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32 Homeric reminiscences. That he knew the Iliad and Odyssey well is certain, both from his extant Cyclops and from the profound veneration expressed by Plato for our Homer as the originator and forerunner of tragedy. Now Plato was a younger contemporary of Euripides, certainly old enough to have witnessed the production of all his later plays.

But it was doubtless with Homer as with Æschylus in the mind of the poet; they were the representatives of the old school; on the one hand, of shallow and immoral polytheism; on the other, of harsh and rough obscurity. The one failed in depth of thought and seriousness of aim, the other in clearness of style and smoothness of expression. But Homer he passes by with simple neglect; in more than one passage he reflects upon the dramatic faults of Æschylus. Nevertheless, in his first studies he must have made this great poet his model, for Sophocles was only beginning his splendid career. Afterwards the continual rivalry with this most successful of all tragic poets, the darling of Athens, the most consummate artist of his day, must have powerfully affected him. The two poets, indeed, differed widely in their conception of the drama; when they treated the same subjects (as they often did), they appealed to different interests, and seem never to have copied, seldom to have criticised, one another. But we find that Euripides, the more conscious and theoretical artist, showed the stronger character, even in his art; for the latest extant drama of Sophocles (the Philoctetes) shows a striking likeness to the plays of Euripides, while the reverse is anything but true; the latest plays Euripides (the Bacchæ and Aulid Iphigenia) show no traces of an increased influence from the side of Sophocles.

19. Yet, broadly speaking, it is plain that our poet