Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/418

 386 HISTORY OF GREECE. as of didactic prolixity, may also be detected. It is .ZEechylus, not Sophokles, who forms the marked antithesis to Euripides ; it is JEschylus, not Sophokles, to whom Aristophanes awards the prize of tragedy, as the poet who assigns most perfectly to the heroes of the past those weighty words, imposing equipments, simplicity of great deeds with little talk, and masculine energy superior to the corruptions of Aphrodite, which beseem the com- rades of Agamemnon and Adrastus. 1 How deeply this feeling, of the heroic character of the mythi- cal world, possessed the Athenian mind, may be judged by the bitter criticisms made on Euripides, whose compositions were pervaded, partly by ideas of physical philosophy learnt under Anaxagoras, partly by the altered tone of education and the wide diffusion of practical eloquence, forensic as well as political, at ftai u-yadal, 1497 ; the weight and majesty of the words, 1362; irpurof TUV 'EyWjyvuv Tropywaaf pf/[iaTa aefiva, 1001, 921, 930 ("sublimis et gravis et grandiloquus saspe usque ad vitinm," Quintil. x. 1 ) ; the imposing appearance of his heroes, such as Memnon and Cycnus, 961 ; their reserve in speech, 908 ; his dramas " full of Ares " and his lion-hearted chiefs, inspiring the auditors with fearless spirit in defence of their country, 1014, 1019, 1040; his contempt of feminine tenderness, 1042. JEscu. Olid' oZcJ' ovdelf TJVTLV' tpuaav irwTror' enoirjaa yvvaiKa. EURIP. Ma At', ovde -yap fyv r^f 'Apo6iTijf ovdev aoi. JEsCH. ftrjde 7' iireii] 'A/13.' knl ffoi roi Kal roir ffolaiv iroTMi TroWov 'vu/catfotro. To the same general purpose Nnbes (1347-1356), composed so many years earlier. The weight and majesty of the JEschylean heroes (j3apof, rb ueyako- irpeiref) is dwelt upon in the life of JEschylns, and Sophokles is said to have derided it "Qamp yup 6 2o0oK/l^f e/leye, rbv A/o^v/lov (JmTreTrat^wf o-yKOv, etc. (Plutarch, De Prefect, in Virt. Sent. c. 7), unless we are to un- derstand this as a mistake of Plutarch quoting Sophokles instead of Euri- pide's, as he speaks in the Frogs of Aristophanes, which is the opinion both of Lessing in his Life of Sophokles and of Welcker C^Eschyl. Trilogie, p. 525). 1 See above, Chapters xiv. and xv. JEschylus seems to have been a greater innovator as to the matter of the mfthes than either Sophokles or Euripides (Dionys. Halic. Judic. de Vett. Seript. p. 422, Reisk.). For the close adherence of Sophokles to the Homeric epic, see Athense. vii. p. 277; Diogen. Lafirt. iv. 20; Suidas, v. TloMpuv ^schylus puts into the mouth of the Eumenides a serious argument derived from the behavior of Zeus in chaining his father Kronos (Eumen. 640}