Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/166

148 which is given in the play of that name, and the Thesmophoriazusæ of Aristophanes, which was brought out in 411, speaks of "he new Helen" with distinct reference to this play. It is therefore tolerably certain that the Electra and Helena were connected plays, and were acted in 411. There is less reason for the supposition that the Busiris was the satyrical drama of this Tetralogy. In the Electra, as in the Helena, Euripides departs from the established traditions. The former heroine is married to a common countryman, and is exhibited as a good economical housewife. The motives for the murder of Ægisthus by Clytæmnestra are purely vindictive, and instead of being justified on religious grounds, the Dioscuri, who appear ex machina at the end, insinuate that Apollo, in recommending the deed, uttered an unwise oracle. The Helena of Euripides gives us a modification of the view of Stesichorus, which is quite at variance with that of Euripides himself in the Troades, The plot is occupied with the elopement of the innocent and injured heroine from Egypt, where she had resided, while the Greeks were fighting for her at Troy, and Menelaus, with the help of Theonoe, the prophetic sister of the Egyptian king, effects the escape of his wife from the Pharaoh who wished to marry her.

The Orestes, which was a tragi-comedy of the same class as the Alcestis, was acted in the archonship of Diodes 408 , and must have been the fourth play of the Tetralogy to which it belonged. The third play was the Phœnissæ. The other two