Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/281

 GREEK PLAYS IN GENERAL. 255 Hercules in the act of slaying Lycus^ The royal tragic costume is marked by the long sceptre borne in the left hand^, and by a sword with its juvkt]^^ at the end of the scabbard (Millin, p. 21, PL XI. Wieseler, iv. 12). It is difficult to say what is the distinguishing object in some of the figures in the Mosaic^, but the first is obviously a young female figure with a torch ^ in each hand; and may fairly be identified with the Cassandra of the Troades. In one group (Millin, PI. xxv. Wieseler, viii. 3) a figure is introduced bearing a branch of olive as a suppliant, and it is not improbable, as Millin has suggested (p. 28), that the scene represented is that in the Bupplices of Euripides, when Adrastus appeals to ^thra the mother of Theseus. In the picture from Pompeii, to which reference has been already made (Wieseler, Tin. 12), a heroine bearing a child in swaddling clothes, is ad- di'essing a female domestic, who carries a water-jug in her right hand. That Antigone, both in the prologue and when she is brought before Creon, carries in her hand the prochus or pitcher, Fig. ^ The drawn dagger indicates the murderous purpose of the person about to be slain. See Eurip, Here. F. 735 sqq, ^ Ovid, Amoruni, ill. t. u sqq. : Venit et ingenti violenta Tragoedia passu: Fronte comse torva; palla jacebat humi; Lseva manus sceptrum late regale tenebat; Lydius alta pedum vincla cothiirnus erat. ^ Herod, in. 64. "^ In PI. 15, Wieseler, Vii. lo, the male figure seems to carr}- in his left hand the red sheath of the dagger which he bears in his right ; and the female figure, who is bending her knee in the act of supplication, is perhaps Clytfemnestra, at the n^oment when Orestes threatens her with death. ^ vv. 308 sqq. : avexf; TTCtpexe, (pQis (pepe ai^w, cpKl'^o}, Idov, Idov afj.7rd(n t65' iepov.