Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/61

Rh one of ten on a Committee of Public Safety, when the great disaster of the Sicilian expedition filled all hearts with fear, we may see in his acceptance of the office a proof of the love of his country, which led him to return, at the age of eighty-two, to public life. His acceptance of the oligarchic revolution effected by the Four Hundred, two years later, (B.C. 411,) as the least of two evils, was natural enough to one of his age and character. Some passages of the extant plays, however, seem to have a distinct reference to the passing political changes of the time. The language of the Chorus in "Œdipus the King," (882–895,) and "Œdipus at Colonos," (1537–8,) is manifestly directed against the reckless licence which, not satisfied with its emancipation from popular superstition, threw itself into outrages like the mutilation of the Hermæ busts and the profanation of the Mysteries; while the words, seemingly opposite in tendency, (497–501,) which maintain the judgment of common sense against the claims of soothsayers, may have been meant as a protest against the credulous fear,