Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/380

358 358 HISTORY OF THE concileably opposed to one another. Euripides was naturally a serious character, with a decided bias towards nice and speculative inquiries into the nature of things human and divine. In comparison with the cheer- ful Sophocles, whose spirit without any effort comprehended life in all its significance, Euripides appeared to be morose and peevish.* Although he had applied himself to the philosophy of the time and had entered deeply into Anaxagoras' ideas with regard to matters relating principally to physical science in general, while in regard to moral studies he had manifestly allowed himself to be allured by some of the views of the sophists ; nevertheless, the philosophy of Socrates, the op- ponent and conqueror of the sophists, had, on the whole, gained the upper hand in his estimation. We do not know what induced a person with such tendencies to devote himself to tragic poetry, which he did, as is well known, in the twenty-sixth year of his age, and in the very same year in which iEschylus died (Olymp. SI. 1. b. c. 455. )f Suffice it to say, that tragic poetry became the business of his life, and he had no other means of giving to the world the results of his meditations. With respect to the mythical traditions, however, which the tragic muse had selected as her subjects, he stood upon an entirely different footing from iEschylus, who recognized in them the sublime dispensations of providence, and from Sophocles, who regarded them as containing a profound solution of the problem of human existence. He found him- self placed in a strange, distorted position with regard to the objects of his poetry, which were fully as disagreeable as they were attractive to him. He could not bring his philosophical convictions, with regard to the nature of God and his relation to mankind, into harmony with the contents of these legends, nor could he pass over in silence their incon- gruities. Hence it is that he is driven to the strange necessity of carrying on a sort of polemical discussion with the very materials and subjects of which he had to treat. He does this in two ways : some- times, he rejects as false those mythical narratives which are opposed to purer conceptions about the Gods; at other times, he admits the legends as true, but endeavours to give a base or contemptible appear- ance to characters and actions which they have represented as great and noble. Thus, the two favourite themes of Euripides are, to re- present Helen, whom Homer has had the skill, notwithstanding her failings, to clothe with dignity as well as loveliness, as a common by Gellius N. A. xv. 20. 8. t Tbis is in accordance with the Vita Euripidis, which Elmsley published from a MS. in the Ambrosian Library, and which, with several alterations and additions, is also found in a Paris and Vienna MS. According to Eratosthenes, who gives the age of 26 for his first appearance and of 75 for his death, he must have been born in Olymp. 74 3. b. c. 482-1, although the Parian marble places his birth at Olymp. 73. 4. It is clearly only a legend that he was born on the day of the battle of Salamis.
 * He is caller] sr^ufyio; and pieoyiXus by Alexander iEtolus, in the verses quoted