Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/269

Rh their sister, whose abduction by Zeus was represented by Persian literati as the first act of the conflict between the Eastern and the Western world: this version of the Phineus legend would offer, as remarked by Gruppe, an obvious link of connection with the Persian war. There are other versions of the story which, notwithstanding some discrepancies as to the genealogy of Phineus, and the circumstances of his blindness, agree in investing him with the prophetic character, and in bringing him into connection with the Argonauts, the grand national adventurers of Hellas.

In the single extant fragment of the Æschylean Phineus reference appears to be made to the Harpies:

Phineus, according to the ancient legend, was delivered from the Harpies by the Boreades; and it is related by Apollonius (xi. 317) that, after his deliverance, he prophesied, and foretold to the Argonauts the successful issue of their enterprise. In accordance with the spirit of the age, which linked together the successive conflicts between Europe and Asia, the expedition of the Argonauts, with that of the Hellenes against Ilium, is associated, by Herodotus, with the Persian