Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/339

Rh spectacle commensurate in grandeur with the darker features of the drama.

Very interesting is the protest thus offered by the prophet-bard of antiquity against that want of respect for women, and that jealousy of their participation in the functions of men, which find such frequent expression in Greek literature, and which are embodied in the insolent language addressed by Eteocles to the Chorus at the commencement of the drama (v. 169).

Such examples as that of the Theban women may have inspired the wise utterance of Plato, who declares that for the legislator to leave women without education, and without sufficient scope for their energies, is materially to cripple the power of the State.

With regard to the political bearing of the drama, K. O. Müller remarks that Æschylus strove to moderate the restless struggles of his countrymen after democracy and dominion over other Greeks. The description of the upright Amphiaraus, who wished not to seem, but to be the best; the wise general from whose mind, as from the deep furrows of a well-ploughed field, noble counsels proceed, was universally applied by the Athenian people to Aristeides, and was doubtless intended by Æschylus for him. In conclusion, I may allude to the passage in the Iliad which relates how, when the invading army reached Asôpos' banks, Tydeus was sent forward to Thebes to speak the common message of the host. Admitted into the palace of Eteocles, undaunted though alone, he