Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/215

 FATE OF CECESUS. 1<J7 erful, because the Mcerae comply with their requests cp to a 3er tain point, not thinking it proper to be wholly inexorable ; but their compliance is carried no farther than they themselves choose. Nor would they, even in deference to Apollo, 1 alter the original sentence of punishment for the sin of Gyges in the person of his fifth descendant, a sentence, moreover, which Apollo himself had formally prophesied shortly after the sin was committed ; so that, if the Mceroe had listened to his intercession on behalf of Croesus, his own prophetic credit would have been endangered. Their unalterable resolution has predetermined the ruin of Croesus, and the grandeur of the event is manifested by the circumstance, that even Apollo himself cannot prevail upon them to alter it, or to grant more than a three years' respite. The religious element must here be viewed as giving the form the historical element as giving the matter only, and not the whole matter of the story ; and these two elements will be found conjoined more or less throughout most of the history of Herodotus, though, as we descend to later times, we shall find the historical element in constantly increasing proportion. His con- ception of history is extremely different from that of Thucydides, who lays down to himself the true scheme and purpose of the the other, to the Moerae. This double point of view adapted itself to dif- ferent occasions, and served as a help for the interpretation of different events. Zeus was supposed to have certain sympathies for human beings ; misfortunes happened to various men which he not only did not wish to bring on, but would have been disposed to avert ; here the Moerse, who had no sympathies, were introduced as an explanatory cause, tacitly implied as overruling Zeus. " Cum Furiis JEschylus Parcas tantum non ubique con- jungit," says Klausen (Theol. .^Esch. p. 39) ; and this entire absence of hu- man sympathies constitutes the common point of both, that in which the Moerae and the Erinnyes differ from all the other gods, tre^piKa rav u%em- OIKOV deiiv, ov deoif opoiav (JSschyl. Sept. ad Theb. 720) : compare Eumenid. 169, 172, and, indeed, the general strain of that fearful tragedy. In ^Eschylus, as in Herodotus, Apollo is represented as exercising per- suasive powers over the Moerae (Eumenid. 724), Moipae fTteiaaf ud>&'iTav( delvai fipoTove. 1 The language of Herodotus deserves attention. Apollo tolls Croesus : " I applied to the Moerae to get the execution of the judgment postponed from your time to that of your children, but I could not prevail upon them ; but as much as they would yield of their own accord, I procured for you." (oaov <Je kve JUKOV avrat, e^ipiaarnol 5,91.)