Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/392

370 370 HISTORY OF THE barbarian to the deslruc.ion prepared for him, but also to make an honourable defence of her deed before the leader of the Greek host. § 12. It seems as if Euripides had exhausted at rather an early period the materials most suited to his style of poetry: no one of his later pieces paints a passion of such energy as the jealousy of Medea or the revengeful feelings of Hecuba. It is possible too that his method generally may not have had such capabilities as the manner in which Sophocles has been able to make the old legends applicable to the developement of characters and moral tendencies. Euripides endeavours to find a substitute for the interest, which he could no longer excite by a representation of the effects of passion, in the intro- duction of a greater number of incidents on the stage and in a greater complication of the plot. He calls up the most surprising occurrences in order to keep the attention on the stretch ; and the action is designed to represent the proper developement of a great destiny, notwithstand- ing the accidents which may thwart and oppose it. The pieces of this period are also particularly rich in allusions to the events of the day and the relative position of the parties which were formed in the Greek states, and calculated in many ways to flatter the patriotic vanity of the Athenians. But on this it must be remarked, that he does not, like iEschylus, consider the mythical events in any real connexion with the historical, and treat the legends as the foundation, type, and pro- phecy of the destinies of the time being, but only seeks out and eagerly lays hold of an opportunity of pleasing the Athenians by exalting their national heroes and debasing the heroes of their enemies. The Heracleidce can afford us no satisfaction unless we pay attention to these political views. This play narrates with much circumstantial detail and exactness, like a pragmatical history, how the Heracleidae, as poor persecuted fugitives, find protection in Athens, and how by the valour of their own and the Athenian heroes they gain the victory over their oppressor, Eurystheus ; it does not, however, create much tragic interest. The episode, in which Macaria with surprising fortitude voluntarily offers herself as a sacrifice, is designed to put a little spirit into the drama ; only it must be allowed that Euripides makes rather too much use of the touching representation of a noble, amiable maiden yielding herself up as a sacrifice, either of her own accord or at least with singular resolution.* All the weight, however, in this piece is laid upon the political allusions. The generosity of the Athenians to the Heracleidae is celebrated in order to charge with ingratitude their descendants, the Dorians of the Peloponnese, who were such bitter enemies to Athens, and the oracle which Eurystheus makes known at the end of the play, that his corpse should be a protection to the land
 * Polyxena. Macaria, Iphigenia at Aulis.