Note 94 — THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES.

This seems the true meaning of ἐφέστιος, indigenous in Greece, as Blomfield interprets, quoting Hesych, ἐφέστίος, αὐτόχθων, ἔνοικος, II. B. 125, etc. An Athenian audience, with their political jealousy of Asiatic influence, and pride of indigenous origin, would have appreciated this prayer as heartily as the one below, v. 158, πόλιν δορίπονον μὴ προδῶθ᾽ Ἑτεροφώνῳ στρατῷ, which their minds would connect with more powerful associations than the mere provincial differences of Bœotia and Argos. How great a stress was laid upon the ridicule of foreign dialect, may be seen from the reception of Pseudartabas in the Acharnians.