Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/272

202 Carthaginian invaders, whose attack took place simultaneously with that of Xerxes upon Hellas. It is hardly to be supposed that Æschylus would introduce into his drama the name of Himera without commemorating a victory, which his contemporary, Pindar (Pyth. i. 152), represents as not inferior in importance to those of Salamis and Platæa, the circumstances of which also were peculiarly susceptible of poetic treatment. The Bœotian sea-god, moreover, would form the most appropriate herald of the Bœotian victory, and thus, in his third drama, Æschylus would have the opportunity of bringing the battles of Himera and Platæa into connection with that of Salamis, which formed the main feature in the Persian trilogy.

The plastic art of the Hellenes illustrates their tendency to regard the successive victories of Hellas over Oriental barbarism as phases of the great struggle between the higher and lower elements of civilization, which formed so prominent a feature in their mythology. Thus, in the temple of Hera, at Mycenæ (Paus. xi. 17, 3), and in that of Zeus at Agrigentum (Diod, xi. 82), the capture of Ilium was associated with the overthrow of the giants by the Olympian gods. Their recent splendid victories would doubtless be similarly regarded by them as the ultimate triumph of civilization over barbarism, brought about by the intervention of the higher powers. This conception has found artistic expression in the beautiful painting on tho so-called Darius vase, "on which the celestial