Page:Measuring Euripides.djvu/14

 economic conditions and discussing economic problems. For he is notorious for his disregard of all the old fashioned notions of the dignity and proprieties of the tragic stage. He brought it down to the earth and humanized it, brought in kings in tatters and nurses talking philosophy. He made the passion of love the central theme in several of his tragedies, whereas Aeschylus is represented in The Frogs of Aristophanes as affirming proudly that he had never put a woman in love into any of his plays. On the contrary, the boast which Aristophanes puts into Euripides' mouth is, in Murray's translation:

So Euripides would seem just the man to introduce economic matters on the stage if they really were of importance in his day and of interest to his audience, and had they really been the "daily life and business" referred to by Aristophanes. Indeed we have evidence that Euripides went farther in extolling wealth than his hearers wished. Seneca in one of his letters tells us that when one of the characters in Euripides' lost tragedy Danäe expressed the following sentiment: "O gold, best pledge of friendship to mortals. Neither has motherhood such joys, nor are children nor a father dear such a boon to men as you and those who have you in their houses. When the love-goddess sees such men, no wonder she nourishes a myriad loves." When they heard this, the entire audience rose en masse from their seats and rushed angrily towards the stage to cast the actor out of the theater and break up the performance. Euripides had to throw himself into their midst and implore them to wait and see the fate which would overtake this devotee of gold before the end of the play.

The chief reason then why Euripides discusses economic subjects so little must be that there was so little to discuss in the economic civilization of his time and so little interest taken in it by his contemporaries, whereas they were keenly interested in wars and government, in oratory and education. It will not even do to hold that the economic life of the city was largely in the hands of slaves and of resident foreigners who were not citizens, and that the Athenians proper were left free from such considerations to devote themselves to politics and culture. For we know that many Athenian citizens had to earn their own living. Nor can we argue that such citizens were too busy to attend the theatre and that Euripides' plays were written for, and cover the interests of, only a more aristocratic and intellectual audience. For his plays are full of passages concerning even slaves. But even slavery he discusses from the social rather than the economic standpoint.