HARDLY, if at all, inferior to the Agamemnon in the conception of the characters and the exposition of a great moral truth, is the third play of the Trilogy, the Eumenides, or 'Benign Goddesses.' Composed for a political purpose, to uphold the authority of Conscience in the abstract, and specially that of the Court of the Areopagus against the proposed reforms of Ephialtes and Pericles¹, it embodies the famed legend of the pursuit of the matricide Orestes by the Erinyes, his appeal as a suppliant for protection first to Apollo at Delphi, and then to Athena in the Erechtheum of her own Acropolis, and the institution of the court of the Areopagus itself for the express purpose of his trial. But besides the moral and political, there is also a religious import in the treatment of the play. The Erinyes, or 'Furies,' demon-powers, whose mission was the neverending persecution and torturing of the sinner in this world and the next, were of the older or Titanian dynasty, children of Night. They could not be got rid of; they could not safely be thwarted or opposed; but they might be converted into children of Light, and by accepting the 1 See Sir G. W. Cox, Hist. of Greece, II. pp. 59, 60. 2 Like Plato, Gorg. p. 525 c, who speaks of the souls in hell τὰ μέγιστα καὶ ὀδυνηρότατα καὶ φοβερώτατα πάθη πάσχοντας τὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον, Aeschylus believed in the eternity of punishments. Hence the chorus say (Eum. 167) ὑπό τε γἂν φυγών οὗ ποτ᾿ ἐλευθεροῦται, and δι αἰῶνος ώλετο, ib. 533, 'he is for ever lost.'
proffered honours and solemn sacrifices of the citizens they might become inmates of the land, no longer as the Malignant, nor simply as the Awful, Σεμναὶ, but as the Benign powers, or Well-wishers,' Εὐμενίδες. This great act of compromise is effected by the joint action and persuasion of Apollo and Athena. The Eumenides are installed in their new office, and henceforth Justice tempered with Mercy, and not a blind terror of the unseen, will reign in the hearts and will regulate the lives of the Athenian citizens. This The plot therefore may be said to represent the infancy of a new theology, -a period of transition in Greek thought from mere fear of devils to the faith in and worship of celestial beings willing and able to save guilty man. is a truly magnificent subject, inaugurated by Aeschylus long before it was developed by Socrates and Plato; and the reader will do well to place it clearly before him in the study of this great and profound drama. Throughout this play, as in that preceding (the Choephoroe), Orestes regards himself as at once guilty of a crime and yet obedient to a divine command. This singular relation is never lost sight of, and faith in Apollo, as the infallible interpreter of the supreme will (Διὸς προφήτης, v. 19), makes him bear up against all his trials, till he breaks out into an ecstatic thanksgiving for his complete acquittal from the crime of matricide (v. 724). At the conclusion of the preceding play¹ Orestes had avowed his resolution of seeking ceremonial purification and protection at the shrine of Apollo at Delphi; and that play ends, as this play opens, with the sight of the horrible and remorseless demons in full pursuit of him even to the very altar of the god. Apollo however appears, cheers and encourages his suppliant with promises of support, and sternly orders the band of Furies to depart. The horrors of the scene are greatly increased by the ghost of Clytemnestra. She points to her gory wound, and reproaches the Furies, who have fallen into a fitful slumber, for their 1 Choeph. 1024, 1051.
remissness in her cause. It appears from the construction of the choral odes that there are three principal Furies, one of whom acts as the Choragus or Leader, and twelve others who act as their followers, and attendants¹. To the command of the god the chorus reply somewhat pertly (190— 222), and declare their intention to continue the pursuit. At v. 226 the scene suddenly changes to the Acropolis of Athens, where Orestes, still closely followed by his persecutors, appeals to the goddess, who arrives from afar (v. 375) and at once promises her aid. Athena in her turn holds a conversation with the Furies, and learning from them the gravity of the case she announces her intention to hold a court (the future Areopagus) of the best of her citizens2, for the trial of the offender. The process of the trial closely represents the legal forms of the period. The votes are given separately by twelve judges, and prove equal; upon which Athena delivers her own sentence in favour of acquittal, and appoints this as a precedent for the acquittal of all who may hereafter obtain half the votes in their favour4. Alarmed at the prospect of their power being diminished, the chorus sing an ode (468) on the salutary effects of Fear in restraining crime, and the hint is thus given to the revolutionary party of Ephialtes 'not to spurn the altar of justice with an eye to gain' (511). In the trial, Apollo acts at once as a witness in favour of the defendant, and as an interpreter of the law. (ἐξηγητὴς, 579). By the The Scholiast on v. 555, πολλαὶ μέν ἐσμεν, λέξομεν δὲ συντόμως, has the important remark, τοῦτο οὐ πρὸς τὰς τρεῖς, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὸν χορόν· ιε΄ γὰρ ἦσαν. It seems from this that the traditional number was fifteen. Pollux, also, iv. 109, says that the tragic chorus consisted of fifteen, but that the number was fifty before the acting of Eumenides, when it was reduced by law because so large a number frightened the audience. 2 v. 465. The aristocratic constitution of the court is alluded to in ἀστῶν ἐμῶν τα βέλτατα. 3 These judges form a kind of secondary chorus, of which there are several examples both in tragedy and in comedy. Schol. on v. 513, ἐν παραχορηγήματι αὐτῷ εἰσιν οἱ ᾿Αρεοπαγῖται μηδαμοῦ διαλεγόμενοι. On v. 713 he says their number was 31. * νικῶν ἰσήρεις ὅστις ἄν ψήφους λάβῃ, Eur. Iph. T. 1472.
sophistry he uses in proof that the male alone is the true parent and the mother only the nurse of the fetus, Apollo declares, as the law of Zeus himself (585), that Orestes was bound to avenge his father's death, even though his own mother was the murderer. Thus he is acquitted and restored to his civic rights by the united authority of the three great heavenly powers, Zeus, Apollo, and Athena (728). The merely human and judicial authority of the court is vindicated and neutralized by the device of equal votes¹. It remains only to pacify the Furies, who, though indignant at first at the result of the trial, at last remit their anger on the assurance that they have not been beaten, but simply have not gained the cause (762). The promise of special honours and a shrine in a rocky grot near the Erechtheum (817), commended by the persuasive eloquence of the goddess of wisdom, converts them into friendly allies, and now as Εὐμενίδες they utter prayers and wishes for the prosperity of the Athenians (876 seqq.). The play ends with a procession from the stage, headed by Athena herself, to conduct the goddesses with torches into the dark crevice in the limestone rock at the N.E. angle of the Areopagus2. The shifting of the scene from Delphi to the Acropolis and thence to the Areopagus, - these two sites being close to the theatre itself, was easily effected in imagination, and perhaps with no great change of scenery. A considerable interval of time is assumed to have elapsed before the arrival at Athens, just as in the Agamemnon there are intervals between the news of the capture of Troy, and the return first of the herald and then of the king, and in the Persae between the news of the defeat and the safe return of Xerxes into Asia. We have no precise record as to how the Erinyes were attired, but it seems they were dressed in sable robes (333, 353); that they looked blear-eyed (54), and madeloud snorting sounds (53, 121), and perhaps had snaky hair like Gorgons 1 See the arguments pro and con in Eur. Orest. 890 seqq. 2 Eur. El. 1271, πάγον παρ' αὐτὸν χάσμα δύσονται χθονός. See Wordsworth's Greece, p. 217.
(48), and carried torches (366); and they wore horrible masks, φοβερὰ πρόσωπα, ν. 9431. Like the pictures of devils so common in medieval paintings, they were intended to frighten; for the poet (as we have shown) had a moral purpose in the representation. According to a legend given in the Medicean 'Life of Aeschylus,' the representation was altogether so terrific that children died of fright and women miscarried?. 1 From Pollux iv. 141 it appears that such masks were called ἔκσκενα, which Hesychius explains by τὰ παρεπόμενα πρόσωπα ἐπὶ σκηνής, meaning, perhaps, 'occasional' or 'exceptional.' The mask worn by the ghost of Clytemnestra was of the kind called ὠχρὸν, ibid. 137. 2 ὡς τὰ μὲν νήπια ἐκψύξαι τὰ δὲ ἔμβρυα ἐξαμβλωθῆναι.