Book 3 — CHAPTER III EURIPIDES (continued 2)

Orestes says to Iphigeneia that he had some difficulty in refraining from rebuking his hosts on this occasion.[161] Miss Harrison’s explanation[162] of this statement is that Orestes was mad! But we are convinced that Orestes was not mad, either at Athens or amongst the Tauri, though he may have been temporarily insane amongst the Argives.[163]

We have seen that there were conflicting opinions concerning the guilt of Orestes in different legends. The predominant opinion in Aeschylus and in the legend (probably Phocian) which referred to his purgation by Apollo suggests that his act was justified. The Argive legend which we have met in the Orestes of Euripides conceived his act as wilful matricide which involved an eternal pollution. But the prevailing conception of Orestes’ act which we find in the legends of post-Homeric times regards him as guilty of matricide extenuated through Apollo’s command. The dramatic attempt to unify these various legends is the source of the complexity of the problem of Oresteian blood-vengeance in Euripides. It is impossible to analyse successfully the legal and religious position of a hero who is tried and who is at the same time untried, who is eternally and who is at the same time temporarily polluted, in one and the same drama! But the myth of the Pitcher Feast was based on a well-defined tradition. It ignored the Argive and the Phocian legends, it ignored also what we have called the first Attic legend, and it considered only the second Attic legend from which the Iphigenia in Tauris drama was ultimately derived.

The surprise which Orestes feels at the partial social boycott which confronts him in Athens is, we think, to be attributed to the coexistence of the Attic and the Phocian legends. In the Phocian legend Orestes was tried and purged, therefore he could visit any Greek city with impunity. But the Attic legend suggested that this purgation, though valid for Phocis, could not be accepted by the Athenians, so long as the avenging Erinnyes pursued, until Orestes had been acquitted by an Athenian court. This conflict of legendary view-points explains, we believe, the divergence of opinions which is suggested by these words.

The ‘Phoenician Maidens’ and the ‘Suppliants’

The homicide-problems of the Phoenissae and of the Supplices may be simultaneously discussed, as both these dramas are concerned with the war of the Seven against Thebes. The dramas correspond in their general atmosphere and in regard to the problems which they present with the Septem of Aeschylus or the Antigone of Sophocles. We also find an incidental reference[164] to the punishment of Oedipus which recalls the Oedipus at Colonus and the King Oedipus of Sophocles. Euripides, in his account of the conflict which took place between Polyneices and Eteocles and of the war between the Argives and the Thebans is, from a legal point of view, more satisfactory than his brother dramatists, inasmuch as he makes a clear distinction between the different aspects of the problem of burial in both cases. Polyneices may or may not have been a fratricide and a traitor,[165] but the Argives at least were legitimate belligerents. In the Antigone these two issues seem to have been deliberately confused. The burial of the Argives was a question for Greek international law, the violation of which brought down upon the offenders the anger of the gods. The burial of Polyneices was a more delicate question, upon which the gods might adopt divergent attitudes. Teiresias, in the Antigone, does not differentiate very clearly between the religious aspects of these two problems. The gods were angry—about that there was no doubt. But might not this anger have been mainly, if not entirely, due to the non-burial of the Argives? Here are the words addressed by Teiresias to Kreon[166]:

Kreon is unmoved by this declaration, which he regards as the outcome of bribery and political corruption.[167] But Teiresias now utters words which strike terror into Kreon’s heart[168]:

Now, Euripides, on the other hand, keeps these two questions clearly distinct. The burial of the Argives, being an international question, is referred by Adrastus to Theseus,[169] King of Athens. At first Theseus refuses to intervene, and rightly, since Athens was merely one of a number of Greek States, and she did not wish to undertake single-handed a war which was properly an Amphictyonic war. But ultimately Theseus, yielding to the persuasion of his mother and of Adrastus, fought and defeated the Theban army under the command of Kreon, and handed over the bodies of the Argives to their relatives for burial.[170] That in refusing burial to the Argives Kreon had violated a Greek international law is clear from many passages in the Suppliants. Thus Aethra says[171]:

and Theseus says[172]:

The Messenger thus describes the words of the herald[173]:

The problem of the burial of Polyneices has two distinct aspects in Euripides, as it has in Sophocles. In both accounts Polyneices was ultimately buried, as it was necessary for legend to insist that he should be, in view of the existence of tombs in Thebes which were said to contain the bones of all the seven Argive leaders.[174] But whereas in Sophocles it is religious fear which causes Kreon to consent to the burial of Polyneices, in Euripides we feel that it is rather the victorious intervention of Theseus which is the cause of this dénouement. Eteocles and Polyneices are represented by Euripides as having foreseen the conflict which would rage over their burial when they had mutually slain each other. Thus, Eteocles solemnly binds Kreon to refuse burial to Polyneices[175]:

Again, Polyneices is said to have commanded, as he lay dying, his mother and Antigone to bury him in Theban soil[176]:

Thus Euripides conceives in a twofold aspect the act of Polyneices. Subjectively, he thinks, Polyneices was justified in attacking and in slaying his brother[177]: objectively, however, or technically, he was a traitor and a fratricide because prima facie he was the aggressor.[178] But the sympathetic intuition of Antigone looks beyond the superficial enactments of a political justice of which the obscure and oscillating dictates cannot compete with her love for her brother in life, with her grief for him in death, and with her reverence for the solemn injunction which his dying lips had uttered.

The punishment of Oedipus which is mentioned in the Phoenissae is based, we believe, on the conception of his fatal act as voluntary homicide,[179] but it also takes into account the facts of the Homeric narrative. The Homeric[180] story of the continued rule of Oedipus ‘over the Cadmeans’ was not in harmony with Achaean principles of blood-vengeance. Homer does not understand it. Perhaps this is because, in Boeotia, as Leaf points out,[181] the Achaeans had not established their power. It is possible that Oedipus enjoyed immunity from punishment because of his position as a Minoan autocrat, but as there existed in legendary story many capable and willing avengers it is better to attribute his immunity to a discrimination between degrees in homicide-guilt which we have associated with Pelasgian tribal custom, and to interpret the Homeric reference as a Pelasgian ‘reminiscence.’[182]

In Homer, Oedipus lives, dies, and is buried in Thebes. But post-Homeric legend, under the influence of the pollution doctrine, could not accept these facts. Even if the plea of quasi-involuntary homicide which Oedipus himself put forward had been accepted he would still have had to go into exile for at least a period of years, and even then he could not have returned to his domestic religion or have been buried in the tomb of his fathers. The duration of exile for extenuated or involuntary slaying in historical times, and therefore presumably[183] in the pollution era, depended on the will of the relatives of the slain. One single objector could have extended the exile period indefinitely, at least in theory, according to the law ‘let all consent to be appeased or let one objector hold the field.’[184] But in the post-Homeric story of Oedipus, as Sophocles gives it, the plea of Oedipus was not accepted. He was regarded as a voluntary homicide and sent into exile. It is true that when Polyneices himself was banished, for political reasons, from Thebes, he naturally relented, and in his altered mood he offered to restore Oedipus to his home.[185] But in order to restore Oedipus it was necessary that Kreon and Eteocles should be either killed or exiled, and this contingency had not been realised. In Euripides the unhappy king ultimately suffers the same fate. Kreon says to Oedipus[186]:

And Oedipus refers to the Apolline oracle which foretold that he would die in Athens (an oracle which Sophocles also mentions[187]) when he says[188]:

But in Euripides it is clear that Oedipus is not banished before the death of Eteocles and Polyneices. A number of years is known to have elapsed during which he still lived in Thebes. But he was imprisoned all the time, and, as this suggestion is not implied in the Homeric story, we must suppose that some legend invented this novel device by which part at least of the Homeric facts could be brought into harmony with the requirements of the post-Homeric doctrine of ‘pollution.’ It supposed that Oedipus continued to live in Thebes, not however as a king or as a free citizen with full civic rights, but as an imprisoned criminal who by the very fact of his imprisonment did not pollute the State. Jocasta, who, in accordance with the Homeric narrative, is represented as living in Thebes for many years after the crimes[189] of Oedipus were committed, says:

We have said[190] that ‘pollution’ was conceived by the Greeks as a quasi-physical reality which resembled a contagious disease. In historical times a ‘polluted’ murderer was isolated by imprisonment. A law of Dracon, which is confirmed by Plato and by Demosthenes, prescribed that a convicted murderer en rupture de ban could be arrested and imprisoned, instead of being put to death, by the first person who encountered him.[191] But imprisonment was never regarded, in Attic law, as a permanent method of isolation for a murderer, simply because it was not a recognised legal penalty for homicide. Oedipus therefore would have been justified, from the standpoint of historical law, in uttering curses against his relatives who imprisoned him. Hence we suggest that this story of the imprisonment of Oedipus was invented by some legend-maker of the pre-Draconian age, in an attempt to harmonise the Homeric story of the continued life of Oedipus at Thebes with the post-Homeric atmosphere which regarded him as ‘polluted’ and debarred from civil and religious communion with his fellow-citizens. Euripides implies[192] that ultimately the Apolline oracle was fulfilled and that Oedipus died as an exile at Athens. In view of the general acceptance of this oracle by traditional legends and of the ‘established fact’[193] of the burial of Oedipus at Athens, Euripides appears to have abandoned the Homeric account of the burial of Oedipus at Thebes. In this he reveals more intelligence and a greater insight into the meaning of the post-Homeric legend than did Pausanias and his authorities who believed that the bones of Oedipus were transferred from Thebes to Athens.[194] For either Oedipus was ‘polluted’ or he was not. If he was, he could not have been buried at Thebes, since he was regarded as a wilful murderer: if he was not, then he need not have come to Athens as a homicide-exile at all.

The statement of Jocasta[195] that Oedipus was imprisoned in order that his disgrace might be forgotten, and that of Kreon[196] that Oedipus had to be exiled for ever because he was ‘polluted,’ are inconsistent; but we may infer from these statements, which Euripides himself composed, that he did not quite understand the origin and motive of the story of the imprisonment of Oedipus. For whoever invented this story did so with a definite purpose, namely, to reconcile religious doctrine with historical fact. The inventor knew the meaning and purpose of his invention. Hence the statement of Jocasta to which we have referred cannot have originated with the inventor of the story, for otherwise she would have said that Oedipus was imprisoned to avoid pollution.

Nevertheless we think that here again Euripides sought to achieve dramatic interest by introducing an antique variant of the story which Sophocles had ignored. In Sophocles, Oedipus dies before the clash of arms takes place between the Argives and the Thebans. In Euripides he lives to see the realisation of his own curses, and becomes more easily reconciled to his own sad fate when he finds that Destiny has avenged him in his turn, as Laius was avenged, and that in leaving Thebes he has removed from his life the local anger of ghosts and gods.

The ‘Mad Hercules’

The theme of this drama is one of the multitudinous episodes which are associated with the life of Hercules. Now the legends of Hercules have this much in common with such legends as we have examined concerning Orestes and Oedipus, that they refer to the deeds of a great man who has died. In Greek religion, apart from the Olympian Pantheon of the Achaean caste, every great man assumed a divine nature when he died. But the Olympian religion did not recognise the right of man to become divine, and therefore whenever legend attributes human acts to such Olympian gods as Apollo or Athene (of whose mortal life there was no record) we must assume that at the time of such acts these gods have temporarily assumed a human form. But Hercules never was an Olympian. In Homer, Hercules is mentioned in a manner which suggests that he had been living quite recently upon this earth, and living moreover a normal human life. We find him in Hades, like all other dead men, though, curiously, he retains some of his old vitality, for he is married to Hebe, the goddess of eternal youth.[197] We hear of his maternal uncles living ordinary human lives in Argos or in Thebes,[198] and his grandsons actually fought in the Trojan war! We will not here attempt to discuss the origin of the Grecian cult of Hercules. Müller, of course, connects him with the Dorians. He thinks that Hercules and Apollo, in their respective rôles of hero and of god, satisfied the normal wants of Dorian religiousness.[199] We admit that the exaltation of Hercules as a divinity was of post-Homeric origin; but it is futile, we believe, to seek to distinguish the historical from the fictitious strata in Heraclean legends. At the dawn of European literature the human life of Hercules, if there ever was such a man, was a thing of the past, and it is therefore more than probable that all the post-Homeric legends of Hercules are equally fictitious. The main point which we wish to emphasise here is that most of the legends of Hercules are based on the assumption that he had not yet died: that he was a mortal man, who obeyed, on most occasions, the laws of social humanity, not a god who had condescended to take human form and who was superior to the operation of natural laws. We agree that in the legends of Hercules there is a certain element of magic, such as is found in the legends of Medea, or Jason, or Iphigeneia. This element imports into Heraclean legends a certain degree of lawlessness or of chaos. But, so far as homicide at least is concerned, we will assume that Hercules is a man; not indeed an ordinary man, subject to every ordinary law, but nevertheless a man, whose actions, however archaically they may be conceived, can nevertheless be explained. The difficulties which are presented by the Heraclean legends are due in part to their archaic setting, but still more to their almost infinite variety—a variety which we may attribute to the multitude of localities in which this Hero-god was worshipped. The greater the number of shrines which a god or hero possessed, the greater was the variety of the myths which grew up around him, because ancient myths—which are not like modern fairy tales, but which were rather sacred commemorations of religious events—could be transferred from one Hero to another. Herodotus tells[200] how Cleisthenes of Sicyon transferred the ‘tragic choruses’ which commemorated the sorrows of Adrastus to the cult of Dionysus. Thus too must Hercules have had attributed to him the joyful exploits as well as the sorrowful events of the ‘lives’ of local Heroes. For this reason, and because of the tendency of myths to become more and more fanciful, we believe that the legends of Hercules as of most gods are ‘fictitious.’

In the Euripidean drama, the Mad Hercules, we are told that Hercules, in a fit of madness, slew his wife, Megara, and his children.[201] He was deluded by the goddess Hera[202] into believing that he was thereby inflicting death upon the children of his taskmaster, Eurystheus. We may recall a somewhat similar delusion which was sent in a Sophoclean drama by Athene upon Ajax. But whereas in the Ajax no actual homicide occurs, here we have actual bloodshed, and, worst of all, kin-slaying. From a legal point of view, the position of Hercules is therefore quite different from that of Ajax. It is, we think, more akin to that of Oedipus. Hercules slays his children without knowing that they are his children. We may omit, for purposes of legal analysis, the death of Megara, his wife, for this death is obscured by the more heinous slaying of his kindred. Like Oedipus, Hercules discovers the truth; like Ajax, he contemplates suicide. He gives expression to sentiments regarding the punishment of kin-slaying which are suggestive of historical Attic law; though he forgets, for the moment, that his act was involuntary, when he says[203]:

Presently he begins to feel that he should not be considered fully culpable[204]; yet he sees that it will be difficult for him to establish ‘extenuation’ as a plea.[205] The fit of madness which Hera had sent upon him was indeed a grim reality, but it would be difficult to prove it in a court of justice. Moreover, in the Euripidean account Hercules is an alien in Thebes. His native State is Argos.[206] We have said that exile was not permitted as a penalty for voluntary kin-slaying in historical Greece. We have quoted[207] Plato for the law that even involuntary slaying between aliens was punished by perpetual exile. If Hercules was an alien at Thebes, so also were his children. In Homer[208] Thebes is the birthplace of Hercules, but this Homeric fact is not accepted by Euripides. In the following passage Hercules regards exile rather than death as his correct and proper punishment, but owing to the difficulty of proving involuntariness he fears that no city will receive him. Thebes, he says, he must leave. To Argos, his native home, he cannot return, because, as he says,[209] he has been already banished from that State owing to his feud with Eurystheus. In other places he will indeed be called a kin-slayer, and if he cannot prove his innocence he may be banished. This statement lends support to our theory that in historical Greece exile was not permitted for voluntary kin-slaying.[210] He says[211]:

But the archaic atmosphere of the ‘life’ of Hercules furnishes a solution for this problem. Theseus arrives from Athens! Apparently we are now living in the days which preceded the institution of citizen juries or even of Ephetae courts! As Theseus, the autocratic King-judge, tried Oedipus at the shrine of the Semnai,[212] so also, in a similarly informal manner, he tries Hercules. He knows already, without being told of it, that Hera is to blame. Therefore, he says[213]:

Hence he says to Hercules[214]:

What, we may ask, is the law to which Theseus here refers? Wilamowitz[215] rightly says that the law is that which prohibits his continuance at Thebes. We believe, however, that this was not a specifically Theban law. If it had been, the fact would have been more clearly indicated. The law in question is, we believe, an international law, which declared that when an alien slew an alien, even without intent, he must be debarred for ever from the State in which the deed occurred. This law we have already quoted from Plato.[216] Hercules therefore left Thebes and went to Athens,[217] and we are told that when, in course of time, he dies in Athens he will receive the worship of a Hero![218] The similarity of this dénouement to that of the Oedipus Coloneus of Sophocles needs no comment. Both these consummations are based, perhaps, on the existence of Hero-shrines in Attic soil. But the legend-makers were careful not to give us legal impossibilities. Hercules had shrines everywhere in Greece. Yet Hercules could not go to Argos, for the simple reason that he had been exiled from that city. He could not return to Thebes because of ‘the law.’ It was fortunate then for Hercules that he found a king such as Theseus who admitted without question the element of extenuation in his act. In historical Greece a wilful kin-slayer could not have been accepted as an exile in any State. The law which is referred to by Theseus cannot therefore have reference to wilful slaying, for it permitted him to leave Thebes. If he had slain his children wilfully, it would not have allowed him the option of exile. If he is allowed this option, it is because his deed was viewed, either by the dramatist or by the legend-maker, or by both, as extenuated or quasi-involuntary kin-slaying. Such slaying in Greek law prescribed a period of exile, temporary or perpetual, pending the appeasement of the kinsmen.

Owing to the important differences which exist between the Euripidean conception of the native state of Hercules and Homer’s conception, we must assume that Euripides has abandoned Homer and is following an Argive legend concerning Hercules. This conclusion is strengthened by the account which Euripides gives, in this play, of Amphitryon, the father of Hercules. Euripides makes Amphitryon say[219] that he is an exile from Argos living at Thebes, because he had slain Electryon. Now, if Euripides conceived Amphitryon as a Theban by birth, he could not legally have presented him, since he was a man-slayer, as a resident in Thebes. We have seen[220] that homicide-exiles were debarred from three possible places of residence, namely (1) the State of the slayer, (2) the State of the victim, and (3) the State in which the deed of blood took place.

Pausanias also refers[221] to this legend of Amphitryon. The Thebans of his time pointed out a ruined house in Thebes, ‘where they say Amphitryon dwelt when he fled from Tiryns owing to the death of Electryon.’ As Tiryns was a city within the boundary of the historical Argive State it is frequently confused with Argos in the legends. Electryon was the father-in-law and the uncle of Amphitryon. That the slaying of Electryon was not wilful is suggested by certain facts. Thus, the return of Amphitryon to Argos is said to depend on the will of Eurystheus and the labours of Hercules are regarded as the necessary ‘appeasement.’[222] We need not suppose that there is any reference to the Pelasgian wergeld system in the story of the ‘recompense’ which was demanded by Eurystheus. This ‘recompense’ is more akin to the ‘appeasement’ of relatives in the pollution system. It was the father of Eurystheus, Sthenelus, the brother of Electryon, who had driven Amphitryon into banishment. Euripides concedes this much to the claim of Thebes to be regarded as the home of Amphitryon, in so far as he makes Amphitryon say[223] that he has settled there as an exile. But legally he could not have lived there as a homicide-exile if he had been a citizen of Thebes. Hence Euripides calls him ‘the Argive Amphitryon.’ His hopes of an ultimate return to Argos and of the ‘appeasement’ of Eurystheus suggest that his act was involuntary, or quasi-involuntary. The very fact of his exile points to the same conclusion.

The attempt of Lycus, King of Thebes, to murder Amphitryon, Megara, and the children of Hercules, is also described in the play. The motive of Lycus was political. Hercules had married Megara, daughter of Kreon, the Regent of Thebes, and his family was therefore a dangerous rival in the matter of dynastic succession. Hercules, as soon as he heard of the plot, put Lycus to death.[224] This penalty, we have suggested,[225] was a normal penalty for attempted murder (βούλευσις) in Achaean or quasi-Achaean[226] society. We have discussed this penalty in our analysis of the Ajax of Sophocles. Whether there was an antique legend which referred to this penalty, or whether the dramatist is consciously archaising, it is difficult to decide. The Chorus, at least, have no doubt that the penalty was just and Amphitryon takes the same view.[227] The Chorus say to him as he dies[228]:

The ‘Children of Hercules’

Of the Heracleidae, another family of Hercules, Pausanias says[229]: ‘When Hercules fled from Eurystheus at Tiryns, he went to his friend Ceyx, the King of Trachis. But when Hercules left the society of men[230] Eurystheus demanded his children, and Ceyx sent them to Athens, suggesting that Theseus should protect them. And coming to Athens, they caused the first war between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians, as Theseus would not give them up to Eurystheus.’

In this Euripidean play, also, the children of Hercules are represented as dwelling in the city of Athens, in the charge of Iolaus and Alcmene,[231] and the war between Eurystheus and Theseus for their extradition is the main theme. The presence of Iolaus in the drama is probably, we think, derived from the legend of an expedition which the Athenians made under his leadership to Sardinia.[232] The chief point which we wish to emphasise here is that the demand for the extradition of the Heracleidae has no connexion with homicide. Amphitryon had slain Electryon. Hercules had sought in vain to ‘appease’ Eurystheus. It is now evident that Eurystheus has refused all ‘appeasement,’ as the sons of Oedipus refused it, for political reasons. In Greek law homicide could not continue to afflict the children of a slayer unto the fourth generation. With the death of Amphitryon, the homicide episode is closed. In this drama, the extradition demand is therefore entirely political. Upon this point our play is quite explicit. Eurystheus says to Alcmene[233]:

Demophon, son of Theseus, refuses to give up the sons of Hercules and uses as a pretext the right of suppliants.[234] We recall the statement of Pausanias[235] that Demophon was the first Athenian who was tried at the Palladium court—a court which regularly tried cases of homicide between strangers.[236] The words which Demophon speaks to the herald of Eurystheus[237]—

imply that the right of suppliant was not potent to protect offenders but was only potent to secure for them a respite from merited punishment; moreover they imply that Eurystheus has no right to demand the extradition of offenders without the option of a trial.[239] We have already admitted that the right of sanctuary helped to determine the locality of certain courts, but we have maintained[240] that it had no essential connexion with the origin of the principle of trials for homicide, and that its connexion with murder courts is quite accidental. We have suggested that[241] in historical Greece trial was a possible option for extradition in case of homicide. Hence the refusal of Eurystheus to accept trial suggests what Demophon definitely asserts,[242] that the ‘offence’ of the Heracleidae was not criminal but political.

But if the Heracleidae are innocent, what shall we say of Eurystheus? Is he not as culpable as Lycus is in the Mad Hercules? Is he not guilty of plotting murder for political ends? If he is not yet αἴτιος φόνου, is he not guilty of βούλευσις? For this crime, we have said, in early Greece, the penalty was probably death.[243] It is, then, significant that in this play Eurystheus is put to death by the servants of Alcmene.[244] Both the penalty and its mode of execution are archaic. Either legend retained these elements unadulterated in their transition down the ages, or Euripides deliberately imported into the myth an archaic atmosphere. In neither case is Euripides giving us the ideas of his own time, for in historical Greece βούλευσις was not punishable by death.

Eurystheus was captured alive in the battle and hence he claims the right of a captive warrior and demands the protection of the Athenians![245] Alcmene, however, insists that he should be given up to her for execution![246] What a nice legal problem was this for a litigious Athenian audience! How replete it is with that intense human interest which was so dear to Euripides! The conflict is skilfully depicted in the dialogue which takes place between Alcmene and the messenger (or the Chorus?) after the battle.[247] Eurystheus’ appeal to the ‘laws of Greece’[248] implies the existence of international legislation concerning the rights of war-captives, but he himself had previously shown very little regard for the international status of exiles. In vain does he advance the plea of self-defence against these harmless but dangerous children! The Athenians decide to take no action. They cannot put to death a captive taken in war. But Alcmene claims that Eurystheus is a murderer. According to ancient practice, it is her privilege to avenge! Moreover, so far as Alcmene is concerned, she will not bury a man whom she believes to be a criminal.[249] But unfortunately there was an oracle of Apollo that Eurystheus should be buried in Athens.[250] The Athenians therefore are disposed to bury him.[251] At first Alcmene says[252] that she will not object to the burial of Eurystheus by the Athenians, but this assertion is incompatible with the command which she gives to her attendants later, to deliver the dead Eurystheus to the dogs. We may perhaps assume that she performed a mock ritual of ‘exposure’ of the dead, that she cast the body of Eurystheus beyond the boundaries, and that afterwards his relatives removed him for sepulture. Such is the attempt which Euripides seems to make to solve the deadlock between two elements of Greek law, namely that which permitted the burial of an enemy,[253] and that which forbade the burial of a murderer.[254] In the archaic atmosphere of the play, homicide and attempted homicide[255] are equated as identical. In the words of Eurystheus, who declares in vain that his death will cause pollution to his slayer, we discern at once the failure of Euripides to be consistently archaic and the failure of a dead man’s ghost to impose ‘pollution’ in the teeth of civic law and international religion.

The ‘Medea’

In regard to the origin and the evolution of the story of Medea which is the subject of this drama, we cannot do better than summarise the account which Verrall gives in his edition of the play. Verrall thinks[256] that Medea was a Phoenician moon-goddess who was worshipped at Corinth at an early period, and to whom were offered, in sacrifice, human victims, including children; that these rites, which in course of time assumed a more civilised form, (when a mock ritual of human sacrifice was accepted in the place of ancient realities,) were ‘transferred’ to the goddess Hera; that sacred legend retained indeed a memory of Medea, but the evolution of Corinthian religion degraded to the level of a priestess the Medea who once had been a goddess; and that hence arose the fiction that Medea had once slain children—in sacrifice! Later, Verrall thinks, this Corinthian story was expanded under the influence of eastern Greek colonisation, and legend traced in the route from the Euxine to Iolcos the natural course of Medea’s introduction to Greek lands. Weird Asiatic notions of sorcery and witchcraft clustered round her name; to her were attributed the atrocities which legend-memory recorded of the Aeolidae at Iolcos. Thus was Medea degraded not only from a goddess to a priestess, but also from a priestess to a sorceress, and from a sorceress to the vilest murderess whom Grecian legends knew.

If the creators of the story of Medea were ignorant of her original character, so also naturally was Euripides. For him, Medea is not a goddess who has assumed the form of a woman, but a woman who has not yet put off this mortal coil, and who as yet has done little to deserve that she should, after death, attain to divinity! As a woman, she is, despite her magic, subject to social laws. Her deeds of blood must be regarded from a legal standpoint, whether that standpoint is applicable to one era or to another. Let us consider how the deeds of Medea were avenged.

First of all, she slew her brother, Apsyrtus, in Colchis, to prevent his pursuit.[257] For this crime she paid no penalty, if we except the exile which destiny had, in any event, decreed for her. It was quite unnecessary for the legend-maker to invent this additional atrocity of fratricide, for to Colchis Medea was never to return! But as exile was an archaic Pelasgian penalty for wilful kin-slaying, this conception bears an antique stamp which is attributable either to the antiquity of the story or to the archaising of later minds.

Again, Medea caused the daughters of Pelias to put to death their aged father by deluding them into the belief that by cutting him in pieces and boiling him with certain magic potions, they would restore him to youth and vigour.[258] Here Medea acts as the ‘plotter and contriver’[259] of murder. In primitive as in historical[260] times, such a deed was regarded as equally culpable with that of an actual slayer—indeed, in the special circumstances of the case she was the real if not the actual murderer of Pelias, and the daughters of Pelias were guilty, at most, of involuntary slaying. We cannot of course attribute to Medea the guilt of kin-slaying, as she was not akin to Pelias. It is more probable that she would have been regarded, for purposes of punishment, as an ordinary murderess. In actual fact, she and Jason were expelled from Thessaly. Even so, in the play,[261] she still fears the vengeance of Acastus, the son of Pelias. This fact does not imply that she was conceived as guilty of kin-slaying, which in historical Greece was punishable by death. We believe that the Thessalian story of Medea was not conceived from the standpoint of historical law.

In this story there are complications of blood-vengeance which suggest an Achaean, or rather what we may call a quasi-Achaean atmosphere. While, in Homer,[262] Pelias, son of Poseidon, rules over Iolcos like an Achaean, by divine right, later legend revealed that he had previously defrauded his half-brother Aeson of the kingdom and put him to death, and that Jason the son of Aeson had himself narrowly escaped death at his hands. Hence it was natural that Jason, the one-sandalled hero of the oracle,[263] should command Medea to put Pelias to death. That is the real reason why Jason, together with Medea, was banished from Thessaly by Acastus. This quasi-Achaean exile is therefore similar to the Achaean ‘flight from death,’ and hence it is that Medea still fears the vengeance of Acastus.[264] When Jason arrived at Corinth, he became affianced to the king’s daughter, just as the Achaean Tydeus became the son-in-law of Adrastus.[265] No pollution was involved in an alliance with a kin-slayer! The presence of such Achaean episodes in Euripides, side by side with episodes which bear a later stamp, suggests either a marvellous capacity for archaising on the part of the dramatist or, more probably, the unadulterated transmission of an antique legend.[266]

The main plot of this drama reveals two further atrocities which were perpetrated by Medea. She plots the death of her husband, of his intended wife, Glauce, of his intended father-in-law, Kreon, King of Corinth, and of her own two children, whom she had borne to Jason. Her murderous plot proved successful, except in regard to Jason. Her children she slew deliberately with her own hand. It happened, previously, that Aegeus, King of Athens, arrived at Corinth. Medea, well aware of the consequences of the murderous plot which she had planned, and being, in addition, under an edict of banishment from Corinth, entreated Aegeus to give her protection at Athens.[267] He promised to do so, but she was not content with a promise. She bound Aegeus under a solemn oath:

One or two problems are suggested by this quotation. If Medea had not succeeded in securing this solemn contract on the part of Aegeus, would she have carried out her plot? And was Aegeus bound by the oath when he discovered the sequel? In this section of the story—which is the main theme of our play—homicide is conceived as a ‘pollution,’[269] and in the pollution system exile was not permitted for voluntary kin-slaying.[270] The murder of her children was by far the most serious offence which Medea committed, since they were her kindred. For the other deeds of blood she could have legally sought asylum at Athens, as she was not a citizen of that State, and the deeds had not been perpetrated there. Medea seems to be well aware of these facts, for she utters no hint to Aegeus of her dreadful plans. But it was her intention of slaying her children which led her to extract from Aegeus this solemn oath. If he had refused to swear, she would, we believe, have slain all her intended victims, but she would then have committed suicide.

But was the oath which Aegeus swore binding in Greek international law? Apparently Medea thought so, and Euripides seems to think so, too. The Chorus, however, do not understand how Medea can find a refuge at Athens. But it is only in the slaying of the children that they seem to find a difficulty. They say[271]:

But at the end of the play the Sun-god, the grandfather of Medea, places his chariot at her disposal in order to facilitate her journey to Athens,[272] the Corinthian gods accepting, as an expiation, the establishment by blood-stained hands of a festival and mystic rites![273] Jason is foredoomed to death,[274] and we are told that Medea will escape the Erinnyes of her children![275]

If Euripides, as Wedd maintains,[276] habitually contrasts the morality of the legends with that of his own day, we can only say that here the contrast is so obvious that it need not have been indicated at all. But is such a contrast really indicated? Does the futile protest of the Chorus represent the Athens of Euripides, and does the action of Aegeus typify the Athens of a barbarous past? If not, how do we explain the facts of the drama? In our view, it is Jason, not Medea, who is the villain of this play. Medea had left her home, her kindred, everything that life held dear, for the love of a Greek adventurer. Jason never taunts Medea with the slaying of his father. He had commanded it. Driven forth as an exile from the land of Thessaly, she clings to her blood-stained mate. In Corinth he deserts her, and she is ordered to go away—anywhere, somewhere, into the great unknown. To the distracted mind of a desperate woman who sees herself deserted in a friendless world comes then the image of a two-edged sword, begotten of slighted love and sexual jealousy. Love rejected, love transferred, transforms Medea from a faithful friend into a dangerous enemy. Her children, erstwhile the sweetest pledges of affection, are now so many goads which stimulate her vengeance. The conflict of passions which rages in Medea’s breast is depicted by Euripides with matchless skill. It proclaims her at once human and insane. Subjectively therefore she need only plead guilty to extenuated homicide, to slaying in a passion; and if such a plea were accepted she would be entitled in Greek law[277] to the sanctuary of exile. Why then does she bind Aegeus by an oath? We suggest that the explanation is to be found in the distinction between the objective or legal aspect of an act and its subjective or psychological aspect. It would have been difficult for Medea to have established her plea in any court, formal or informal. Aegeus might not have given her the benefit of the doubt, as Theseus did to Oedipus, and Medea could take no risks. Furthermore, this legend has an archaic setting, and portrays a Greek story of a period which was antecedent to the establishment of regular State courts of justice and to codified international law. This explains why Aegeus observed his oath. There was no authority of an international religion to declare that it was not binding. Viewed in this light, the protest of the Chorus in our last quotation is a confirmation of our hypothesis. They actually approve of the slaying of Kreon and of his daughter, though they regret that they should have suffered for Jason’s infamy. They say[278]:

When the Chorus urge Medea not to slay her children, we feel that they are prompted by feelings of pity and humanity, rather than by any sense of legal or religious guilt. In the following passage in which we see the strongest and most emphatic instance of their disapproval of Medea’s act, their main objection is that her act is unusual! Only one woman, they say, has ever been known to do such a deed before![279]

Thus, in this play we have no Euripidean contrast of barbarous with civilised morality. Euripides favours Medea; so does the Chorus; so does the plot. So strong is her passion, so conscious is she of her own moral rectitude, so magnanimous is her soul, that, if Aegeus had not come, she would have carried out her plans, and if Aegeus had not sworn, she would have done the same. But with her blood-stained hands she would have driven into her heart the sword which had just drained the life blood of her children.

The ‘Hippolytus’

The scene of the Hippolytus is laid in Troizen, in S.E. Argolis, the realm of Pittheus, the maternal grandfather of Theseus, King of Athens. Thither Theseus has come, because, says Euripides, he was sentenced to one year’s exile for the slaying of Pallas and his sons. Aphrodite says[280]:

Now Pausanias informs us[281] that ‘justifiable homicide was the plea of Theseus when he was acquitted for killing Pallas and his sons.’ We have pointed out[282] that Pallas and his sons were slain in a civil war in Attica. As they were technically rebels, and unjust aggressors, seeking to dethrone Aegeus (the father of Theseus), who was the reigning monarch, it was quite natural that from one point of view the act of Theseus should have been morally regarded as justifiable homicide. It would not have required a court of justice to have established the validity of such a plea. Had not Eteocles been automatically ‘acquitted’ for the slaying of Polyneices? But why does Euripides speak of a sentence of one year’s exile? This penalty in relation to kin-slaying (Pallas was a brother of Aegeus) can only have one meaning. Plato assures us[283] that if a kinsman slays a kinsman in a passion, and if the deceased before he expires shall have ‘forgiven’ him and absolved him from blood-guiltiness, the deed shall be regarded as involuntary homicide for which the normal penalty was one year’s exile. To explain this reference in Euripides, therefore, Theseus must be conceived as guilty of extenuated kin-slaying which was ‘forgiven.’ But we are nowhere told that the Pallantidae forgave their slayer! We have said[284] that there was a legal affinity between the conceptions of justifiable and of extenuated slaying. Yet the two kinds of homicide were never identified, and it would be all the more difficult to identify them when the deed concerned a King of Athens. Hence we must suppose either (1) that Euripides has here abandoned the tradition mentioned by Pausanias, or (2) that the legal aspect of the slaying of the Pallantidae had become confused in the legends, before Euripides, with the legal aspect of some other deed of blood with which the name of Theseus was associated.

During the sojourn of Theseus at Troizen, where his son Hippolytus was being brought up, Phaedra, the second wife of Theseus, sought to seduce into adulterous intercourse her step-son, Hippolytus. Euripides represents Hippolytus as an Orphic votary,[285] and we will condone the anachronism[286] because it emphasises the probability of Hippolytus’ repudiation of Phaedra’s suggestions. Phaedra, in shame and anger, committed suicide,[287] but in revenge for the puritan’s rejection of her love, she left behind her a letter in which she accused Hippolytus of forcible violation.[288] Such an accusation, followed by suicide, would be sufficient to convict Hippolytus in either ancient or modern times. It would have convicted him of attempting an ‘indecent assault,’ and of attempted adultery. But would it have convicted him of having caused the death of Phaedra? Theseus believed him guilty of all these crimes, and decided to banish him from Troizen, pronouncing against him, in addition, a virulent curse which, in the religious atmosphere of the ancient world, was as dangerous to the life of Hippolytus as the σήματα λυγρά were which were sent, in analogous circumstances, by Proitus to the King of Lydia, in the legend of Bellerophon.[289] He says[290]:

The crimes which Theseus attributes to Hippolytus are so many and so various that it is impossible to connect this penalty of banishment with the homicidal aspect of Phaedra’s death. The penalty is too severe, as his action in causing Phaedra’s death could hardly have been regarded even as manslaughter.

It is to be noted that Hippolytus was banished from Athens as well as from Troizen.[291] After leaving Troizen, as he was travelling along the coast, he was assailed by a sea-monster which was sent by Poseidon, within sight of the Scironian rocks[292] (this point, we shall see, is important for the correct analysis of the legend): the horses took fright, and Hippolytus was dragged behind the chariot until he was mortally injured. He was brought back to Theseus; and as Artemis miraculously revealed to Theseus his innocence of the crime which had been alleged against him, the father and the son became reconciled; and, before he died, Hippolytus absolved his father from the guilt of blood.[293] Thus the play ends.

We have said[294] that in early Greece, and even amongst the Achaean caste, adultery was not punishable by death. Hence the curse of Theseus renders him liable to blood-guilt. He ‘contrives’ death, he is αἴτιος φόνου,[295] even if he does not actually slay Hippolytus. He confesses his guilt in the closing scene. Now the ‘forgiveness’ of a dying kinsman did not absolve the slayer from all punishment. He had still, in historical Greece, to endure a penalty of one year’s exile from his home-land. Is it not strange, therefore, that in this play Theseus suffers no punishment for the death of Hippolytus? Troizen was reputed to have been the birth-place of Theseus; Athens was the birth-place of Hippolytus. Euripides remembers the latter fact when he represents the exiled Hippolytus as debarred from Athens. But he forgets the former fact when he makes Troizen a place of exile for Theseus! Pausanias says[296] that Theseus went to Troizen to be purified for the slaying of Pallas and his sons, and that at Troizen Phaedra accomplished the death of Hippolytus. Moreover, Pausanias tells us[297] that over the royal portico of the Athenian Prytaneum there was an earthenware statue which represented Theseus in the act of hurling into the sea a certain brigand named Sciron. For Euripides, Sciron is the name of a sea boulder in the Saronic gulf. But Plutarch assures[298] us that Sciron was a kinsman of Theseus, that Theseus slew him, and that as an atonement he instituted the sacred Isthmian games!

It seems obvious that Euripides has either adopted an eclectic attitude to these various legends of Theseus, or that they had become ‘fused’ before his time. But he is not concerned with legal accuracy or consistency, so much as with the construction of an intelligible plot of intense human interest. To Euripides it must have appeared improbable that the temporary sojourn of Theseus at Troizen was connected, as Pausanias alleges, with purgation rites, since these rites would normally have been performed at Athens. Moreover, the brief period of time which such rites would have necessitated does not afford a sufficient explanation of his ‘exile’ for the space of one year. Again, it was absolutely necessary to suppose that Theseus returned to Athens. But, for this, it was necessary to assume that he was ‘forgiven’ by Hippolytus whom he, directly and immediately, and Phaedra indirectly,[299] caused to be killed. But we have not yet discovered the secret of that one year’s sojourn at Troizen. We believe that it is in the legend of Sciron, which Euripides ignores, that we must seek the real origin of the tradition concerning a ‘forgiveness’ and a period of one year’s exile, in the life of Theseus. We have already[300] pointed out how closely these two ideas may be correlated. We suggest that the real legends of Theseus presented some such facts as the following:

1. Theseus slew Pallas and his sons, was acquitted by the Delphinium court,[301] and was purged at Athens.

2. Phaedra, not Theseus, caused the death of Hippolytus.[302]

3. Theseus slew a kinsman,[303] named Sciron, in Attica, but Sciron, before dying, forgave his slayer. Theseus therefore went into exile for one year—not to Troizen—but to the Isthmus where he instituted a sacred festival. He could not have gone into exile to Troizen, for this realm belonged to him (since he was the grandson of Pittheus[304]), and in Euripides he claims the right to banish Hippolytus from Troizen.[305] He was certainly a citizen of Troizen since in legend he was born there.

We must suppose, therefore, according to this hypothesis, either that Euripides selected different elements from these legends and joined them together, or that they had been confused in some one legend before his time. In this fusion the forgiveness was shifted from Sciron to Hippolytus. Theseus was conceived as the cause of Hippolytus’ death; Sciron was ignored and the slaying of Pallas was regarded as extenuated but not as justifiable homicide.

The ‘Ion’

The most important incident in the Ion is the attempted murder (βούλευσις) of Ion, the eponymous ancestor of the Ionians, by his mother Creusa, who does not know that he is her son. Thus we meet once more a homicide problem forming the basis of a drama, and a solution of that problem which requires for its intelligibility the application of homicide-law. Euripides is deliberately pandering to Athenian national pride when he represents Ion, by repute the son of Xuthus, as really the son of Apollo and Creusa.[306] In the temple of Delphi he is reared as a minister of the god. Creusa has almost forgotten the issue of her ancient amour, and by a tragic irony comes with Xuthus to Delphi, to consult Apollo as to the causes of her childlessness. Apollo informs Xuthus that he will give him a son and heir, and Xuthus is led to believe that his newly found ‘son,’ Ion, is the offspring of some intrigue of his youth. When Creusa hears about this ‘stranger,’ she regards him with hostile feelings, and decides to kill him by poison. In this design, however, she does not succeed. Have we here, then, a ‘plot to kill’ or attempted murder? The legal essence of the former, we have seen,[307] is the realisation of the plot. Therefore, the guilt of Creusa is that of attempted murder or βούλευσις. No one except Apollo is supposed to be aware until the end of the play of the real relationship which exists between Ion and Creusa. Hence, we have here a suggestion of an act which, like that of Oedipus, is objectively related to kin-slaying, but which, subjectively, must be regarded as ordinary ‘attempted murder.’ We have seen[308] that in early Greece attempts to kill and actual slayings were accorded equal punishment. But we find in the Ion that Creusa is not punished at all! The explanation of this problem is the main object of our present inquiry.

When the attempted murder of a minister of Apollo is discovered and reported, the whole civic machinery of the Delphian State is put in motion.[309] A court is held at which Ion is the accuser. He charges his mother with attempted murder, but there is a subtle suggestion of the additional guilt of attempted sacrilege. This court of Delphian nobles condemns Creusa to death. Creusa’s servant says[310]:

The Chorus recommend Creusa to take refuge in a sanctuary.[311] She answers that sanctuary is valueless as a refuge against the sentence of death. The Chorus comfort her with the assurance that while she remains in the sanctuary she cannot be slain.[312] But Ion, who by a tragic irony leads the executioners, leaves no doubt that her refuge will not avail her. He says[313]:

Creusa in the ensuing dialogue advances a plea of justification. She argues that if Ion came to Athens, sooner or later he would have slain her through dynastic rivalry:

But this was also the plea of Eurystheus when he sought the lives of the Heracleidae. In Greek law the plea has no validity. Ion commands his mother to leave the altar,[316] saying

At this critical moment the Pythian priestess intervenes, and requests Ion to desist. She holds that the attempt of Creusa was mitigated by ‘passion’—and that therefore she did not deserve to die. She says[318]:

Thus does Apollo override the verdict of his priests! But he goes farther. Creusa, according to the oracular interpretation of her act, was guilty of an ‘extenuated’ attempt to kill, and should therefore in strict law[319] have been punished by a penalty of temporary exile. Yet she is permitted to return forthwith to Athens, her native country! In the following verses Ion is urged to ‘forgive’:

But we have not yet rendered the dénouement legally intelligible. We think that it can only be explained by one hypothesis, namely, by assuming that Apollo takes upon himself the responsibility for Creusa’s act. It was he who, by concealing the true facts, had provoked Creusa to attempted murder. It was he, therefore, who must take the blame. We have seen that there is no doubt that otherwise Creusa would have suffered death. That penalty is an archaic one, being based, as we think, on the notion of the absence of discrimination in early Greece between degrees of homicide-guilt. In the more subtle analysis of Apollo we may see perhaps a suggestion of Euripides as to the evolution of such distinctions, which characterised the historical period. But it is possible that such distinctions existed in Pelasgian groups, though not in Achaean or quasi-Achaean societies. If there is anything legally improbable in this legend, it is obscured by the dramatic interest which attaches to the recognition scene between the mother and the son. Moreover Euripides and therefore the legend which he follows were compelled to indicate the important fact that Creusa did return with Ion to Athens, and that the glorious mother of the Ionian race had not been stained by the guilt of kindred bloodshed.

The ‘Andromache’

In the Andromache there are two events of a homicidal character which we must discuss: (1) the attempted murder of Andromache, who was then a war-captive in the home of Neoptolemus, and that of her son, by Hermione, the wife of Neoptolemus, and by her father Menelaus: (2) the slaying of Neoptolemus, at Delphi, by the Apolline priests and magistrates on a false charge of sacrilege which was urged against him by Orestes. The first event is clearly a case of attempted murder, because the plot failed to materialise owing to the arrival of Peleus. The second event is more difficult to define. Objectively, it points to the execution of a normal penalty for an alleged sacrilegious attempt to despoil the temple and for a previous actual spoliation: but, subjectively, Orestes was guilty of contriving the death of Neoptolemus, and he advances, in private, a sham plea of justification, when he says that he regards Neoptolemus, who had married Hermione, his own fiancée, as a virtual adulterer.[321] From the words which are addressed by Thetis to Peleus at the end of the play,[322] we may infer that the plot of Orestes was viewed with disapproval by the gods. But, legally, he must escape punishment because the actual slayers could plead sufficient justification, and his private motives were not publicly proclaimed. Let us give some details of both episodes. Hermione, when her attempt to kill is discovered and frustrated, meditates suicide, because, we are told, she fears that her husband will slay her or send her into exile. Thus, a nurse in Hermione’s service says[323]:

In this passage death appears as the archaic penalty for attempted murder. If Neoptolemus, the husband of Hermione, permits an option of exile, it is perhaps because such an option was permitted for actual murder in historical times, and the penalties were supposed to have been identical, in cases of attempted and of actual murder, in prehistoric days. It is also possible to explain the option by reference to the fact that Andromache was a captive and that therefore her master had the right to forgo the full penalty. We have seen[324] that the Achaeans did not discriminate between voluntary and involuntary homicide, and we may regard the reference to this penalty here as a case of historical archaising, which attributed to the Achaean Neoptolemus an ignorance of the distinction between attempted murder and actual murder. But we may also suppose that there was a legend which originally contained all these details and retained them as an unadulterated tradition down the ages. In historical times attempted slaying could not have been punished by a more severe penalty than that of exile, the duration of which depended perhaps on some form of ‘appeasement.’ That such was the historical penalty may be inferred from the fact that the Palladium court tried such cases in the time of Aristotle and, we think, from Solon’s time onwards.[325] When the ‘attempt’ (βούλευσις) resulted in actual wounding or in physical injury, as in cases of attempted poisoning, the case was probably[326] tried by the Areopagus, and the sentence was perpetual exile without confiscation of property.[327] In this play, however, as in the Ion, the attempted murder of Andromache was unpunished; Neoptolemus, the natural punitive agent, did not live to hear of the attempt. Andromache herself warned Menelaus that the people of the district would put him and Hermione on trial and punish them. She says[328]:

Do we not seem to have here a legend which evolved? First of all we have private vengeance. Everything depends on Neoptolemus. Then pollution enters the story and the people have a religious interest in homicide. Yet the main fact could not be got rid of, namely that Hermione escaped punishment. If Euripides is archaising, could he not have been consistent? Or is he thinking of that vaguely defined post-Homeric age in which the conception of murder as a pollution existed, but in which homicide is still, as amongst the Hebrews, a matter for the avenger of blood? But why, then, does he mention the people? Is he thinking of the pressure of public opinion, such as was already gathering in Achaean times? Andromache seems to take a different view from that of Hermione. The issue of the plot confirms Hermione’s outlook, which is Achaean. Is it not more natural to suppose that an Achaean story became partially ‘Apollinised’ in later times than to suppose that Euripides gives us two different archaisms side by side?

Andromache’s attack on Spartan homicide becomes intelligible if we remember the anti-Spartan sentiments of the democrat Euripides. ‘Is not murder abundant at Sparta?’ asks Andromache.[330] When, we ask, was it abundant? Is this statement merely a retort to Hermione’s assertion that murder was common in barbarian Troy?[331] Or is Euripides deliberately asserting that Sparta was inferior even to barbarians? According to the latter hypothesis we must assume that he is speaking of historical Sparta, and his opinions are to be attributed to anti-Spartan prejudice.[332]

In the second homicide episode of this drama, Neoptolemus is slain at Delphi. Orestes who plots and in part executes his death escapes all punishment, for reasons which we have already indicated. The Delphians who are prepared, in the Ion, to condemn to death a person guilty of attempted murder, are here themselves engaged in slaying a visitor to their temple. But Neoptolemus was an enemy. He has already despoiled the temple. His life is therefore forfeit. To slay him was, like the projected execution of Creusa, a just revenge. Yet Fate has dealt harshly with Neoptolemus. He now visits the temple not to despoil it, as Orestes falsely alleges, but to make atonement for a previous offence which he had committed against Apollo.[333] Despite the false evidence of Orestes, Apollo, the prophet who knows all things, should have intervened. Thus the messenger utters a criticism which suggests the sentiments of Euripides and of fifth-century Athens[334]:

Thetis declares that the death of Neoptolemus is a disgrace to the Delphians and, is for Orestes, a murderous crime.[335] Though slain on grounds of sacrilege, Neoptolemus is buried near the shrine of Phoebus![336] The existence of such a tomb at Delphi would naturally have begotten the story of his death there: the fact that Hermione was, in one legend, the wife of Orestes, in another the wife of Neoptolemus, and the close connexion of Orestes with Delphi in post-Homeric story, may explain his association with the death of Neoptolemus. But the murderous plot which is here attributed to Orestes we believe to be Euripidean. It has no proper sequel: it does not harmonise with anything antecedent or subsequent: it is just a novel, thrilling episode introduced by Euripides to give an artistic interest to an otherwise dull and lifeless drama.

The ‘Hecuba’

A deed of blood and its avenging forms the subject of the Hecuba. The scene is laid at Troy and the atmosphere is predominantly Homeric. Polymestor, King of Thrace, having consented to act as the guardian and protector of Polydorus, the son of Priam, King of Troy, murdered his ward and cast his body unburied on the sea-shore. The mode of vengeance which is put in force against Polymestor is peculiarly archaic. The avengers are exclusively women, and are led by Hecuba, the mother of Polydorus. The punishment which is exacted is not the death or the exile of Polymestor, but the death of his two sons, and the destruction of his eyes. Here we have an instance of physical torture such as was prohibited by a law of Dracon[337] in the case of a convicted murderer caught en rupture de ban. We have also an instance of hereditary punishment which Greek law had abolished for homicide in the seventh century, and had retained for treason alone in the historical era,[338] in the form of a civic degradation of the traitor’s posterity. Polymestor has no consciousness of guilt after the slaying of Polydorus, as he regards his act as justified in political self-defence, and therefore he proceeds to avenge himself on Hecuba and the Trojan women whom he now regards as the murderers of his children. At this stage Agamemnon is requested by Hecuba to act as an arbitrator.[339] In his presence Polymestor says[340]:

The Chorus, however, imply that Polymestor has been justly punished[341]:

This passage suggests that the poet is reproducing an archaic atmosphere. Now the Achaeans, we have seen,[342] ordinarily held no trials for homicide. The pleadings before Agamemnon, which we find here, do not, strictly speaking, constitute such a trial. We have seen[343] that the Achaeans recognised a distinction between murder and just revenge. Athene upholds that distinction in the Odyssey. Agamemnon upholds that distinction here. He decides in favour of Hecuba, saying to Polymestor[344]:

The acceptance by Polymestor of Agamemnon’s decision suggests to us the potency of Achaean military discipline in matters of homicide. Was this acceptance indicated in an ancient legend, which was preserved in Thrace, and which was transmitted without adulteration, or is Euripides correctly archaising from his general knowledge of Achaean procedure as revealed by Homer? The former alternative seems to us the more probable in view of the consistently archaic atmosphere of this play. There is no reference to homicide as a ‘pollution,’ to purgation, to Apollo, to State trial. A certain degree of divine anger against Polymestor is indicated, but this was caused by the violation of hospitality and by the act of deprivation of burial, both of which acts are religious offences in Homer. Hecuba says to the Chorus[345]:

Again she says to Agamemnon[346]:

In the scepticism of Talthybius regarding the existence of the gods, we have an anachronism which is strictly applicable only to the rationalists of fifth-century Athens. The comparative indifference of the Achaeans to religion left the road open for this anachronism on the part of Euripides.

When the son of Achilles is sacrificing Polyxena at the tomb of Achilles, he says to the spirit of Achilles[347]:

For this placation of the dead by human sacrifice we have perhaps a precedent in the sacrifice by Achilles of twelve Trojan youths to the shade of Patroclus. But the suggestion that the dead man came to the tomb to drink the blood offering indicates a fusion of Pelasgian and Achaean beliefs such as Ridgeway assumes to have taken place before the time of Aeschylus.[348] Already in the Odyssey, however, there is evidence of the tendency to a fusion of ritual and beliefs, which reached maturity before the historical period.[348] Such words as Euripides here attributes to Achilles could never have been spoken by the Homeric Achilles. For the Achaeans, the dead, once they were buried, could never leave Hades, and they did not, like Pelasgian ghosts, drink blood offerings at the tomb. This, then, is an anachronism, which was perhaps derived from a misinterpretation by Euripides of the Nekuia in the Odyssey. Hecuba naturally objects to the sacrifice of her daughter,[349] but incidentally she objects to human sacrifice in general, save in the case of a real enemy. Polyxena, she argues, was not an enemy to Achilles. His ghost therefore could not be placated by her sacrifice. This attitude of Hecuba suggests that a post-Homeric Thracian legend contained a reference to a barbarous blood-thirst on the part of the dead, which we have attributed to the Hesiodic age of chaos. Euripides elsewhere attributes the sacrifice of Polyxena to the expressed desire of the ghost of Achilles![350] We cannot be certain whether a post-Homeric legend embodied these conceptions, or whether Euripides invented them in his desire to add to the horrors of the story another grim idea.

The ‘Bacchae’

On the first introduction, into Thebes, of the worship of Bacchus, or of what may be termed the orgiastic cult of Dionysus, Pentheus, the reigning King, opposed the new religion, declared Bacchus an impostor,[351] and threatened him with death.[352] Hence the chorus of Bacchanals, inspired with prophetic foresight, approve in advance the death of Pentheus whom they regard as an enemy or a traitor.[353] By a tragic irony, Agave, the mother of Pentheus, who has joined the Bacchic worshippers and is mesmerised by Bacchic influence, is the actual perpetrator of the death of Pentheus. She is deluded by Bacchic frenzy into believing that she is slaying a lion, and returns to Thebes carrying what she believes to be a lion’s head. She says[354]:

Her position, then, differs from that of Ajax,[355] in that the deed really takes place and that she did not intend it. The act is, we shall find, analogous to, but less culpable than, that of Oedipus when he slew his father.

Cadmus, father of Agave, refers the ultimate guilt to Bacchus[356]:

Agave adopts a similar attitude when she realises the nature of the deed which she has wrought.[357] But she cannot escape all punishment. At the end of the play Dionysus propounds an oracle of Zeus which declares[358] that Cadmus shall become a dragon, and his wife Harmonia shall become a serpent, but that they will nevertheless conquer many barbarian cities and will be borne ultimately to the land of the blessed gods. Yet they must leave Thebes now because of their impious attitude to Dionysus! Is this decree an instance of ‘collective’ punishment? Is it necessary that the entire family of Cadmus should suffer for the impiety of Pentheus which he has already atoned for by an ignominious death? It may be an explanation of this obscure punishment to say that it is collective. But what shall we say of Agave? She also has to leave Thebes. Is her exile to be regarded as a penalty for ‘impiety’ in regard to Dionysus? Surely she has already been sufficiently pious and to her cost! She was actually one of the Bacchic worshippers, in the play. Moreover, in going into exile she bids farewell to her father![359] They are all sent into exile together, yet she cannot go with her father.[360] Surely, if impiety were the offence, and the penalty were collective exile, all the offenders could have gone in conjunction. Why is Agave exiled, then, if she is condemned to separate exile? We suggest that this penalty is inflicted because of kin-slaying in religious frenzy, that is to say, in legal language, ‘in a passion.’ Plato assures us[361] that kin-slaying extenuated by passion prohibited the slayer from any further intercourse with her family. ‘If a father or mother in a passion kill their son or daughter by blows or in any other violent manner ... let them remain in exile for three years and on returning let the husband be divorced from the wife and the wife from the husband, and let them never afterwards beget children together nor dwell in fellowship with those whom they have deprived of child or brother, or have a share in their sacred rites.’ But Agave goes into exile with her sisters Autonoe and Ino, who had shared in the death of Pentheus. They too are separated from Cadmus. The reason is perhaps that Cadmus symbolises the domestic religion of their home. From him, as from their home, they must be exiled for ever.

The ‘Alcestis’

Neither the Alcestis nor the other two plays of Euripides which remain for discussion are of very much importance from the point of view of homicide-law. In the prologue[362] Apollo tells how he slew the Cyclops who forged the thunder-bolt by which Zeus slew Aesculapius, Apollo’s son, and how in consequence he went into bondage with Admetus of Pherae for a period of one year. Thus Zeus plots the death of his grandson and punishes his son for avenging it! The reason is that Zeus regards the death of Aesculapius as justified, and therefore, as Apollo’s vengeance is unjust, he must be punished. The penalty of bondage which is here referred to may be the Pelasgian servitude which we have discussed in an early part of this work,[363] or it may be a form of that same penalty which was retained under the pollution-system, in pre-Draconian days when it was indispensably connected with exile. There is here, however, no reference to pollution or to purgation. Apollo was purified for slaying the Python[364] but not for the slaying of the Cyclops! We cannot apply to the Olympian Apollo the laws which were made for mortal men. Apollo, unlike Hercules, could not be conceived as a man. It was from Olympus, the abode of the Olympian gods, that he was banished. The obvious motive for the legend is the association of Apollo with Admetus. Some reason had to be assigned for this ‘exile’ of Apollo. We may suppose that a deed of homicide was invented to explain this ‘exile,’ but that its details were not worked out. The only real importance of such a legend is that it affords a certain amount of evidence for the existence of servitude as a homicide-penalty in early Greece.

Admetus is permitted by the Fates to live if he can find a substitute. His wife Alcestis voluntarily dies in his stead. Was her death attributable to Admetus? Was he her murderer? His father, Pheres, seems to think so![365]

As Hercules, in this play, raises to life the dead Alcestis, we are freed from the necessity of discussing the legal aspects of such a problem. The whole plot of this play belongs to the supernatural rather than to the natural order. The murder laws of Greece made no provision for such contingencies.

The ‘Troades’

In the Troades Cassandra foresees the murder of Agamemnon and the vengeance of Orestes, and connects these tragic misfortunes with the woes which were brought by the Atreidae upon the house of Priam. Aeschylus has a suggestion of this sentiment in the Agamemnon.[366] To represent Clytaemnestra and Orestes as mere instruments in the hands of Destiny may be religiously orthodox to a superstitious people, especially in the Dark Ages of prehistoric Greece, but it has no legal validity. Such sentiments are really antagonistic to legal sanctions. Applied to Achaeans, they are, we think, anachronistic. Murder is distinct from war, and murder is not conceived as begetting murder, in the course of Destiny, until post-Homeric times. In the decision of the Greeks to slay Astyanax, the son of Andromache, as a reprisal for the adultery of Paris,[367] we see an instance of hyper-vengeance, which is characteristic of hostile belligerents. We cannot infer that amongst the Achaeans the punishment for adultery was more severe than amongst the Pelasgians.[368] Astyanax was not an adulterer! His punishment was a reprisal, and has therefore no legal significance. Talthybius refers to a strange proposal on the part of the Greeks, namely a proposal to set up a spear in the tomb of Astyanax.[369] Now this spear is a symbol of future vengeance. It is strange that such a symbol should have been set up by the party who deserve and anticipate punishment. Moreover, we have seen[370] that this custom was probably post-Homeric. The Achaeans did not credit their dead spirits, after burial, with any local habitation in the tomb or with any effective desire for vengeance. Here, the suggestion is clearly intended by Talthybius, and possibly by Euripides, to bring some slight comfort to Hecuba, the bereaved mother. We have referred to a passage in Demosthenes,[371] in which a plaintiff, who was debarred from a prosecution for bloodshed, because of his not having been akin in blood to the deceased, was advised by the Exegetae to carry a spear at the funeral. It was therefore rather a cruel piece of irony for Euripides to suggest that by the setting up of this symbol—which had come, in historical times, to indicate the absence of avengers—the Greeks intended to express at once to Hecuba the hope of retaliation and to themselves the hope of immunity from vengeance.

The ‘Helen’

The scene of the Helen is laid in Egypt. We are told that the ubiquitous Helen escapes with Menelaus from Egypt, having deceived by a stratagem her amorous protector, Theoclymenus. She was aided in her plans by Theonoe, the sister of Theoclymenus, and he, therefore, in the anger of disappointed passion, proceeded to slay his sister. The Dioscuri intervened in time to prevent the realisation of his purpose, and all ends happily! Technically, Theoclymenus is guilty of attempted kin-slaying, but the poet leads us to suppose that an ungovernable fit of passion would, in such a case, be regarded as a complete extenuation. We may infer from the words of the Chorus that the slaying of one’s kindred was regarded with horror by races which were outside Greece. The Chorus will not permit the death of Theonoe, even though they intervene at their peril. They say to Theoclymenus[372]:

Euripides also makes the barbarian Thoas, King of the Tauric Chersonese, gasp with horror when Iphigeneia, the priestess of Artemis, informs him of the arrival of the matricide Orestes. When Iphigeneia says[373]:

he answers[374]:

Euripides, then, did not believe that the conception of kin-slaying as a horrible and revolting act was an exclusively Grecian sentiment. When therefore in the Andromache he makes Hermione say[375]:

we may attribute such an assertion to a mind inflamed with the jealousy which a wife feels towards a concubine rather than suppose Euripides not to have known that the horror of kin-slaying is an aboriginal universal sentiment of the human race when once it has abandoned the cave of the cannibal.

We have now concluded our inquiry into the problem of blood-vengeance in Attic tragedy. Nothing has been revealed by this inquiry which is in conflict with the hypotheses which we have sought to establish in this work, as to the various systems of blood-vengeance which existed in Greece, from Pelasgian times to the age of the orators. While Attic tragedy does not in itself contribute anything to our knowledge of these various systems, there can be little doubt that an attempt, however imperfect, to investigate the origin and nature of these systems is indispensable for a proper appreciation of these dramatic masterpieces. If our analysis of blood-vengeance in the works of the three great Attic tragedians has not, in many cases, succeeded in establishing definite clear-cut conclusions, this, we hope, will be attributed to the intrinsic difficulty and obscurity of the subject. We can never be quite certain whether any particular drama gives us (a) an antique unadulterated legend; or (b) an antique legend which in course of evolution has taken on new forms without any regard to the consistency or the historicity of the tradition; or (c) whether the drama is based upon a late invention which owing to skilful archaising takes on the garb and appearance of an antique story, betraying perhaps, here and there, by its anachronisms, the mind and atmosphere of its creator. It so happens that the attitude to homicide or to religion which the Achaeans reveal was also taken up by many individual Athenians of the Periclean age. Thus the indifference to the gods which Sophocles attributes to Ajax was common to Achaeans and to many Periclean Athenians. So the conception of homicide as a matter for ‘private settlement’ which is found in Demosthenes, and the survival, in outlying places, such as Macedonia, of family vendettas, fierce and lawless, would have suggested to the mind of the dramatist that there was no very wide gulf between the primitive and the historical Greeks. Such a fact almost invites anachronisms. Nevertheless, we frequently find in dramatic legends an atmosphere so antique, so unlike that of fifth-century Athens, that we may assume, as the most probable hypothesis, that these legends are not inventions, but have behind them a long and, often, a chequered past.

FOOTNOTES