Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/116

 98 ^SCHYLUS. that ^schylus was accused of impiety before the Areopagus, and acquitted, as ^lian says, in consequence of the services of his brother Ameinias, or, according to Aristotle and Clemens, because he pleaded ignorance. Eustratius tells us^ from Heraclides Ponti- cus that he would have been slain on the stage by the infuriated populace, had he not taken refuge at the altar of Bacchus ; and that he was acquitted by the Areopagus in consequence of his brother Cynegeiriis intercession. This reason for his second de- parture from Athens is quite in accordance with the former ; for if he had incurred the ill will of the people and the demagogues, nothing was more natural than that he should have been made amenable to the same charges, which a similar faction afterwards brought against Alcibiades^. And there is something in the in- tervention of the Areopagus, between the people and their intended victim, which may at once account for the attempt to overthrow it, which, we conceive, shortly followed this trial, as also for the bold stand which ^schylus made on behalf of that tribunal. There are great discrepancies respecting the number of plays written by jEschylus. The writer of the life prefixed to his remains assigns seventy plays to him, Suidas ninety, and Fabricius more than 100. Of these, only seven remain. The most remarkable improvements which ^schylus intro- duced into Tragedy are the following : he added a second actor, limited the functions of the chorus, and gave them a more artificial character : he made the dialogue, which he created by the addition of a second actor, the principal part of the drama ^: he provided via.'i 6 veuirepos d5eX06s, 5iaKavpdfji.evos to IfJidTiov edei^e tt]u tttjxw 'iprjixov rrjs x^'-P^^- "Etvx^ Se apKTTe^wv ev HaKa/jui'L 6 'AfMetuias d.7roj8e/3;/ca)s tijv x^^P^> '^ct' TrpQros ^ kdrj- vaiiav tQv dpiareioju '^tvx^v. 'ETrei Se dbov ol dLKaaral rod dvhphs to TrdOos, vireixvqadT)- cav tQ)v '^p-yojv a^Tov Kai dcprJKav tov kl(Jxvov. Var. Hist. v. 19, 1 In his commentary on Aristotle, loc. cit. fol. 40. He mentions the names of five plays on which these charges were founded, the To^orides, the Tepeias, the I,i(Tv^os 7r€TpoKvi<TTrjs, the 'I(pLy4ueia, and the Oldlirovs. But we know nothing of the dates of these plays, Comp. Welcker, Tril. 106, 276. 2 Thucyd. vi. 53; Andocid. de Myster. Comp, Droysen, in the Rhein. Museum for 1835, pp. 161 fol. •^ These first three improvements are stated by Aristotle, Poet. c. iv, 16 (below, Part II.) : koL to re tCjv vttokpltQv ttXtjOos i^ iubs els duo irpCoTos AiVxi^Xos rjyaye, Kol TO, TOV xopov TjXdTTcoae Kal tov yov irpujT ay u}vl(XT7]v irapeaKevacre. The first is given also by Diogen, Laert. Vit. Plat.: eiairis epa viroKpLTT]v e'^evp€v...Kal de^Tepou AlcrxvXos. The names of his two actors are given in an old life prefixed to one of the editions. 'ExpTjo'aro 5^ viroKpiTrj TrpcoTov jxkv KeXdvdpu} deuTepov avT<^ Trp6a7]p€ M-LovLCTKov TOV XttX/fiSca. Hermann has made an extraordinary blunder with regard to the latter part of the quotation from Aristotle: ha has actually supposed that trpwT ay wvLCTT-qv is an epithet, though it is obvious from the position of the article, that