- pealed to' is not authorised by the instances of nouns in — rrjs in a passive sense ; as deiyeverai deoi in Homer, y everr] $ and yevereipa in the sense of son and daughter, in the Tragedians and Euphorion, Kacrao- berets in Pindar, evbvrrjp 7re7r\os in Sophocles, &c. 2 Such acts were supposed to be done at the instigation of "Aprjs epepvXios or *Kpr)s ndaa-os, as iEschylus calls it, Eum. 335. FOR CASES OF HOMICIDE. 139 such an one ; and to that Erinnys he was abandoned, if his guilt was clearly proved. In the Areopagus, says Euripides, the murderer must render their just rights to the nameless Goddesses ($ikt?j> Trapavyuv raig avwvv- fjoig Ozci'lq, Iph. T. 951). The accused takes oath by these Goddesses in particular. 3 If acquitted, he is with- drawn from their power, and sacrifices to them in their neighbouring temple, as appeased divinities; 4 if con- demned, he is abandoned to the Erinnys, which he has provoked, and to the God of War whom he has roused. This connexion of the cultus of the Erinnyes with the court of Areopagus is also exhibited in the story of Epimenides, in which it is related that this Cretan priest, having to expiate the pollution brought upon the country by former deeds of blood, let loose some black and some white sheep from the Areopagus, and sacrificed them on the spot whither they had run, to the divinities who seemed to desire the sacrifice (rw Tr^oa^Kovn 9ew), and at the same time built a temple to the Dread God- desses or Erinnyes. In reality, however, their temple was founded unquestionably at an earlier date. 5 But how this connexion is based upon the earliest history of the Grecian worships, I shall endeavour to show in the next section. Cases of unpremeditated homicide were tried at the Palladium. The term Palladium in Grecian antiquity is not applied to any or every statue of the Goddess Pallas- Athena f it is only to a certain particular repre- 3 Dinarch. c. Demosth. § 47. 4 Paus. i. 28, 6. 5 Lobon of Argos in Diogen. Laert. i. 10, 112. To Epimenides is also ascribed the erection of the pillars to "Yfipis and 'Avaideia on the Areopagus. Clemens Alex. Protrept. p. 22 Potter. 6 The statue of Athena Polias in the citadel was never called by the Athenians themselves IlaWadiov, but to dpxaiov ayakp-a to iv 7roXei, to ttjs Jlokiddos, to 7ra\ai6v fipeTas, and in the Plynteria (the holy wash- ing) to e8os (to dpxcuov) Trjs y A0r}- vas. Vid. Xen. Hell. i. 4, 12. Plut., 140 ATTIC COUETS AND TRIBUNALS sentation, which at an early date had assumed a typical character, of Pallas Bellatrix, that this name attaches; the reason of which must be sought in the meaning of the name Pallas itself. By Palladia we must always understand figures of Pallas in a standing posture, with the iEgis, and with shield and spear advanced. At one period the Greek legends placed all such statues of Pallas in connexion with Troy: every town that possessed an old wooden image of the above description boasted of having had it from Troy: and the same origin was claimed for the Attic one in legends of various kinds, all of them, however, agreeing in this one point. 1 This Athenian Palladium was in the southern quarter of the city, 2 and the care of it was entrusted to the ancient Attic family of the Buzygi, as appears from an old legend, and an inscription of later date, 3 coinciding with each other. Now this Trojan Palladium is connected with a tradition, which though known to us from no earlier author than Apollodorus, is, unquestionably, of ancient origin, that the Goddess Athena having killed one of her playmates, Pallas, in exercises of arms, made the Palladium in memory of her. Moreover, this Trojan Palladium (which was pro- bably quite distinct from the statue in the citadel of Ilium, this latter being described by Homer as in a sitting posture), is said to be placed on the hill of Ate, A where the abode of Cassandra was situated; 5 the reason for this was, because the statue owed its origin to Ate, or a temporary derangement of mind. Little as this Alcib. 34. Hesych. s. v. Upagiep- yibai. On the other hand the image in Ilium was called to ttjs 'Adrjvas edos, o UaXkdbiov KaXovai, Appian Mithrid. c. 53. (e'dos means here generally an ibpv}i(vov, a con- secrated image as in Corp. Inscr. 491.) The image of Pallas Alalco- mene is also called a Palladium. 1 Creuzer Symbol, vol. ii. p. 600 sqq. (German.) 2 Plut. Thes. 27. 3 Corp. Inscrip, ii. 491. 4 Apollod. iii. 12, 3. 5 Lycophr. 29. FOR CASES OP HOMICIDE. 141 part of the mythi about Pallas has hitherto been un- riddled, thus much at least is clear, that the Palladia in general were connected with the notion of homicide committed without malice aforethought, under the mo- mentary influence of Ate (§ 45, 52); and on that account the court adjoining the Palladium was deemed by the Athenians the fittest tribunal for such cases. 6 Similarly the Delphinian Apollo, near whose temple the third tribunal of the Ephetse was situated, was con- nected with the notion of justifiable homicide. Apollo is called Delphinios, as slayer of the AeXtyivri, the hostile serpent Python (§. 56). This was a lawful act, although the God fled in consequence, and underwent purification (§. 65). Hence cases of justifiable homicide were brought before the tribunal contiguous to the temple of the Delphinian Apollo. But clear as this connexion is, it must have been lost sight of by the Athenians at an early period, since the notion of Apollo Delphinios as a conducting God, sweeping over the seas in the form of a dolphin, very soon prevailed. Thus, on the one hand, the circumstance of the tribunal of the Ephetae being at the Delphinium is an evident proof that by Apollo Delphinios the slayer of the serpent was originally meant; and on the other hand, the early disappearance of this conception of the Delphinian Apollo clearly attests the antiquity of the Ephetic Courts. The Prytaneum was from time immemorial, as its name implies, the place of assembly for the Prytanes, 6 This notion of unintentional homicide recurs also in the legends ahout the manner in which the Palladium came to Athens. The Argives deputed to convey this Pal- ladium were killed upon their land- ing in the Phalerian Harhour, un- known who they were. Hence they were worshipped under the title of ayvcores. (Pollux viii. 118. 6eo\ ciyvatcrroi Kal rjpoats in Phaleron, Paus. i. 1, 4. Cf. Siebelis in I.) See Phanodem. ap.Suid. eVt IlaAAaSt^), and others. 142 ATTIC COURTS AND TRIBUNALS the presidents for the time being of the Supreme Council. Consequently it had probably been at some time or other the tribunal for political offences, obscure traces of which are to be found in a law of Solon's and the decree of Patroclides. 1 The Ephetse, however, usually held only those sham -trials there, especially that on the axe of the Diipolia. The reason for this is perhaps to be sought in local circumstances. The reason why the fourth, formerly the fifth, tri- bunal of the Ephetic Court was in Phreatto, at the Peirseeus, is evident. 68. In the poetical treatment of an ancient legend we do not require a literal agreement with a real his- torical state of things; the main point is that the fundamental idea be intrinsically true. In the present instance, however, any representation of the Areopagus differing from the existing state of that institution would instantly have struck every well-informed spectator, and so have materially counteracted the Poet's design of influencing his own generation and supporting this Court of Judicature against its adversaries. This would have been the case for instance, had the Areopagus been wholly an institution of Solon's, which it appears from the preceding elucidations it was not. It is true the Ephetse, as the Eupatridic Assize of Expiation, strike us on the one hand rather as a remnant of the ancient Gerusia, which formerly gave judgment in all cases of homicide; but then on the other hand the Areopagus 1 Plut. Solon 19. Andoc. de Myster. § 77. Hence it appears that before the time of Solon, and perhaps even afterwards, on parti- cular occasions, the authors of mas- sacres (crcjiayels) and insurrections tending to the establishment of tyranny were tried in the Pryta- neum before the fiaaikels (the cj)v\o- Pao-ikels, I suppose, who may have been identical with the Prytanes in the first instance, and subsequently had to do with the sham -trials at the Prytaneum.) FOR CASES OF HOMICIDE. 143 had preserved the union of Council and Court of Justice, which characterized it upon its first institution ; and, as it still maintained its credit, whilst the Ephetic Courts sank more and more in the public estimation, it was natural that all those old legends and mythi should be made to redound solely to the glory of the Areopagus. Thus it appears that the legend of Orestes's acquittal by the Areopagus could not possibly be a matter of surprise to any Athenian at all conversant with history. That it was the invention of iEschylus himself, as a modern scholar has supposed, is perfectly incredible : besides, Hellanicus, a contemporary of iEschylus, relates that this Court awarded sentence not only to Orestes, but to many other heroes and even Gods before him. These legends iEschylus lets quite alone ; the my thus of Orestes was so famous that, quite in the manner of legend, it was possible to refer the very institution of the Court to this sentence, as the first pronounced by it. To have assumed the Areopagus as already exist- ing would scarcely have accorded with iEschylus's plan ; he was obliged to make his poem serve for a record of the institution of this sacred and divine tribunal. Neither did his views allow him to represent the twelve Gods as the first Judges in this Court, as Demosthenes relates of them f the citizens of Athens were to be the first in- vested with that important office, and must receive it from the hands of Athena. As usual, there were numerous legends on this point at variance one with another; the Argives also claimed for an ancient tri- bunal in their city the fame of Orestes' s trial (Eur. Or. 862. c. Scholl). But the high consideration of the Areopagus among the Greeks appears upon the whole to have prevailed, and to have established the priority of the Attic legend. c. Aristocr. p. 641, 644. 144 THE JUDICIAL PBOCEEDINGS 69. The only circumstance one might be apt to wonder at is that, though all the above mentioned tribunals for the trial of homicide were of very early origin, the legend of Orestes was attached to the Areo- pagus and not to the Delphinium. The cases tried before this latter tribunal were f when a person pleaded justifiable homicide/ and Demosthenes cites Orestes him- self as an instance in point. Nevertheless, according to the more ancient view, which concerns itself less with set distinctions and definitions than with the considera- tion of the internal aspect of the thing done and the mental state of the doer, the Areopagus might appear more competent to decide the matter than the Delphi- nium. Or, to speak in the sense of earlier times, the Hill of Ares would seem a fitter tribunal than the temple of the Delphinian Apollo. The slayer who pre- sents himself for judgment at this bar is no conscience- stricken criminal ; there is no Erinnys to harass him : for how can an Erinnys be ascribed to the nocturnal robber, or to the adulterer, seized in the very act of their offence and slain upon the spot? But Clytsemnestra, though lawfully put to death by the avenger of blood, is a mother, and as such has her Erinnyes ; and this is the significance of the Areopagus, that it decides between these vengeful Goddesses and the object of their resent- ment, to which, as we have above seen, the very locality itself, and the solemnities observed in the proceedings before the Areopagus distinctly point. b. On the judicial proceedings in JEschylus. 70. iEschylus makes his Areopagus as like as possible to what it was in historical times; and whilst on the one hand the entire spectacle is marvellous and superhuman, the actors in the drama being Gods, on the other hand the whole procedure is conducted so much in regular IN JESCHYLUS. 145 form, and according to the established laws and customs that the Poet's drift is at once evident, and palpably none other than that of exhibiting the existing consti- tution in the light of a Divine Providence. It is therefore worth while to take a closer view of these proceedings and of the formalities observed in them. At Athens, and nearly everywhere in the ancient world, every Court consisting of a large body of Judges had its president (rjye/uiwv) whose duty it was to conduct the previous inquiry upon the cases about to be presented, and upon whose sanction they were brought into court. In actions for homicide this office was held at Athens by the second of the nine Archons, the "Kpywv Bao-iXfvC' Here however it is filled by the Lady Athena (avaaa' 'Adava), whom Orestes by the instruction of Apollo invokes at the very outset to be his judge (cf. v. 81. 215. 234. 250. 446). This indeed she declines, since it is not for her, the immaculate Goddess, to sit as judge upon a case of blood (v. 449); and she appoints a jury instead, to whom she refers the matter. Pallas therefore is the magistrate of preliminary inquiry, the Prcetor who appoints judges for the parties (datjudices.) This preliminary examination (avaKpiaio) is exhibited by iEschylus, in the scene where Athena questions both parties about their name, office, and legal demands and pretensions (see especially 386 — 467) ; whereupon she sees good to decide that the cause shall be received, and requires both parties to have their witnesses and evidence in readiness to produce in court ; although it is true these were usually brought forward at the anacrisis. 71. In this scene occurs a passage which, from not being rightly understood, has been variously altered by the editors. A little attention to the course of the pro- ceedings in court makes all clear. The passage in H 146 THE JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS question is at v. 407, where, when Athena, after ques- tioning the Erinnyes, turns to Orestes, they exclaim, 'But he would hardly accept an oath, nor yet give one :' aXX' opKOV ov de^air av, oh Sovvai diXet. One does not comprehend what they mean, unless, in the first place, one bears in mind what is the original signification of the word opKog, viz., the object whereby one takes oath, and which binds the conscience of the party taking it. 1 The party who challenges the other to take his oath names to him the object by which he shall swear ; for instance, the head of his child, or such and such Gods. This is called giving an opKog. Now it should be further observed that an oath of this kind, demanded of, or tendered to one party by the other, forms part of the depositions, which required a chal- lenge (7rfj6ic\riog (for acquittal) is imagined to be added, 3 and so the accused is supposed to have the majority. Without doing violence to justice (a thing not to be conceived of the righteous Goddess), the calculus Minervse is mercy naturally prevailing over strict justice in an equally balanced case. But the 3 From tlie verdict returned for Orestes by the Areopagus Euri- pides deduces the principle, that in l(j-o\lrr)(f)ia the defendant gains the cause (El. 1277. Iph. T. 1482,) and in this sense the \lrrj(fios AOrjvas is often mentioned by the later ora- tors. See the passages cited in K. F. Hermann's Manual of Political Antiquities, § 143, 4. In the Scholia on Aristid. Panath. p. 108, 7. Dind. it is stated that the twelve Gods sat as Judges in the Areopagus; Athena, however, gave the thirteenth vote. (See appendix on Calculus Minervce at the end of this volume.) 150 JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS. difficulty, as we said before, is removed by distinguish- ing between two points in the action, the taking up of the ballot and the casting it into the urn (iprj^ov alpeiu ical Siayvuvai Siicriv, v. 679). The Areopagites each in turn rise from their seats, go to an altar on which are lying an adequate number of ballots, and take one up. The taking of the ballots from the altar was a usual ceremony upon divisions of the court, and therefore iEschylus would scarcely omit it. Then they step to a table upon which probably two vessels 1 — the brazen urn of mercy and the wooden one of death — stand side by side, and throw their ballot into one of them — unless, in- deed, as was usual in the other Attic courts of justice, for the sake of secrecy, they had also a second iprj(j)og } which was marked as not intended to count. This is done by the twelve Areopagites in turn, at measured intervals. This done, Athena likewise takes a ballot from the altar, and holding it up, says that she intends to give this for Orestes (705) — by virtue of this ballot Orestes shall gain the cause, even should the votes be equal (711) — but without forthwith casting it into one of the urns. To do so, in fact, would be quite in contradiction to the very meaning of the calculus MinervaB. The ballots are now turned out of the urns, and being counted, are found equal (v. 762) : thereupon the Goddess lays hers along with those for the acquittal, and at the same instant announces even now the final issue of the whole trial. 2 1 Called Tevx>] v. 712. cf. Agam. 789, 790. ' 2 This appears to me the most satisfactory conception of the affair, though there may perhaps be room for a different view on minor points. In works of art, for instance on the cup in the Corfini Collection, there is only one vessel given, into which Minerva is in the act of casting her ballot ; but who dreams of inferring from such evidence what were the arrangements in the Court of Areo- pagus ? 151 D. EXEGESIS OF THE JUS SACRUM. 74. We have still to define the nature of the office discharged by Apollo in this suit. The Exegesis at Athens applied wholly to the un- written Law, the precedents and usages handed down by oral tradition. Notwithstanding the great extension given to the written law at Athens, by fresh additions continually made to it, there was still a great deal left to oral tradition with respect to religious rites and the duties owing to the dead, one of which was the avenging of blood. Now such persons as were in possession of superior information on these points, and could accu- rately define the right and wrong in cases of that class, were called k^r\yr\Ta\ twv Trarpiwv, tu)v Upb)v ical octioju (Exegetse of the customs of the land, the sacred and sanctioned usages, interpretes religionis). Their office was, ^rtyu(jOai, to expound this Law, de jure sacro respondere. For instance, the Exegetse are asked if a person were bound to contribute to the interment of such and such an one (Isseus de Ciron. Hsered. § 39) ; and so in all cases where a person was apprehensive of omitting any honour due to the dead (Harpocr. s. v. k^ny^r^g). He is consulted when it is not known in what way the death of a slave ought to be avenged upon the author of it (Plat. Euthyph. p. 4). In such cases the Exegetse point out the lawful course and give suitable advice (e^YiyoVVTai ra vofJLifia, irapaivovaiv to. <7v/j.(f>opa, Dem. c. Euerget. p. 1160). This office of the Exegetse clearly shews how intimately the law relating to the shedding of blood was connected at Athens with reli- gious rites and ordinances. Even the Areopagus had unwritten laws in its keeping (aypa(j>a vo/uupa, Dem. c. 152 EXEGESIS OF THE SACRED LAW. Aristocr. p. 64*6), though it was a fundamental principle in the jurisdiction exercised by the popular tribunals of Athens to allow no appeal to precedents, to admit none but written or statute law, and charge the right use of it upon the conscience of the Judges. 75. The Exegesis presupposes oral precepts, which in the earlier times can scarcely have been anything else than family traditions, similar to those on which the Etruscan discipline was conducted, only that the latter was a far more laborious and extensive study than the jus sacrum of the Athenians. This custom of family tradition existed everywhere among the ancients, espe- cially in noble families ; and accordingly we find that at Athens the Eupatridse were in the first instance the Exegetse of the sacred law (Plut. Thes. 25) ; nay, even in the Roman period there were Eupatridic Exegetse (e£ EvirarpiSwv e^riyriral, Corp. Inscr. n. 765). The Eupatridse were no association or body, and it is dif- ficult to say by whom they were nominated ; perhaps by the Ephetse elected from the old families : at all events the Ephetse were closely connected with that ancient court. As the latter body had the power of sanctioning the expiation of blood, so the superintendence of its performance devolved upon the former (Tim. Lex. s. v. e'&yriTai) . Hence Dorotheus, in his work on ' The Hereditary Usages of the Eupatridse/ treated of the purification of suppliants, that is, homicides who had made atonement for blood. 1 The principal points upon which this Exegesis of the Eupatridic families 1 In giving this title to the work I have assumed that the reading iv toXs to>v EYIIATPIAQN (for GYrA- TPIAS2N) narpiois in Athenseus ix. 410, A, will be deemed more proba- ble than the emendation 3>YTAAI- AGN proposed by Lobeck. For although the Phytalidse, according to the legend of Theseus, also had the superintendence of purifications, their wdrpia could scarcely have fur- nished matter enough for a separate work. EXEGESIS OF THE SACEED LAW. 153 turned, were the burial of the dead and the law of homi- cide; whereas that of the sacerdotal families had to do rather with the particular services over which they pre- sided. Thus the Eleusinian Eumolpidse exercised an Exegesis of unwritten customs/ which seems to have been partly transferred by them to other hands/ and the prin- ciples of which were no doubt contained in the work on the l Traditional Customs of the Eumolpidse' published in the time of Cicero. 4 The other sacerdotal families at Eleusis also had the exegetic office in certain cases. 5 76. If in this way every worship had its own peculiar rites requiring for their performance a certain degree of information, which might be handed down by exegesis, the exegesis connected with the cultus of Apollo com- prised more than this, and in particular it involved the rites of atonement and purification. As Athens derived the conditions of atonement for blood from the decrees of the Pythian God, so also the three Eooegetce, who pre- sided at Athens over the purification of blood-guilty persons, were elected, or at least their election was ratified, by the Delphic Oracle {irvQoy^pnGroi, Timseus). The office of Exegesis is quite as much Apollo's prerogative as that of prophecy. Plato in his ideal Polity will have no other Exegetes consulted respecting the erection of temples and the founding of the cultus of Gods, of heroes, and of the dead, than the national God, Apollo of Delphi (Polit. iv. p. 427). But in his more practical State he would have Exegetse elected by the individual tribes, with the sanction and concurrence of the Delphian God, to expound the sacred law derived from Delphi (Legg. vi. p. 759), and to define the religious rites 2 Lys. adv. Andoc. § 10. 3 Hm-rfc e£ Eu/xoXttiSwi/ Plut. 4 Cf. Varro de L. L. V. § & x. Orat. 12, p. 256 sqq. Corp. Inser. 5 Andoc. de Myst. § 115 sq. n. 392. I H 3 154 EXEGESIS OF THE SACRED LAW. (Legg. vi. p. 775 ; viii. p. 828 ; xii. p. 958), but espe- cially to preside over all ceremonies of atonement and purification. 1 These conceptions pervade the entire scene which has given rise to this disquisition. Apollo, the paternal God of the Athenians (warpwog), who always announces the truth to them, appears before the Areopagites to instruct them, as Exegetes, on the important duty of avenging blood incumbent on Orestes, and to convince them that this duty to the father demanded the sacrifice of the mother, as being, so to say, not so near of kin to Orestes. Subtle as this plea may seem, especially in the form in which iEschylus puts it, it was probably very much in the spirit and character of the arguments in complex cases. Apollo thus performs the service Orestes required of him : he explains the circumstances which justified the act (579) ; and so likewise on a former occasion, in his injunctions to Orestes to commit the act, he assumed the office of Exegetes by explaining to him the duty of vengeance (565). It is a fine trait of the Poet's skilful management, that Apollo's coming forward in this capacity is brought about by Orestes' s asking the Exegesis of him only on his own account (579), with the intention of afterwards laying before the Judges the information obtained (583) ; for it should be observed that at Athens it was only the parties themselves, not the Judges, who consulted that source of information. Here, however, this circuitous mode of proceeding is avoided by Apollo's addressing himself at once to the court of Areopagites and pointing out to them the right of the case (584). 1 Legg. viii. p. 865, ix. p. 871, 873. xi. p. 916. Cf. Ruhnken ad Tiraseum, p. Ill, where however, the whole of the above is referred to the e^rj- yeladai of the /xdvreis, which has nothing at all to do with the mat- ter in question. III. RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. A. THE ERINNYES. a. Meaning of the Name, and Mythic conception of the 77, In the Arcadian dialect, which undoubtedly retained many archaisms, the word hpivvziv, we are told, signified to be wroth? But the term was certainly never used in so general a sense in the Greek language, — a language in which, the further back we trace it, the more we find of intuitive distinctness of expression for all motions, as well mental as corporeal. It will be better to give at once an accurate definition of the term kpiwvq, or more correctly epivve f it is the feeling of deep offence, of bitter displeasure, when sacred rights belonging to us are impiously violated by persons who ought most to have respected them. The earliest Greek Poets, in whom we find the idea in its fullest develope- ment, attribute Erinnyes more especially to the father, mother, and elder brother ; these in particular entertain such feelings of resentment upon the violation of pious duties claimed by them as their natural right; for instance, when they meet with ill-treatment, or even 2 Paus. viii. 25. 4. Etym. M. p. I 3 Herni. ad Antigon. Ed. 3tia. 374. 1. I Prsef. p. xix. sqq. 156 THE ERINNYES. when due respect is not paid them. 1 But the poor man, the beggar as well as the suppliant, being from his situa- tion entitled to a hospitable reception in more wealthy- families, if instead of that he meet with insolent treat- ment, also has his Erinnyes ; a trait which exhibits the humanity of the ancient Greeks in a most pleasing light. 2 Afterwards, the term was used in a more restricted sig- nification; parricide more especially calls forth an Erinnys, and iEschylus also attributes one to the heinous crime of a man's neglecting his duty as avenger of blood. 3 The sensible manifestation of the Erinnys is 'Apa : 4 the long-suppressed feeling of deep offence bursts forth in sudden imprecations, frequently on apparently slight provocations. For instance, according to that fine old heroic poem, the Cyclian Thebais, old CEdipus, after long endurance of extreme impiety towards himself on the part of his sons, at last curses them when he finds they have forcibly possessed themselves of the family jewels, and when they neglect to give him the honorary portion of the sacrifice which was due to him. The Erinnys is indeed conceivable without Ara, inasmuch as it admits of being stifled in the heart ; but still the two notions bear so close an affinity to each other, that iEschylus seems perfectly justified in designating the Erinnyes by the title of 'ApaL 8 78. One of the distinguishing features of that ancient period, in which the Greek and other Popular Religions originated, together with the Poetry which sprung up 1 Vid. II. xi. 204. xxi. 412. Od. xi. 279. 2 Od. xvii. 475. 3 Choeph. 281. cf. 396. 641. 4 aprjaaaOaiEpivvs. Od. ii. 135. Cf. II. ix. 454. 571. 5 Eum. 395. Cf. Sept. 70. 707. 773. 962. Klausen, Theologum, iEsch. p. 49, sq. THE ERINNYES. 157 from them, was that it contemplated all intellectual life, nay, life in general, as the unintermitted working, not of individual forces and causes, but of higher super- natural agents, and viewed man for the most part merely as the focus in which those active powers were concen- trated and manifested. That feeling of painful mortifi- cation and just resentment, originally termed epivvg, is not merely an instigation and arousing of certain deities to avenge and to punish — rather, it is in itself of a divine nature and of miraculous energy ; it is exhibited, so to say, as an act proceeding from the life of divine beings which are as eternal as the laws of nature out of which that resentful feeling arose. In order to per- ceive how perfectly the resentment of offended parents is one and identical with the Goddess Erinnys, we need only compare with one another the expressions : rfjc fji^rfjog 'Epivvag k^airorivoiQ (II. xxi. 412), and, aXysa . . . OGGCL T£ fXY\TpOQ 'YLplVVZQ tKTtXEOVGlV (Od. xi. 280), and also, IBpvaavTO £K 0eoTrpo7riov ^pivvvwv tmv Aaiov re Kal 'Oi$nr6$Euj ipov (Herodot. iv. 149). 6 The Erinnys atoned for and the Erinnys that brings the mischief are undoubtedly one and the same in these expressions, and both of them, by the same verbal construction, are attributed to the individuals offended and incensed; although we modern Grammarians, on whom the capital letter at the beginning of proper names imposes the hard task of deciding on the point, suppose the existence of a Goddess only under the latter mode of expression, and under the former merely conceive the idea of a human passion. For us a chasm has disunited what was originally one and inseparable ; and the dis- tinction between the mythico-poetical, and the so-called 6 Compare also ^sch. Choeph. 911. 1050. Soph. (Ed. C. 1299. 1434. Paus. viii. 34. 2. ix. 5. 8. 158 THE ERINNYES. rational or philosophical view of the Universe, — a dif- ference which at first did not exist at all, and when it had arisen was little felt and heeded by the old Epic and Lyric Poets, — demands of us that we should mark it by a corresponding use of small letters and capitals. Such expressions as, ' the Erinnyes of the Mother, — of Laius/ serve also to shew how little the original use of the word warrants the notion of a definite number of Erinnyes, and how unfair it is to require of iEschylus that he should bring but three on his stage. This number can no more be established upon the authority of any poet prior to Euripides, than the mention of the well-known names, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megsera, can be found in any writers previous to the Alexandrines. Had iEschylus, however, been induced by any motive to restrict himself to that number, he would undoubtedly somewhere or other have placed its significance in a prominent point of view, as Euripides does in the Orestes (v. 402. 1666), although he too, by the way, makes no scruple of assuming elsewhere a greater number, (Iph. T. 961, sqq.) 79. Now it is quite in the natural course of the deve- lopment and formation of mythic conceptions, for the mythus to be, on the sudden, externally arrested, to harden into fixed shape, and therein to become invested with a significance extended far beyond that which it in- herently possessed. Thus the Erinnyes, who originally have their life and essence only in that feeling of affront, are conceived as existing independently by themselves, as ever wakeful and active avenging Spirits, as IIoiiW ; and by this name in fact iEschylus designates them. Never- theless the account given of their origin in Hesiod's Theogony adheres most strictly to the original significa- tion of the word. The outrage committed by Cronus on his father Uranus is the very first invasion on the THE ERINNYES. 159 rights of consanguinity; the Erinnyes themselves owe their origin to this outrage : they are in the first instance Erinnyes of Uranus, and so in fact they are called in another passage. 1 On the other hand the Erinnyes make their appearance more as independent beings, as early as Homer and Hesiod. According to these Poets the violation of oaths, originally perhaps as an insult to the God by whose name the oath was taken, was punished by these avengers. Even in the realms below they chastise the perjured, 2 an office which other- wise belonged to Hades and Persephone, 3 as appears from old forms of oaths. And by the way, these very forms are of themselves sufficient to prove that the Homeric conception of a spectral, sham-existence held by departed heroes in the nether world, without feeling and consciousness, was not the general popular belief. Moreover, the darkness-haunting Erinnys appears several times in Homer 4 as bewildering the mind and thereby driving persons into dire disasters, probably because such a derangement of the mind was frequently consequent upon the consciousness of having violated the most sacred duties. 6 So too they are often repre- sented by the Tragedians in the general character of retributive and harmful beings, who inflict chastisement on the criminal in all sorts of ways ; as, by expulsion from human society, by the pangs of conscience, and by torments in the lower world. Indeed the concep- tion of the Erinnyes as workers of mischief is extended to such a generality, that even persons who seem to have been sent into the world to work evil to mankind, like Helen and Medea, and who are usually called ciAaar- 1 Theogon, 472. 2 II. xix. 260. Comp. Hes. Works and Days, 803. 3 II. iii. 278. 4 II. xix. 87. Od. xv. 234. 5 Cf. the cf)p€v<6v 'Epivvs. Soph. Antig. 603. 160 THE ERINNYES. Toptg, are also denominated Erinnyes; 1 and even by iEschylus presentiments of misfortune and mischief- boding strains are termed 'Dirges and Paeans of the Erinnyes/ 2 These remarks arose out of the definition of the term Erirmys in its original meaning, and were intended to draw attention to the fact, how greatly this signification, under the shape it has assumed in Mythology, loses in internal precision in proportion to its external expansion. But this individual signification of the term does not by any means lead to a train of conceptions connected with the Erinnyes, such as are mainly required for the understanding of our tragedy. For this purpose we must trace back to its source the idea of the Erinnyes as great and venerable Goddesses (2e/mval deal, as they were called at Athens), 3 an idea founded on a more extensive system of views and thoughts, and manifested in legends and religious rites and ceremonies. b. Cultus of the Erinnyes and Eumenides or Semn<£. 80. The widely diffused and noted religious service of the Erinnyes or Eumenides, or the Venerable God- desses, as they were usually designated at Athens, can hardly be understood, so long as we comprise those beings under the class of divinities attached to individual circumstances of life or states of mind (as Ate, Eris, and many others). On the contrary there are a great many traces in the worship of those deities which shew that the Erinnyes, in the system of religions that had taken root in the different districts of Greece, were neither more nor less than a particular form of the great 1 Agam. 729. Soph. El. 1080. Eur. Orest. 1386. Med. 1256. 2 Ag. 631. 964. cf. 1090. 1562. 3 On Se/xrai, as proper name of the Furies at Athens, cf. Osann ad Philemon, p. 162, and Meineke ad Menandr. p. 346, with reference to Creuzer, Symbol, iv. p. 327. THE ERINNYES. 161 Goddesses who rule the Earth and the lower world and send up the blessings of the year, namely Demeter and Cora. This must be understood to mean that these deities, so mild and benign on the one hand, are withal — either, in mythological connexion, by means of adverse divinities, or, in more ethic conception, by reason of human crimes and misdeeds which confound the very ordinances of nature — perverted into resentful, destruc- tive deities. In very ancient times there existed in Greece a widely-extended cultus of the Thelpusian, or Tilphossian Demeter-Erinnys, and in the time of Pausa- nias it still maintained its station at Thelpusa in Arcadia, where Demeter was worshipped as the Goddess of Earth indignant against Poseidon, the God of Water (the God who deluges the earth in winter with floods and tor- rents). Under the same form she was designated at another place in Arcadia, Phigalia, by the name of the Black Goddess. There are evident traces of this idea of the Demeter-Erinnys to be found in various localities, but the point where it appears most prominently is in the fundamental characteristics of the old legend concerning the Cadmean Kings of Thebes, and its antiquity is evinced by the very circumstance of its being contained in those original outlines of the mythus. I will endeavour to delineate the grand and simple features of this legend in such a way as to render them clear to the attentive reader. Recent investigations have paved the way, and scarcely anything more is required than to combine the results already obtained, in order to recover those pri- meval conceptions from which a considerable portion of tragic Poetry originally emanated. 81. Thebes, as the old legend goes, the fair city in the green, irriguous, fruitful plain, was a favourite abode 162 CULTUS OF THE ERINNYES. of the Goddess of Earth and her daughter, but withal a memorial of her inevitable resentment when injured. Demeter and Cora, mother and daughter, founded Thebes, 1 Jupiter having made a present of the land to Cora on her marriage with Hades f and they had a joint-founder in Cadmus (Harmonia's Consort), who is now ascertained to have been regarded by the earliest Greeks as a God of form and order, a Hermes who brings harmony and consistency out of confusion. But before he could found Thebes, Cadmus had to slay the Dragon, begotten by Ares the God of War with Erinnys Tilphossa, 3 i. e. the resentful, offended Demeter wor- shipped at Tilphossa : and from the sowing of this dragon's teeth springs the new Cadmean race of men. This dragon, which is a main figure in the Theban mythology, is obviously symbolical of the rancour che- rished by a gloomy power of nature. Demeter is Erinnys even before she is irritated by mankind, and, as is the case in all profound Theogonies, Evil is con- ceived to have had a previous existence in a higher world and a more universal course of nature before it bore fruit in the human race. To the men of early ages there seemed to reside in the eternal powers of nature, from the very beginning of things, an aspect calculated to excite fear and horror : if in the genial and fruitful season of the year all seems appeased and tran- quillized, yet in the winter- storms and ever recurring terrors of nature the suppressed malevolence bursts forth anew. The gracious consort of the celestial God, the mother whose womb teeming with blessings gives birth to the gentle child Cora, is withal the hideous malevo- lent bride of hostile powers. Eurip. Phcen. 694. Schol. 2 Euphorion in the Scholl. 3 Schol. Antigon. 126. CULTUS OF THE ERINNYES. 163 The settlers in the thick forests about Diree must have been first acquainted with Demeter under her character of Erinnys, and could not have recognised in her the gentle bountiful Goddess until after they had succeeded in draining the marshes, clearing away the forests, and converting them into productive fields. This latter era is represented in the person of Cadmus's son Polydorus (the Rich in Blessing), with whom the nocturnal Goddess of the Depth (Nycteis, daughter of Nycteus son of Chthonius, identical perhaps with Demeter-Europa), was united in marriage and shared the blessings of her favour, as Demeter with Iasion. Similarly the daughters of Cadmus and their sons un- fold to us a system of natural Gods, all of whom are only different aspects of one and the same Dionysus. But although the dragon is slain, still its wrathful spite 4 continues to influence the whole course of the Theban Mythic History. Cadmus himself, in order to appease it, had to serve the dragon's father (in conformity with the law concerning bloodshed) for a term of eight years, 5 and is said to have been himself metamorphosed into a dragon and to have instigated barbarian nations (the Encheleans) to ravage his native country. Con- tinual vicissitudes of exalted fortune and deep misfortune are characteristic features in the legend of the Cadmean kings, and are largely displayed by Pindar in his second Olympian Ode, as the destiny of the race even down to the history of his own times. 82. But with Laius the ruling agency of Demeter Erinnys begins to manifest itself more as the peculiar destiny of the Cadmean family. The original curse attaching to the race begets parricide, incest, fratricide; and the order of the physical world being turned upside fxrivifia SpoLKovTOS- ^ 5 Cf. also Phot. Lex. KaS/xet'a vlkt]. 164 CULTUS OF THE EKINNYES. down along with that of the moral world, barrenness, famine and pestilence go side by side with them. CEdipus is altogether a victim of Erinnys, born to ruin his whole race by his curse. According to the common legend, he was fostered on the inhospitable mount Cithseron, called by Hermesianax the abode of the Erinnyes; 1 in like manner as of Orestes it was told that he was born on the festival-day of Demeter-Erinnys. 2 But the end of QEdipus's life was in perfect accordance with the commencement of it, the main idea in the old legend being, that the grievously afflicted (Edipus, after the fulfilment of his allotted doom, was to find rest in the sanctuary of Demeter-Erinnys, the deity who had persecuted him through life, but was now at last recon- ciled to him. According to the Theban legend it was the Eteonic Temple of Demeter (unquestionably a Demeter-Erinnys) that gave him shelter; 3 which Tem- ple was situated by mount Citharon at the southern boundary of the Theban domain. And no doubt the meaning of the oracle was, that (Edipus was to find a burial-place on the frontiers of the country: as a parri- cide it was not allowable for him to He within the confines of his home, and yet (the reason for which will appear in the sequel) he was to be buried not far from his native land. 4 83. After the calamity and overthrow of Thebes, scattered bands of Cadmeans were the means of diffusing their native traditions, as well as those of (Edipus's burial-place, far and wide, and constantly in close con- nexion with the cultus of the Erinnyes. To Attica they 1 In Ps. Plutarch de Fluv. 2, 3. 2 Ptolem. Heph. in Phot. p. 247. H. 3 Schol. (Ed. Col. 91. The tale related there is partly fictitious, in order to account for (Edipus's tomh coming into a Temple of Demeter. 4 See Soph. (Ed. Col. 399. 785. cf. (Ed. T. 422. CULTUS OF THE ERINNYES. 165 were carried perhaps by the Cadmean family of the Gephyrseans, who were received and naturalized there ; and several traces of them* existed in different parts. In the first place, there was shown in Athens itself a tomb of QEdipus in the sanctuary of the Semnse between the Areopagus and the citadel. 4 In the next place, we find in an Attic demus (the Colonus Hippius), together with another sepulchre of GEdipus, the entire group of that cultus from which the leading ideas in the Theban mythi are derived. Here too, as at the Arcadian Thel- pusa, the God of the waters, Poseidon Hippius, is worshipped in juxtaposition with the Semnse, 6 who, beyond doubt, were originally identical with Demeter and her daughter worshipped at that very same place. For whereas the legend as handled by Sophocles assigns to CEdipus a resting-place in the sanctuary of the Semnse or Eumenides at Colonus, 7 an Attic collector of legends 8 tells of his applying as a suppliant for protec- tion to Demeter of Colonus. Euripides makes Poseidon Hippius the sheltering deity. 9 Opposed to Demeter Erinnys in the service of the Colonians was probably the blooming verdant Demeter (Eu^Aooc), whose temple mentioned by Sophocles (1600) must be conceived in the vicinity, but on a different hill from that of Colonus. In other respects also everything on this spot implied connexion and intercourse with the infernal world. It was an ancient notion 10 that the entrance to the abyss of Tartarus was enclosed with a brazen threshold, and 5 See Pans. i. 28. 7. Val. Max. v. 3. ext. 3, where the locality is clearly defined. 6 At Capua too there was an cedes Neptuni cum Cerere Erinny. Gruter p. 195, 16, if rightly ex- plained by Reinesius. 7 Also according to Apollod. iii. 5,9. 8 Androtion in Schol. Od. xi. 271. 9 Phsen. 1721. 10 Hesiod Theog. 811. II. viii. 15. 166 CULTUS OF THE ERINNYES. there was shown near Colonus, on the sacred road to Eleusis, a chasm furnished with a flight of brazen steps, called ^aX/ceoc ov$6g and %aA/co7rouc 6<$6q, which was regarded as a portal or threshold to the lower world, and through which Hades was said to have borne off Cora. 1 Like many other sanctuaries of chthonian deities this too was considered as a pledge of welfare to Athens, as the basis and stay of her prosperity (ipeurfi' 'AOrivwv 58). In this vicinity, according to the local tradition, it was ordained that (Edipus should close a life devoted to the Erinnyes ; nay, the very Erinnyes themselves are said by Euphorion to have conducted him hither along the path of destiny. 2 It was from that abyss, according 1 See particularly Soph. 1589. Schol. 57. 1059. 1590. The Scho- liast also takes the koTKos Kparrjp, v. 1593, for a cavern. I am of opinion it was the vessel into which Theseus and Peirithous were said to have cut the acpdyia, previous to their descending together into the infernal regions : perhaps too the vessel had some form of oath in- scribed on it. Comp. Eurip. Suppl. 1202. Mention is made too by Pausanias of a shrine dedicated to both heroes at Colonus : and the reason why it was erected at that place was because the entrance to the subterranean world was said to be there. The observations by Reisig, Enarr. p. cxciv, do not treat of the locality of Colonus : and in some other points also, even with the admirable work of that talented scholar, the topography in the (Edipus Colonus still requires more accurate investigation. With re- spect to the scene of the (Edipus, it is especially to be remarked that it is laid near the boundaries of the Cerameans and Colonians: on one side was seen, in the vicinity of the Academy, the Temple of Prome- theus and that of Athena with the sacred olive-trees, on the other the hill of Colonus with the Temple of Poseidon; and between them the grove of the Semnse. The XaXiceos ovdos must be conceived on the further side of this grove, by which means v. 57 and 1590 may be reconciled. The avriTrerpov firiiia., v. 192, on which (Edipus sits down, is a fence or wall about the grove resembling rough masses of rock. 2 There is no doubt that Eupho- rion in the passage cited by the Schol. on (Ed. C. 681, mentioned tov apyrjTa Kokcovov. Accordingly, with some assistance from Meineke (Fragm. 52), only taking ~Evpevl8es for a gloss, I would arrange the passage thus : TlpoTrpo be p.iv dacnrkrjres 6(pei\o- fievrjv ciyov oipov TrjXoCpov (?) elsdpyrjra Ovyarpibtai Qoptcvvos ''AvOecri (?) vapitLcrcroio enicrTecpees irXoicapldas. CULTUS OF THE EMNNYES. 167 to the Colonian legend, that the thunders of the sub- terranean Zeus pealed forth the summons to QEdipus, whom Hermes and Cora had conducted to that spot (1548, 1590) : it was there he was supposed to have departed from the land of the living; but even after death, when reconciled with the Gods below, he was thought to preside over the country as a powerful and bountiful tutelary deity. 3 His burial-place, though concealed beneath the earth, and unknown even to the natives, was esteemed an invisible and mysterious Palla- dium to the whole region, especially in the war with the Thebans, who had expelled the unfortunate sufferer. The ancients were not unacquainted with the idea, al- though it is mostly kept very much in the background, that great suffering purifies and refines human nature. The eradication of selfishness, the entire self-sacrifice which affliction produces in noble souls was felt even by heathen antiquity to be an approximation to a divine nature, and hence those victims of Erinnys are exalted, after death, to the rank of Gods. The same ideas attached also to Orestes, and are significantly noticed in our Tragedy (737) : even his corpse was for that reason transferred by the Spartans from their frontier- town, Tegea (where he had taken refuge as a fugitive), to their own city ; nay, at a later period the ashes of Orestes were even reckoned among the seven pledges of prosperity to Rome. 84. These profound legends of CEdipus's grave, which must have been known to the Colonian Sophocles from his earliest years, have been made by this noblest and most amiable of Poets the subject of a Tragedy on which, according to very authentic testimony, he was 3 This is implied in the expres- I Aristid. Or. Plat. ii. p. 172. Cf. sion iv Kaipy rols £a>o"t ttjs x^pas | Loheck Aglaoph. p. 280. 168 CULTUS OF THE ERINNYES. employed towards the end of his life, so that it was first produced on the stage by his grandson, the younger Sophocles, 01. 94. 3. 1 (Edipus arrives, blinded and exiled, an emblem of the deepest misery, at Attica : there he finds himself unexpectedly in the grove of the Semnse, which the God foretold him was to be the goal of all his sufferings. Although the horror that seizes on all who hear his name is near causing his immediate expulsion from the country, yet he presently meets with compassion, and the hospitable reception prof- fered him is an act all the more generous, as the oracles, on the strength of which he promises the Athe- nians increased blessings from their reception of him, exhibit but dirn^ predictions devoid of clear and definite meaning. The action is now rapidly unfolded ; mighty by virtue of the salvation he is to impart after death, secure by virtue of Athens' hospitality, he repels all the violent importunity and unworthy entreaties with which he is assailed by Creon of Thebes and his own son Poly- nices, in their efforts to secure for themselves the sal- vation expected from his grave. Exalted even in his life- time above this throng of human passions, he triumphs over those who with selfish eagerness are bent upon winning him over to themselves, and with sublime com- posure and enthusiasm welcomes death, thenceforth to assume the character of a mysterious power, working 1 It is remarkable that, as Ms- thishis favourite composition, where- chylus admitted three actors for the as the other plays of later date were first time in his last trilogy, the Orestea, so again Sophocles did not add a fourth till the end of his ca- reer, in the (Edipus at Colonus. The reason why the metre in this play is more carefully attended to than in other later ones of Sophocles is sufficiently explained by the espe- cial pains bestowed by the Poet on composed more rapidly than the earlier ones, since he is said to have written 32 dramas in 28 years, prior to the Antigone, and 81 dramas in 34 years, after the Antigone. Argu- ments drawn from the form are often employed in the present day with too great confidence, as though they rested on a physical necessity. CULTUS OF THE ERINNYES. 169 mightily for never-failing weal to the country in which he had obtained rest and reconciliation with the Erinnyes. Thus is this tragedy the triumph of misery and suffering over human strength and arrogance, a transfiguration by which that which in human estimation seems lament- able and piteous is exalted into god-like sublimity, and death itself is invested with a mysterious glory; a tra- gedy wherein, moreover, every one who has any feeling for the language of the heart, will recognise in many legible characters, not haply a tale foreign to the Poet, but his own feelings at a period of life when he had experienced much that was painful from his own imme- diate kindred, and was looking forward to death as a longed-for time of rest. True it is, that in the compo- sition of this tragedy there is much that deviates widely from all the rest, the solution, so to speak, not being at the conclusion, but pervading the whole, almost as in the last piece of an iEschylean trilogy ; still, the (Edipus at Colonus is, by virtue of the dramatic development of morally-religious ideas, — not from the merely acces- sory political and patriotic allusions, — a Tragedy in the highest sense of the word. 2 85. Thus the Demeter-Erinnys has again received her victim (Edipus to her bosom: but more severe is the doom of Thebes, the city once so beloved of Gods. Against it the Goddess conducts '' A^paaroq, the Inevi- table, a male personification of Adrastea-Nemesis, to whom Adrastus is also said to have erected various temples. He rides the terrible Thelpusaic steed Arion, 3 in whose name Ares the father of the Dragon reappears. 2 Cf. § 97. The mysticism occur- ring in the (Edipus of iEschylus (Eustratius on Arist. Eth. Nicom. iii. 2.) would also probably refer to Demeter-Erinnys, who perhaps was there made more clearly prominent than in the Eumenides. 3 Antimachus in Paus. viii. 25, 3, 4. Cf. also Schol. in Aristoph. Comced. Ed. Dind. Vol. iii. p. 418. I 170 CULTUS OF THE ERINNYES. This Arion is altogether a symbolical creature connected with the cultus of the Tilphossian or Thelpusaic De- meter. 1 The genuine popular legend of Demeter-Erinnys herself, how, as Poseidon's indignant and wrathful bride, she gave birth to it, was gleaned by Pausanias in the Arcadian Thelpusa. The Iliad touches on this legend with its wonted delicacy (xxiii. 346) ; the Thebaid, which was composed not long after the Homeric age, makes Poseidon and Erinnys, at the Boeotian fountain Tilphossa, the parents of Arion. Later writers mostly endeavour to soften down the harshness and singularity of this legend, and ascribe the birth of Arion either to Demeter under the assumed form of an Erinnys, 2 or to Earth, occupying in mystic legends the place of Demeter, 3 or to one of the Erinnyes. 4 Arion is called, by the same epithet as Poseidon himself, a black-maned horse; 5 whence also Adrastus himself was called Kyanippus, an appellation early converted by My- thology, after its usual fashion, into a son of Adrastus. He is the fleetest of all steeds, and therefore must natu- rally be victorious in every race, as in the aywv cele- brated by Adrastus and the Argives previous to the ex- pedition in honour of the righteously- dispensing Jove (the Nt/moe Zevg). Adrastus, the inevitable Avenger, mounted on this black-maned and fleetest of steeds, and heading the expedition of the Argive army against sinful Thebes in the name and by the mandate of the guardian Goddess of Thebes, now appearing in the character of an Erinnys, is an imagination of a quite antique bold- ness and grandeur, by the side of which the Iliad and 1 Adrastus, who had a 'Hpeoov oracle '[7177010 koXowos. (SchoL (Ed. at Coloiras, was said to have drawn C. 57. 712. Etym. M. s. v. 'iTnria.) up his horses there on his flight (et/xara \vypa cpepcov avv 'Apeiovi Kvavoxairr], Thebais in Paus. viii. 25, 5) ; and that is the reason, per- haps, why Colonus is called in the old 2 Apollodorus, with Tzetzes. 3 Antimachus. 4 Hesych. s. v. 'Apetcov. 5 'ApetW Kvavo^atT-qs in Hi Shield 120, and in the Thebaid. CULTUS OF THE ERINNYES. 171 Odyssee must evidently appear as the far later, and by comparison, quite modern fruits of a spirit now become much more gentle and subdued. This time, however, vengeance does not overtake the transgressors at Thebes ; possibly because, as iEschylus represents it, the assailants themselves are heaven-storm- ing boasters, and Nemesis, though sure to follow crime, is usually late; or because, as Euripides relates — un- questionably from a very ancient tradition — the youth Menceceus 6 gave himself up a voluntary sacrifice to the Dragon, in whom the anger of Demeter-Erinnys was revived. Here we learn, that by the walls of Thebes there was a temple sacred to the Dragon, having in it a deep cavern said to have been the dragon's lair. 7 No doubt at a later period expiatory sacrifices were offered there from time to time. — Erom that delay, the sons were the first to suffer for the sins of their fathers. Adrastus returns, like a Tloivi), in the second genera- tion, and this time under better auspices : the 'Ewiyovoi fulfil the work allotted to their fathers, and Thersander the son of Polynices comes forward as an avenger, a Tiaa/uizvoQ, an appellation which in this case again, just as in that of the son of Orestes, and of Alcmseon's daughter Tisiphone, from being the epithet of the father became the proper name of the son. So intimate is the intellectual coherency which the men of earlier generations perceived in this primeval history of Thebes, — so powerful was the Idea in that age, that it found no difficulty in appropriating and assimilating to itself the external facts. Eor it is scarcely 6 Mevoucevs is the self-sacrificing Home-stayer, who does not follow the counsel (pevy (ris, cf. § 58 N Chorus responds to Antigone just | 206 POETICAL COMPOSITION. ashes of his own corpse, Electra's counterfeit grief, Clytsemnestra's suppressed joy. Now prevails, as the Chorus observes, the agency of Hermes at once in the character of Chthonius and of Nychius, as God of the nocturnal realm of the dead, and of nocturnal fraud. 1 In the midst of these sensations of dread some relief is afforded by the artless lamentations of Orestes's old nurse, who believes in the death of her fosterling : thereupon she fetches iEgisthus without his body-guard, by the direction of the Chorus, which in a stasimon summons all aiding Gods to the assistance of Orestes. Now, whereas we only hear the death-groans of iEgisthus from the interior of the palace, it is not until after a violent scene and unavailing self- vindication, and, in a manner, not till after sentence pronounced on her, that Clytsemnestra is led away to execution by Orestes. Poetical aims here obliged iEschylus once more to insist upon the bounden duty of such an act, and on the other hand to expose the atrocity of the act in itself, and to exhibit in the strongest light that it is not from any passion of his own, but from the obligation to avenge his father and obey the behests of Apollo, that Orestes slays his mother. Thus, as the choral ode expresses it, justice has arrived, the house of the Atridse is once more raised up, day once more dawns on it [irapa to (jjioq iBeiv), Then on a sudden we are transported into the interior of the palace, and there we behold Orestes standing over the two corpses, holding forth in his hand, in ocular 1 This idea was probably deve- loped in the parts of the prologue which are lost. The passage v. 711 sqq. requires, in my opinion, only this alteration : 9 Q irorvia X0o>v vvv eTraprj^ov (yvv yap a.Kp.d^i Hei6o> dokia), £vynara- firjvai, Xdoviov #' c Ep/x?}y, kol tov Nvxtov roisd' icpodevcrai, K. r. A. As AoAios, Hermes is Nu^tos by day also (805). I write v. 680 thus : ot eyw, kclt a/cpas efxnas (eprras from many analogous forms) cos TTop6ovfxe6a. POETICAL COMPOSITION. 207 vindication of his deed, the treacherous bathing garment of Agamemnon. Yet his mind, which as represented by iEschylus is naturally tender (not indeed in the same sense as that of Shakspeare's Hamlet), and without any desire of its own for revenge has only obeyed the dictates of duty, is now reeling under the strong revulsion of the feelings he has hitherto suppressed, and it is impossible not to feel the deepest compassion for the hero, when, conscious as he is of the righteousness of his deed, he feels already that his mind is giving way, and presently afterwards actually beholds the awful forms of the Erinnyes, invisible only to the Chorus. We feel that Orestes' s act of vengeance is too deep a breach in the order of nature to admit of its forming in itself a conclusion to the Tragedy. 99. After this harrowing scene of the Choephoroe, the Eumenides opens with solemn unction, and by directing our regards to the Pythian Apollo, the rightful lord of the Delphic Oracle and ancient friend of Athens, and to Zeus the all-consummating, affords our agitated feelings a stay to rest upon, while at the same time we have in this opening scene the germs of the action about to be deve- loped. Then follows the terrific description of the Erinnyes, and at the end of it, the actual sight of their appalling forms — a masterwork in which our Poet, though working under other conditions than the sculptor or the painter, evinces the creative fancy and shaping hand of the consummate artist. But, then, true to the spirit of antique Art, which in its most forcible exhibitions of power always seeks repose, iEschylus does not leave this image without its counterpoise : Apollo, the God who enjoined the deed of blood, stands there by the side of Orestes, as his patron and protector, Hermes as his con- ductor : to which we may add the prophetic intimation in which Apollo from the first points to the Areopagus. 208 POETICAL COMPOSITION. This done, the Poet is wholly with the Erinnyes. Cly- taemnestra's gloomy spectre hounds on the blood-thirsty pack to a renewal of the chase ; their fury, their infernal hideousness, are depicted by themselves with fierce com- placency in their horrid prerogatives, and by Apollo in the aspect under which they appear to the Olympian Gods : the strife with the God closes with a direct declaration of war by both parties. Next appears Orestes, and close on his track, the Erinnyes, at Athens : he, full of reliance on the God, they athirst for his blood, and confident that he cannot escape them. And now the drama, hitherto in shifting motion with the Chorus over land and sea, obtains (by the Parodos) 1 its fixed station, and the action is brought into its settled channel; the Chorus unfolds its ranks, and encompass- ing Orestes as already their captive, describes with gloomy solemnity its terrible office. Athena appears, 1 The late occurrence of the Parodos is as characteristic for this tragedy as it is for the (Edipus at Colonus (§ 16, Note). By this means a separation is made between the former portion of the tragedy in which unsettled, fluctuating move- ments predominate, and the latter, in which the action falls into a re- gular course and advances in a settled order with certain fixed resting-points (§ 14). In the Aga- memnon the case is reversed, almost the entire second portion of the tragedy, from 949 — 1658, having no Stasimon, because in this instance there is no opportunity for a resting- point such as the Stasima furnish. In defining the main idea of the Parodos to be 'an Ode during which the Chorus gains its proper station and arranges itself on the lines in the Orchestra,' I admit that the Ancients themselves appear to have frequently confounded it with the first Ode sung by the Chorus in its regular order. Moreover, the Ode during which the Chorus takes its station is frequently followed im- mediately by another, after it is sta- tionary. In such cases these Odes are separated from each other partly by the change of rhythm, partly by the seeming insertion of an Epode, as in Soph. Ajax, Eui'ipides Phoenissse, and Iph. in Aul. This Epode cannot have been sung during the pacing movement, i. e. during the Parodos in the strict sense, for in Pindar the odes which are known to accom- pany marches and processions are precisely those in which there is no Epode. In the Agamemnon we have for the Parodos, Anapaests (the march) and a dactylic pair of Strophes with an Epode (the sta- POETICAL COMPOSITION. 209 and resolves on deciding the otherwise interminable conflict by the institution of the first Court for the trial of the manslayer. The choral ode following this trans- action we might expect to find more impassioned and furious, since the Erinnyes already even speak of the annihilation of their power as a possible event ; but with iEschylus, who always proceeds on the principle of making the details subordinate to the main objects of the tragedy, this Ode is above all others an admonition of the Erinnyes to the Athenians to recognise their might, and in general, the supremacy of strict laws and controlling powers in the state. With this view it must necessarily be solemn and composed. Then ensues the litigation between Orestes, or rather Apollo, and the Erinnyes, in which especially the higher dignity of paternal rights and the personal motives to the act are set in opposition to the unqualified demand of vengeance for the blood of the mother. Then upon the inaugural address of Athena follows the acquittal of Orestes, and, in token of his gratitude for so great a benefit his promise of a league with Argos : but the wrath of the Erinnyes, is raised by all this to the highest pitch, and is only appeased by Athena's persuasive eloquence, in which mildness and conscious power are beautifully blended, and by the institution of the sacred worship to be paid to them, by which these Dread Powers of the nether world — always on the understanding of their authority remaining invio- late — are converted, for the land of Athens, into bene- ficent beings. 'This compact/ such is the closing thought, 'have Zeus and the Moirse made with Athens/ There is no need of a more detailed and lengthened tioning and arrangement), and then follows forthwith the first Stashnon. In the Persse, Anapaests (entry), Strophes consisting of Ionics with Mesode (arrangement), then the first Stashnon. 210 POETICAL COMPOSITION. exposition to shew how satisfactorily throughout the whole Trilogy the feelings are carried on from the tone of triumphant exultation through dark misgivings and lowering intimations to the full burst of the thunder- peal in all its horror ; then how, under the influence of nocturnal powers, after many a wavering of undecided impulses, we are led on into a state of mind strangely blended with satisfaction and shuddering repugnance; how these elements — in a way which is demanded at the outset by the feelings — are drawn off from each other and stand out in all their energy and sharpness, until, by the wisdom of the Gods in Athens, the reconciliation of the conflicting Powers is effected, and therewith — a result not limited to the individual history of Orestes — a sense of entire satisfaction is won. For that the Poet's object is not merely to set our minds at rest in reference to Orestes, is evident even from the manner in which he is dismissed from the stage without a choral ode in celebration of his destiny. The poet seems almost to forget Orestes in the establish- ment of the Areopagus and the religion of the Erinnyes — two institutions which ZEschylus deems closely con- nected and alike momentous to the welfare of the community, as in fact they were (Cf. § 67, 68). But to deem that in so doing, the Poet has sacrificed his proper subject to a patriotic political interest, would in my opinion be utterly to misconceive iEschylus's principles. The main idea of the Trilogy, — which consists in the shewing how a curse, rooted in the human race and generating one misdeed out of another — in a case where only the family-destiny and no guilt of his own weighs upon the curse-possessed person — is averted by the supe- rior control of the saving God — this idea, I say, is by no means impeded and thwarted in its development by such a turn given to the interest. On the contrary, the very fact that it was, as iEschylus represents it, in Athenian in- POETICAL COMPOSITION. 211 stitutions that this providence of the saviour Gods was embodied, and severity and mercy met together in right sort, must have made the impression all the warmer and more lively on the minds of his contemporaries, In short, the political aim of the trilogy, — the inculcation of respect for the Areopagus, and generally for institutions consecrated and established for the purpose of holding unbridled licence in check, is intimately blended with the ethically -religious idea of the whole. Now as iEschylus generally, as in this particular in- stance, makes the fable subordinate to the idea, so again the delineation of character ranks with him below the development of the fable, and, so to say, occupies only the third place. No one will deny, indeed, that in the Eumenides, not to mention the preceding plays, the character of Orestes, in his entire devotion to duty and his calm reliance on the Gods, and that of the tutelary Goddess of Athens, in her perfect self-possession and imperturbable moderation and forbearance, are in them- selves very well sustained, in perfect keeping throughout, and marked, moreover, by more than one fine touch of individuality; still they are no more than what the whole scope of the tragedy requires them to be. To shape and mould particular characters into freer individuality, and to descend into lower depths of the human heart, were re- served for Sophocles, who, for this very reason, very often found himself obliged to detach, so to say, the centre of poetic interest from the centre of action ; as for instance in this story where, instead of Orestes, with his unreserved devotion to his call as Avenger, he was obliged to make * the more remote Electra his protagonistes. 100. In the Orestea of iEschylus we have the only extant specimen of an entire work of the more ancient 212 POETICAL COMPOSITION. form of tragic art, and on that account it must naturally form the ground-work, especially with respect to com- position, of our whole study of iEschylus. From it we learn that, although it is only in the trilogy, as a whole, that we find the unity of idea, the satisfactory view of the universe which it is iEschylus's constant aim to educe, yet each individual tragedy carries out its own substantive action, so that, looking only at the outward appearance, one might at the end of each piece fancy oneself already arrived at the end of the whole. The trilogies of iEschylus may be compared to groups of statues, each standing on its separate pedestal. More- over, by taking the Orestea for our model, we may without difficulty ascertain the position occupied by other detached tragedies in their several trilogies. When in the Agamemnon we have learned to discern the skill of preparation with which iEschylus brings together and heightens the interest, we shall readily satisfy our- selves that the Prometheus Bound could be neither the first, nor the last piece of an entire series. In the Seven against Thebes there ought never to have been a question but that its concluding portion, containing the altercation between Antigone and the Herald, is a con- necting link with a succeeding tragedy, in just the same way as is the scene of the Erinnyes at the end of the Choephorce, and, to adduce a third instance, the alter- cation between the semi-choruses at the end of the Suppliants. The slow progressing action, and the whirlwind of conflicting emotions are what the Choe- phorce has in common with the Prometheus Bound, the Seven, the Suppliants : they are all middle tragedies. 1 1 Moreover in these pieces that stand-still in the middle, first no- ticed by Heeren, is particidarly observable. This cannot be fully ex- plained otherwise than by the con- nexion of the trilogy ; for instance, the appearance of Io in the Prome- theus. POETICAL COMPOSITION. 213 On the other hand certainly no other extant play of iEschylus can be compared, as regards the process and march of the thoughts and feelings, with the Eumenides: it is the only concluding tragedy we have. The reason why, with the exception of the Orestea, none but second pieces of iEschylus have been preserved, appears to be, that the quiet progress and detailed exposition of the first plays, and the tendency in the third or concluding parts to concentrate the interest rather upon mythically speculative ideas than upon the exhibition of human passions, had less attractions for the later ages of Antiquity than the, for the most part, equably sustained interest of the middle pieces. Likewise with respect to that most difficult problem, what sort of connexion can we conceive between the profound seriousness of a Tragic Trilogy and the wild humour of the Satyric Play, the Orestea furnishes, in my opinion, the principal source of information, though of its accompanying Satyr-piece, the Proteus, nothing but the name remains to us. Our attention, however, is with good reason directed 2 to the circumstance that it was this very sea-god Proteus who foretold to Aga- memnon's brother Menelaus his return to Argos. But along with this prophecy, the Odyssey 3 remarks that Menelaus will arrive too late to avenge his brother, and not before the burial of iEgisthus ; — a remark which is expressed more plainly in another passage, 4 and was further developed in the Cyclian poem, the Nostoi of Augeas. 5 And in this very way the tale is taken up by Euripides in the Orestes, that strange mixture of very ancient fables and very modern views. Now in the first piece of the Orestea, where Agamemnon is commending 2 Boeckh. Trag. Princip. p. 268. I 4 lb. iii. 311. 3 od. iv. 547. 6 According to ProclusChrestom. 214 POETICAL COMPOSITION. Ulysses as his only faithful companion, and representing others, who seemed the best-disposed, as mere specious friends, 1 it is evident that he complains of the conduct of Menelaus in particular, who is represented by Homer also as having separated himself in the return from Agamemnon. Thus Menelaus, — who, while his brother is murdered and the insolent paramour bears rule in the palace of the Atridse, has, in company with the beautiful Helen, the seductive author of all this woe, been en- countering many an adventure, yet, withal, acquiring fresh stores of wealth as he roams along the barbaric shores, might admirably well be conceived as the con- trast to the faithful Orestes, and we can well imagine how he might be handled by old Proteus with that serene irony which the ancients especially delighted in attributing to beings of his class, and at the same time be a mark for the wayward humours and raillery of the Chorus of Satyrs. Whether the acquittal of Orestes was regarded as the satisfactory conclusion of the whole composition, or whether in the ironical speeches of Proteus the whole glory of the house of the Pelopidse was made to appear in its perishableness, and all the pride of man in its intrinsic nothingness, is more than I can pretend to determine. v. 812. cf. v. 610 sqq. APPENDIX. FURTHER REMARKS ON THE CALCULUS MINERViE. It was a principle laid down in the Athenian Law, that the defendant was acquitted if the votes for and against him were equal, see this point clearly and accurately stated by Schomann, in the Att. Process, p. 722. In another case, of the mythical times, and occurring at Dodona, Strabo remarks, ix. p. 402, ta-cov 8e tcov yj/T]v yevofxeva>v ras arrokvovcras viKr\KOvri (paivcovrai ol yjrrjcfioi 'laai, 6 (fievycov viicq. Not SO the popular Grecian mind, which in the earlier times took quite a peculiar delight in endeavouring to refer all relations of actual life to institutions of the Gods and events of the olden time. In the case under consideration, where the Judges themselves gave no positive decision, it imagined to itself a benevolent deity as interposing and giving a casting vote in favour of the de- fendant, and had a particular tale to relate, which was to account for the whole matter. In other words, Minerva's ballot is neither more nor less than the mythical expression of the principle, that where Justice is undecided, Mercy prevails. This must be evident to every one who has mastered the ele- ments of Mythology, as understood now-a-days. It may, how- ever, be rendered comprehensible even to one who has not employed himself on this study, that the Calculus Minerva; is only the imaginary addition of a white stone for acquittal in the case of lv, 7rpoadep.€vr] ttjv nap' avrr/s crater kcu to'iwv en vvv (ra>£ei 7rdvTas, tav icrai yevavrai. And Julian says (Or. iii. p. 114 D. Spanheim) : eiirore tg>v bt.Ka^6vT(ov al y^ri(poi kcit 'iaov (palvoivro rols (pcvyovat. npos tovs Siaxovras, rfjv ttjs *A^i;vay €7nTc6ep.fvr)v t Tijs alrias. These passages clearly express the same view of the subject that I have taken, namely, that Athena's ballot was added in order to remove the lo-o\j/r](pia. Lucian, indeed, does seem to have held that Athena's ballot was added to the white when there were more of the black ballots. (Cf. Piscator. c. 21. Harmonid. c. 3, fin.) But Lucian's authority is of much less weight than that of Aristides on a question of Attic Archaeology. One point, however, in which all these authors are agreed is the important position that the Calculus Minervse did not exist merely for the history of Orestes, but was applied in historical times also, in order to produce the same result. Now it is perfectly incredible L 218 CALCULUS MINERV^E. that such a custom could have existed at Athens in historical times, as that of giving the superiority to the white ballots by the imaginary addition of Minerva's ballot, when there was one more of the black than of the white. This is in direct contradiction of the unquestionable position from which we set out : and moreover we have an instance of a person being cast by a majority of one vote against him (Dem. c. Mid. p. 538). It is nothing to the purpose to remind us that in historical times the Athenian Courts consisted of one more than a round number ; there were, for instance, 51 Ephets (Pollux, viii. 124) and 201 or 401 Dicasts in the ten principal Courts (Pollux, viii. 48). For this arrangement arose from the desire of avoiding equality of votes : whereas, if the intention of Athena's ballot had been to effect lo-oyj/rjcpia, just the contrary result would have been produced. There would have been no advantage in having 51 Ephets, if, when 26 were for condemning and 25 for acquittal, then came the calculus Minervse, and so the votes were equal, in order that — with a second appeal to the Goddess — they might now acquit the accused ! This would have been carrying hu- manity great lengths, and it would deserve to be noticed in all manuals of Antiquities as a most remarkable circumstance, that, if the accused had a majority of one vote against him he was acquitted. Others indeed will rather be of opinion that for this very reason we must conceive the Areopagus of the mythical times to have consisted of an even number of Judges, viz., on purpose to make an la-o^^>ia possible, and so give Athena an opportunity of typifying that principle of humanity by her super- numerary ballot. This brings us back to the procedure in the Eumenides, which may now be placed in the clearest point of view. Athena had declared at the very outset (v. 424), when Orestes petitioned her to act as Judge in his cause, that it was not Oefiis for her ia by taking a ballot on her own account? Had her idea been this : ' In the first place, I give my vote for Orestes, and, secondly, I ordain that, should this make the votes equal, Orestes shall prevail ;' then in the first place this second idea must necessarily have been denoted as a new addition by the requisite particles (for instance Kai firjv), and in the next place the establishment of this vop.ia-pa, which Aristotle has given himself so much trouble to account for, would surely have needed a word or two in vindication. But why does not the Goddess immediately put in this ballot ? This question likewise is easily answered. It is just because the 'Adrjvas ^(pos is no judicial vote ; because that ballot was never thrown with the rest into the urn, but when the black and white ballots had been sorted and found equal, then, and not till then, is this white stone to be supposed added. Hence it necessarily follows that she cannot add her ballot, the meaning of which she has previously explained, until after those of the Judges have been counted, and it has appeared that the white are equal in number to the black. 'Avfjp od' €K7T€(f)evyeu alfxaros dUrju' \crov yap eTov£iog 114 Soter, the Third ... 190 sqq. Zvyd 21 THE END. New Works and New Editions By the Rev. H. GOODWIN. M.A., Late Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, and Minister of St. Edward's, Cambridge. An ELEMENT AR Y CO URSE of MA THEMA TIG 8, designed principally for Students of the University of Cam- bridge. Fourth Edition. 8vo. 15s. %* This Edition contains 100 pages of additional matter, and the price has been reduced from 18s. to 15s. A COLLECTION of PROBLEMS and EXAMPLES, adapted to the " Elementary Course of Mathematics." With an Appendix, containing the Questions proposed during the first Three Days of the Senate House Examinations in the Years 1848, 1849, 1850, and 1851, Second Edition. 8vo. 6s. 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