Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/115

 ^SCHYLUS. 97: Athens, if Plutarch has given us coiTect information. He probably spent some time in Sicily on his first visit, as would appear from the numbers of Sicilian words which are found in his later plays The other journey to Sicily he is said to have made ten years after (458 B.C.), and for this a very sufficient reason has been assigned. In that year he brought out the Orestean trilogy ; and in the Eumenides, the last play of the trilogy, showed so openly his opposition to the politics of Pericles and his abettor Ephialtes^, that his abode at Athens might easily have been made not only unpleasant, but even unsafe, especially as his fondness for the Dorian institutions, his aristocratical spirit, and his adoption of the politics of Aristeides, had doubtless made him long before obnoxi- ous to the demagogues. He died at Gela two years after the representation of the Orestea, i.e. in B.C. 456^. It is said*, that an eagle having mis- taken his bald head for a stone, dropped a tortoise upon it in order to break the shell, and that the poet was killed by the blow : but the story is evidently an invention, most unnecessarily devised to account for the natural death of a persecuted exile nearly seventy years old. Another reason has been assigned for ^schylus' second journey to Sicily. It is founded on a statement, alluded to by Aristotle^, and given more distinctly by Clemens Alexandrinus and ^Elian®, ^ Ol'/c dyvou) 5e, on oi irepi tt]i> ^iKeXlau KaroLKOVvres dax^^^poi' KoXovai tqv avaypov. Xiax^Kos yovv h ^opKicn, irapeiKa^uv tov Hepcrea to) dypicj tovtu) crvt, (prjaiv 'E8u 5' ii dvTpov dcrx^Sw/Dos ws. "Ort 6e Max'jo'i, btaTpLxj/a^ ip 'ZtKeXig. iroWais /cexpTjrat (f)0}va1t "LiKeXals, ovbev davfxaarov. Athen. IX. p. 402 B. — To the same effect Eustathius : 'Kprjais 5^ (paaiv daxeoibpou Trap" AiVxiAy diarpi^avTL h Zi/ce/g /cat dhbru Ad Odyss. p. 1872. — And Macrobius : Ita et Dii Palici in Sicili^ coluntur ; quos primum omnium -^schylus tragicus, tir utique Sicidus, in literas dedit, &c. &c. Saturnal. v. 19. Some Sicilian forms are to be found in his extant plays : thus, -rreddpa-Los, -rre^alx- fiLOL, rreddopoi, fxdaawv, fid, &c. for fxerdpa-LOS, p.eTaixjJ^LOL, fieT^ujpni, fxel^cov, fJ-ip-ep, &c. See Blomfield, Prom. Vine. 277, Gloss., and Bockh, de Trag. Grcec. c. v. '^ See Miiller's Eumeniden, § 35 fol. 2 'A0' ov AiVxt^Xos 6 TTonrjTrjs, ^idocras ^tt) [AjAIIIIIT, iTeXevrrjaev kv [FeXji? ttJs [2i]«:eX/as Itt; H[A]AAAAIII, 6.pxovTo^ ' Ad-i)vri(TL KaWiov rod irporipov. Mar. Arund. No. 50. ^ Vit. Anonym.; Suidas in X.eKwvrj pLvwv; Valer. Max. IX. 2; Ma.T, Hist. Aninial. VII. 16. ^ Ethic. III. 1 : 8 oe TrpdrreL, dyvo-qcjeiev dv ris' olov Xeyovrh (pacriv iKireaeiv avrovi, ^7 ovK eidepai. on dwopp-qra rjv, (Joairep At'cxt^Xo? rd /JLvariKd. •' AtVxi^Xos (says Clemens) rd ixvar-qpta iwl aKrjvijs i^eiirwv, ii/ 'Apeio) irdyu} KpiOels ovTdJS d(pdadT), iindei^as avrbv fXTj /j.€fxvT)fj.ipou. Strom. ll. — ^^lian tells the tale in a somewhat different way ; a more romantic one of course : AtVxi^Xos 6 Tpayu}d6s eKpivero dcre^eias iiri nvi dpdp.an. 'YiToip.wv ow 6vnop 'AdrjpaiiOP, ^dWetu ai'TCP Xidois, 'A/iet- D. T. G. 7