Chapter III: Euripides (3)

But to my words, O Oedipus, attend:
Eteocles, thy son, hath to these hands
Consigned the sceptre of the Theban realm, ...
I for this cause no longer can allow thee
Here to reside: for in the clearest terms
Teiresias has pronounced that, while thou dwell’st
In these domains, Thebes never can be blest.
Therefore depart. Nor through a wanton pride,
Nor any hate I bear thee, do I hold
Such language, but because I justly dread
Thy evil genius will destroy this land.

And Oedipus refers to the Apolline oracle which foretold that he would die in Athens (an oracle which Sophocles also mentions[187]) when he says[188]:

The oracle of Phoebus is fulfilled ...
That in Athens an exile I shall die.

But in Euripides it is clear that Oedipus is not banished before the death of Eteocles and Polyneices. A number of years is known to have elapsed during which he still lived in Thebes. But he was imprisoned all the time, and, as this suggestion is not implied in the Homeric story, we must suppose that some legend invented this novel device by which part at least of the Homeric facts could be brought into harmony with the requirements of the post-Homeric doctrine of ‘pollution.’ It supposed that Oedipus continued to live in Thebes, not however as a king or as a free citizen with full civic rights, but as an imprisoned criminal who by the very fact of his imprisonment did not pollute the State. Jocasta, who, in accordance with the Homeric narrative, is represented as living in Thebes for many years after the crimes[189] of Oedipus were committed, says:

Soon as he learned
That I whom he had wedded was his mother,
The miserable Oedipus, o’erwhelmed
With woes accumulated, from their sockets
Tore with a golden clasp his bleeding eyes.
But since the beard o’ershaded my sons’ cheeks
Their sire they in a dungeon have confined,
The memory of this sad event t’ efface,
For which they needed every subtle art.
Within those mansions he still lives, but sick
With evil fortunes, on his sons pours forth
The most unholy curses, that this house
They by the sword may portion out.

We have said[190] that ‘pollution’ was conceived by the Greeks as a quasi-physical reality which resembled a contagious disease. In historical times a ‘polluted’ murderer was isolated by imprisonment. A law of Dracon, which is confirmed by Plato and by Demosthenes, prescribed that a convicted murderer _en rupture de ban_ could be arrested and imprisoned, instead of being put to death, by the first person who encountered him.[191] But imprisonment was never regarded, in Attic law, as a permanent method of isolation for a murderer, simply because it was not a recognised legal penalty for homicide. Oedipus therefore would have been justified, from the standpoint of historical law, in uttering curses against his relatives who imprisoned him. Hence we suggest that this story of the imprisonment of Oedipus was invented by some legend-maker of the pre-Draconian age, in an attempt to harmonise the Homeric story of the continued life of Oedipus at Thebes with the post-Homeric atmosphere which regarded him as ‘polluted’ and debarred from civil and religious communion with his fellow-citizens. Euripides implies[192] that ultimately the Apolline oracle was fulfilled and that Oedipus died as an exile at Athens. In view of the general acceptance of this oracle by traditional legends and of the ‘established fact’[193] of the burial of Oedipus at Athens, Euripides appears to have abandoned the Homeric account of the burial of Oedipus at Thebes. In this he reveals more intelligence and a greater insight into the meaning of the post-Homeric legend than did Pausanias and his authorities who believed that the bones of Oedipus were transferred from Thebes to Athens.[194] For either Oedipus was ‘polluted’ or he was not. If he was, he could not have been buried at Thebes, since he was regarded as a wilful murderer: if he was not, then he need not have come to Athens as a homicide-exile at all.

The statement of Jocasta[195] that Oedipus was imprisoned in order that his disgrace might be forgotten, and that of Kreon[196] that Oedipus had to be exiled for ever because he was ‘polluted,’ are inconsistent; but we may infer from these statements, which Euripides himself composed, that he did not quite understand the origin and motive of the story of the imprisonment of Oedipus. For whoever invented this story did so with a definite purpose, namely, to reconcile religious doctrine with historical fact. The inventor knew the meaning and purpose of his invention. Hence the statement of Jocasta to which we have referred cannot have originated with the inventor of the story, for otherwise she would have said that Oedipus was imprisoned to avoid pollution.

Nevertheless we think that here again Euripides sought to achieve dramatic interest by introducing an antique variant of the story which Sophocles had ignored. In Sophocles, Oedipus dies before the clash of arms takes place between the Argives and the Thebans. In Euripides he lives to see the realisation of his own curses, and becomes more easily reconciled to his own sad fate when he finds that Destiny has avenged him in his turn, as Laius was avenged, and that in leaving Thebes he has removed from his life the local anger of ghosts and gods.

THE ‘MAD HERCULES’

The theme of this drama is one of the multitudinous episodes which are associated with the life of Hercules. Now the legends of Hercules have this much in common with such legends as we have examined concerning Orestes and Oedipus, that they refer to the deeds of a great man who has died. In Greek religion, apart from the Olympian Pantheon of the Achaean caste, every great man assumed a divine nature when he died. But the Olympian religion did not recognise the right of man to become divine, and therefore whenever legend attributes human acts to such Olympian gods as Apollo or Athene (of whose mortal life there was no record) we must assume that at the time of such acts these gods have temporarily assumed a human form. But Hercules never was an Olympian. In Homer, Hercules is mentioned in a manner which suggests that he had been living quite recently upon this earth, and living moreover a normal human life. We find him in Hades, like all other dead men, though, curiously, he retains some of his old vitality, for he is married to Hebe, the goddess of eternal youth.[197] We hear of his maternal uncles living ordinary human lives in Argos or in Thebes,[198] and his grandsons actually fought in the Trojan war! We will not here attempt to discuss the origin of the Grecian cult of Hercules. Müller, of course, connects him with the Dorians. He thinks that Hercules and Apollo, in their respective rôles of hero and of god, satisfied the normal wants of Dorian religiousness.[199] We admit that the exaltation of Hercules as a divinity was of post-Homeric origin; but it is futile, we believe, to seek to distinguish the historical from the fictitious strata in Heraclean legends. At the dawn of European literature the human life of Hercules, if there ever was such a man, was a thing of the past, and it is therefore more than probable that all the post-Homeric legends of Hercules are equally fictitious. The main point which we wish to emphasise here is that most of the legends of Hercules are based on the assumption that he had not yet died: that he was a mortal man, who obeyed, on most occasions, the laws of social humanity, not a god who had condescended to take human form and who was superior to the operation of natural laws. We agree that in the legends of Hercules there is a certain element of magic, such as is found in the legends of Medea, or Jason, or Iphigeneia. This element imports into Heraclean legends a certain degree of lawlessness or of chaos. But, so far as homicide at least is concerned, we will assume that Hercules is a man; not indeed an ordinary man, subject to every ordinary law, but nevertheless a man, whose actions, however archaically they may be conceived, can nevertheless be explained. The difficulties which are presented by the Heraclean legends are due in part to their archaic setting, but still more to their almost infinite variety—a variety which we may attribute to the multitude of localities in which this Hero-god was worshipped. The greater the number of shrines which a god or hero possessed, the greater was the variety of the myths which grew up around him, because ancient myths—which are not like modern fairy tales, but which were rather sacred commemorations of religious events—could be transferred from one Hero to another. Herodotus tells[200] how Cleisthenes of Sicyon transferred the ‘tragic choruses’ which commemorated the sorrows of Adrastus to the cult of Dionysus. Thus too must Hercules have had attributed to him the joyful exploits as well as the sorrowful events of the ‘lives’ of local Heroes. For this reason, and because of the tendency of myths to become more and more fanciful, we believe that the legends of Hercules as of most gods are ‘fictitious.’

In the Euripidean drama, the _Mad Hercules_, we are told that Hercules, in a fit of madness, slew his wife, Megara, and his children.[201] He was deluded by the goddess Hera[202] into believing that he was thereby inflicting death upon the children of his taskmaster, Eurystheus. We may recall a somewhat similar delusion which was sent in a Sophoclean drama by Athene upon Ajax. But whereas in the _Ajax_ no actual homicide occurs, here we have actual bloodshed, and, worst of all, kin-slaying. From a legal point of view, the position of Hercules is therefore quite different from that of Ajax. It is, we think, more akin to that of Oedipus. Hercules slays his children without knowing that they are his children. We may omit, for purposes of legal analysis, the death of Megara, his wife, for this death is obscured by the more heinous slaying of his kindred. Like Oedipus, Hercules discovers the truth; like Ajax, he contemplates suicide. He gives expression to sentiments regarding the punishment of kin-slaying which are suggestive of historical Attic law; though he forgets, for the moment, that his act was involuntary, when he says[203]:

Ah! why lengthen out
A guilty life, when of my dearest children
I am become the murderer? Why delay
To leap from the high rock or with a sword
Transpierce this bosom, on myself their blood
Avenging? or t’avert that infamy
Which waits me, shall I rush into the flames?

Presently he begins to feel that he should not be considered fully culpable[204]; yet he sees that it will be difficult for him to establish ‘extenuation’ as a plea.[205] The fit of madness which Hera had sent upon him was indeed a grim reality, but it would be difficult to prove it in a court of justice. Moreover, in the Euripidean account Hercules is an alien in Thebes. His native State is Argos.[206] We have said that exile was not permitted as a penalty for voluntary kin-slaying in historical Greece. We have quoted[207] Plato for the law that even involuntary slaying between aliens was punished by perpetual exile. If Hercules was an alien at Thebes, so also were his children. In Homer[208] Thebes is the birthplace of Hercules, but this Homeric fact is not accepted by Euripides. In the following passage Hercules regards exile rather than death as his correct and proper punishment, but owing to the difficulty of proving involuntariness he fears that no city will receive him. Thebes, he says, he must leave. To Argos, his native home, he cannot return, because, as he says,[209] he has been already banished from that State owing to his feud with Eurystheus. In other places he will indeed be called a kin-slayer, and if he cannot prove his innocence he may be banished. This statement lends support to our theory that in historical Greece exile was not permitted for voluntary kin-slaying.[210] He says[211]:

My fate is such
That in my native Thebes I must not dwell:
But if I here continue, to what temple
Or friends can I repair? for by such curses
I now am visited, that none will dare
To speak to me. To Argos shall I go?
How can I, when my country drives me forth?
To any other city should I fly,
The consequence were this: with looks askance
I should be viewed as one well-known, and harassed
With these reproaches by malignant tongues:
‘Is not this he, the son of Jove, who murdered
His children and his consort? from this land
Shall not th’accursed miscreant be expelled?’

But the archaic atmosphere of the ‘life’ of Hercules furnishes a solution for this problem. Theseus arrives from Athens! Apparently we are now living in the days which preceded the institution of citizen juries or even of Ephetae courts! As Theseus, the autocratic King-judge, tried Oedipus at the shrine of the Semnai,[212] so also, in a similarly informal manner, he tries Hercules. He knows already, without being told of it, that Hera is to blame. Therefore, he says[213]:

... This mischief
Springs from no god except the wife of Jove....

Hence he says to Hercules[214]:

From Thebes retire
Since thus the laws ordain: and follow me
To Pallas’ city: when thy hands are there
Cleansed from pollution, I to thee will give
A palace, and with thee divide my wealth.

What, we may ask, is the law to which Theseus here refers? Wilamowitz[215] rightly says that the law is that which prohibits his continuance at Thebes. We believe, however, that this was not a specifically Theban law. If it had been, the fact would have been more clearly indicated. The law in question is, we believe, an international law, which declared that when an alien slew an alien, even without intent, he must be debarred for ever from the State in which the deed occurred. This law we have already quoted from Plato.[216] Hercules therefore left Thebes and went to Athens,[217] and we are told that when, in course of time, he dies in Athens he will receive the worship of a Hero![218] The similarity of this _dénouement_ to that of the _Oedipus Coloneus_ of Sophocles needs no comment. Both these consummations are based, perhaps, on the existence of Hero-shrines in Attic soil. But the legend-makers were careful not to give us legal impossibilities. Hercules had shrines everywhere in Greece. Yet Hercules could not go to Argos, for the simple reason that he had been exiled from that city. He could not return to Thebes because of ‘the law.’ It was fortunate then for Hercules that he found a king such as Theseus who admitted without question the element of extenuation in his act. In historical Greece a wilful kin-slayer could not have been accepted as an exile in any State. The law which is referred to by Theseus cannot therefore have reference to wilful slaying, for it permitted him to leave Thebes. If he had slain his children wilfully, it would not have allowed him the option of exile. If he is allowed this option, it is because his deed was viewed, either by the dramatist or by the legend-maker, or by both, as extenuated or quasi-involuntary kin-slaying. Such slaying in Greek law prescribed a period of exile, temporary or perpetual, pending the appeasement of the kinsmen.

Owing to the important differences which exist between the Euripidean conception of the native state of Hercules and Homer’s conception, we must assume that Euripides has abandoned Homer and is following an Argive legend concerning Hercules. This conclusion is strengthened by the account which Euripides gives, in this play, of Amphitryon, the father of Hercules. Euripides makes Amphitryon say[219] that he is an exile from Argos living at Thebes, because he had slain Electryon. Now, if Euripides conceived Amphitryon as a Theban by birth, he could not legally have presented him, since he was a man-slayer, as a resident in Thebes. We have seen[220] that homicide-exiles were debarred from three possible places of residence, namely (1) the State of the slayer, (2) the State of the victim, and (3) the State in which the deed of blood took place.

Pausanias also refers[221] to this legend of Amphitryon. The Thebans of his time pointed out a ruined house in Thebes, ‘where they say Amphitryon dwelt when he fled from Tiryns owing to the death of Electryon.’ As Tiryns was a city within the boundary of the historical Argive State it is frequently confused with Argos in the legends. Electryon was the father-in-law and the uncle of Amphitryon. That the slaying of Electryon was not wilful is suggested by certain facts. Thus, the return of Amphitryon to Argos is said to depend on the will of Eurystheus and the labours of Hercules are regarded as the necessary ‘appeasement.’[222] We need not suppose that there is any reference to the Pelasgian wergeld system in the story of the ‘recompense’ which was demanded by Eurystheus. This ‘recompense’ is more akin to the ‘appeasement’ of relatives in the pollution system. It was the father of Eurystheus, Sthenelus, the brother of Electryon, who had driven Amphitryon into banishment. Euripides concedes this much to the claim of Thebes to be regarded as the home of Amphitryon, in so far as he makes Amphitryon say[223] that he has settled there as an exile. But legally he could not have lived there as a homicide-exile if he had been a citizen of Thebes. Hence Euripides calls him ‘the Argive Amphitryon.’ His hopes of an ultimate return to Argos and of the ‘appeasement’ of Eurystheus suggest that his act was involuntary, or quasi-involuntary. The very fact of his exile points to the same conclusion.

The attempt of Lycus, King of Thebes, to murder Amphitryon, Megara, and the children of Hercules, is also described in the play. The motive of Lycus was political. Hercules had married Megara, daughter of Kreon, the Regent of Thebes, and his family was therefore a dangerous rival in the matter of dynastic succession. Hercules, as soon as he heard of the plot, put Lycus to death.[224] This penalty, we have suggested,[225] was a normal penalty for attempted murder (βούλευσις) in Achaean or quasi-Achaean[226] society. We have discussed this penalty in our analysis of the _Ajax_ of Sophocles. Whether there was an antique legend which referred to this penalty, or whether the dramatist is consciously archaising, it is difficult to decide. The Chorus, at least, have no doubt that the penalty was just and Amphitryon takes the same view.[227] The Chorus say to him as he dies[228]:

Others have perished by that bloody hand.
... the retribution thou endur’st ... is just.

THE ‘CHILDREN OF HERCULES’

Of the Heracleidae, another family of Hercules, Pausanias says[229]: ‘When Hercules fled from Eurystheus at Tiryns, he went to his friend Ceyx, the King of Trachis. But when Hercules left the society of men[230] Eurystheus demanded his children, and Ceyx sent them to Athens, suggesting that Theseus should protect them. And coming to Athens, they caused the first war between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians, as Theseus would not give them up to Eurystheus.’

In this Euripidean play, also, the children of Hercules are represented as dwelling in the city of Athens, in the charge of Iolaus and Alcmene,[231] and the war between Eurystheus and Theseus for their extradition is the main theme. The presence of Iolaus in the drama is probably, we think, derived from the legend of an expedition which the Athenians made under his leadership to Sardinia.[232] The chief point which we wish to emphasise here is that the demand for the extradition of the Heracleidae has no connexion with homicide. Amphitryon had slain Electryon. Hercules had sought in vain to ‘appease’ Eurystheus. It is now evident that Eurystheus has refused all ‘appeasement,’ as the sons of Oedipus refused it, _for political reasons_. In Greek law homicide could not continue to afflict the children of a slayer unto the fourth generation. With the death of Amphitryon, the homicide episode is closed. In this drama, the extradition demand is therefore entirely political. Upon this point our play is quite explicit. Eurystheus says to Alcmene[233]:

For well I knew thy son
Was no mere cipher, but a man indeed:
Though strong my hate, on him will I confer
The praise he merits from his valiant deeds.
But after he was dead, was I not forced,
Because I was a foe to these his sons,
And knew what bitter enmity ’gainst me
They from their sire inherited, to leave
No stone unturned, to slay, to banish them
And plot their ruin? Could I have succeeded
In these designs, my throne had stood secure.

Demophon, son of Theseus, refuses to give up the sons of Hercules and uses as a pretext the right of suppliants.[234] We recall the statement of Pausanias[235] that Demophon was the first Athenian who was tried at the Palladium court—a court which regularly tried cases of homicide between strangers.[236] The words which Demophon speaks to the herald of Eurystheus[237]—

Therefore, go thou back
To Argos, and this message to Eurystheus
Deliver: tell him, too, if there be ought
Which ’gainst our guests he can allege, the laws[238]
Are open: but thou shalt not drag them thence—

imply that the right of suppliant was not potent to protect offenders but was only potent to secure for them a respite from merited punishment; moreover they imply that Eurystheus has no right to demand the extradition of offenders without the option of a trial.[239] We have already admitted that the right of sanctuary helped to determine the locality of certain courts, but we have maintained[240] that it had no essential connexion with the origin of the principle of trials for homicide, and that its connexion with murder courts is quite accidental. We have suggested that[241] in historical Greece trial was a possible option for extradition in case of homicide. Hence the refusal of Eurystheus to accept trial suggests what Demophon definitely asserts,[242] that the ‘offence’ of the Heracleidae was not criminal but political.

But if the Heracleidae are innocent, what shall we say of Eurystheus? Is he not as culpable as Lycus is in the _Mad Hercules_? Is he not guilty of plotting murder for political ends? If he is not yet αἴτιος φόνου, is he not guilty of βούλευσις? For this crime, we have said, in early Greece, the penalty was probably death.[243] It is, then, significant that in this play Eurystheus is put to death by the servants of Alcmene.[244] Both the penalty and its mode of execution are archaic. Either legend retained these elements unadulterated in their transition down the ages, or Euripides deliberately imported into the myth an archaic atmosphere. In neither case is Euripides giving us the ideas of his own time, for in historical Greece βούλευσις was not punishable by death.

Eurystheus was captured alive in the battle and hence he claims the right of a captive warrior and demands the protection of the Athenians![245] Alcmene, however, insists that he should be given up to her for execution![246] What a nice legal problem was this for a litigious Athenian audience! How replete it is with that intense human interest which was so dear to Euripides! The conflict is skilfully depicted in the dialogue which takes place between Alcmene and the messenger (or the Chorus?) after the battle.[247] Eurystheus’ appeal to the ‘laws of Greece’[248] implies the existence of international legislation concerning the rights of war-captives, but he himself had previously shown very little regard for the international status of exiles. In vain does he advance the plea of self-defence against these harmless but dangerous children! The Athenians decide to take no action. They cannot put to death a captive taken in war. But Alcmene claims that Eurystheus is a murderer. According to ancient practice, it is her privilege to avenge! Moreover, so far as Alcmene is concerned, she will not bury a man whom she believes to be a criminal.[249] But unfortunately there was an oracle of Apollo that Eurystheus should be buried in Athens.[250] The Athenians therefore are disposed to bury him.[251] At first Alcmene says[252] that she will not object to the burial of Eurystheus by the Athenians, but this assertion is incompatible with the command which she gives to her attendants later, to deliver the dead Eurystheus to the dogs. We may perhaps assume that she performed a mock ritual of ‘exposure’ of the dead, that she cast the body of Eurystheus beyond the boundaries, and that afterwards his relatives removed him for sepulture. Such is the attempt which Euripides seems to make to solve the deadlock between two elements of Greek law, namely that which permitted the burial of an enemy,[253] and that which forbade the burial of a murderer.[254] In the archaic atmosphere of the play, homicide and attempted homicide[255] are equated as identical. In the words of Eurystheus, who declares in vain that his death will cause pollution to his slayer, we discern at once the failure of Euripides to be consistently archaic and the failure of a dead man’s ghost to impose ‘pollution’ in the teeth of civic law and international religion.

THE ‘MEDEA’

In regard to the origin and the evolution of the story of Medea which is the subject of this drama, we cannot do better than summarise the account which Verrall gives in his edition of the play. Verrall thinks[256] that Medea was a Phoenician moon-goddess who was worshipped at Corinth at an early period, and to whom were offered, in sacrifice, human victims, including children; that these rites, which in course of time assumed a more civilised form, (when a mock ritual of human sacrifice was accepted in the place of ancient realities,) were ‘transferred’ to the goddess Hera; that sacred legend retained indeed a memory of Medea, but the evolution of Corinthian religion degraded to the level of a priestess the Medea who once had been a goddess; and that hence arose the fiction that Medea had once slain children—in sacrifice! Later, Verrall thinks, this Corinthian story was expanded under the influence of eastern Greek colonisation, and legend traced in the route from the Euxine to Iolcos the natural course of Medea’s introduction to Greek lands. Weird Asiatic notions of sorcery and witchcraft clustered round her name; to her were attributed the atrocities which legend-memory recorded of the Aeolidae at Iolcos. Thus was Medea degraded not only from a goddess to a priestess, but also from a priestess to a sorceress, and from a sorceress to the vilest murderess whom Grecian legends knew.

If the creators of the story of Medea were ignorant of her original character, so also naturally was Euripides. For him, Medea is not a goddess who has assumed the form of a woman, but a woman who has not yet put off this mortal coil, and who as yet has done little to deserve that she should, after death, attain to divinity! As a woman, she is, despite her magic, subject to social laws. Her deeds of blood must be regarded from a legal standpoint, whether that standpoint is applicable to one era or to another. Let us consider how the deeds of Medea were avenged.

First of all, she slew her brother, Apsyrtus, in Colchis, to prevent his pursuit.[257] For this crime she paid no penalty, if we except the exile which destiny had, in any event, decreed for her. It was quite unnecessary for the legend-maker to invent this additional atrocity of fratricide, for to Colchis Medea was never to return! But as exile was an archaic Pelasgian penalty for wilful kin-slaying, this conception bears an antique stamp which is attributable either to the antiquity of the story or to the archaising of later minds.

Again, Medea caused the daughters of Pelias to put to death their aged father by deluding them into the belief that by cutting him in pieces and boiling him with certain magic potions, they would restore him to youth and vigour.[258] Here Medea acts as the ‘plotter and contriver’[259] of murder. In primitive as in historical[260] times, such a deed was regarded as equally culpable with that of an actual slayer—indeed, in the special circumstances of the case she was the real if not the actual murderer of Pelias, and the daughters of Pelias were guilty, at most, of involuntary slaying. We cannot of course attribute to Medea the guilt of kin-slaying, as she was not akin to Pelias. It is more probable that she would have been regarded, for purposes of punishment, as an ordinary murderess. In actual fact, she and Jason were expelled from Thessaly. Even so, in the play,[261] she still fears the vengeance of Acastus, the son of Pelias. This fact does not imply that she was conceived as guilty of kin-slaying, which in historical Greece was punishable by death. We believe that the Thessalian story of Medea was not conceived from the standpoint of historical law.

In this story there are complications of blood-vengeance which suggest an Achaean, or rather what we may call a quasi-Achaean atmosphere. While, in Homer,[262] Pelias, son of Poseidon, rules over Iolcos like an Achaean, by divine right, later legend revealed that he had previously defrauded his half-brother Aeson of the kingdom and put him to death, and that Jason the son of Aeson had himself narrowly escaped death at his hands. Hence it was natural that Jason, the one-sandalled hero of the oracle,[263] should command Medea to put Pelias to death. That is the real reason why Jason, together with Medea, was banished from Thessaly by Acastus. This quasi-Achaean exile is therefore similar to the Achaean ‘flight from death,’ and hence it is that Medea still fears the vengeance of Acastus.[264] When Jason arrived at Corinth, he became affianced to the king’s daughter, just as the Achaean Tydeus became the son-in-law of Adrastus.[265] No pollution was involved in an alliance with a kin-slayer! The presence of such Achaean episodes in Euripides, side by side with episodes which bear a later stamp, suggests either a marvellous capacity for archaising on the part of the dramatist or, more probably, the unadulterated transmission of an antique legend.[266]

The main plot of this drama reveals two further atrocities which were perpetrated by Medea. She plots the death of her husband, of his intended wife, Glauce, of his intended father-in-law, Kreon, King of Corinth, and of her own two children, whom she had borne to Jason. Her murderous plot proved successful, except in regard to Jason. Her children she slew deliberately with her own hand. It happened, previously, that Aegeus, King of Athens, arrived at Corinth. Medea, well aware of the consequences of the murderous plot which she had planned, and being, in addition, under an edict of banishment from Corinth, entreated Aegeus to give her protection at Athens.[267] He promised to do so, but she was not content with a promise. She bound Aegeus under a solemn oath:

Swear by the earth on which we tread, the sun,
Thy grandsire and by all the race of gods ...
That from your land you never will expel,
Nor while you live consent that any foe
Shall tear me thence.[268]

One or two problems are suggested by this quotation. If Medea had not succeeded in securing this solemn contract on the part of Aegeus, would she have carried out her plot? And was Aegeus bound by the oath when he discovered the sequel? In this section of the story—which is the main theme of our play—homicide is conceived as a ‘pollution,’[269] and in the pollution system exile was not permitted for voluntary kin-slaying.[270] The murder of her children was by far the most serious offence which Medea committed, since they were her kindred. For the other deeds of blood she could have legally sought asylum at Athens, as she was not a citizen of that State, and the deeds had not been perpetrated there. Medea seems to be well aware of these facts, for she utters no hint to Aegeus of her dreadful plans. But it was her intention of slaying her children which led her to extract from Aegeus this solemn oath. If he had refused to swear, she would, we believe, have slain all her intended victims, but she would then have committed suicide.

But was the oath which Aegeus swore binding in Greek international law? Apparently Medea thought so, and Euripides seems to think so, too. The Chorus, however, do not understand how Medea can find a refuge at Athens. But it is only in the slaying of the children that they seem to find a difficulty. They say[271]:

For its holy streams renowned
Can that city, can that State
Where Friendship’s generous train are found
Shelter thee from public hate,
When, defiled with horrid guilt,
Thou thy children’s blood hast spilt?
Think on this atrocious deed
Ere the dagger aim the blow.

But at the end of the play the Sun-god, the grandfather of Medea, places his chariot at her disposal in order to facilitate her journey to Athens,[272] the Corinthian gods accepting, as an expiation, the establishment by blood-stained hands of a festival and mystic rites![273] Jason is foredoomed to death,[274] and we are told that Medea will escape the Erinnyes of her children![275]

If Euripides, as Wedd maintains,[276] habitually contrasts the morality of the legends with that of his own day, we can only say that here the contrast is so obvious that it need not have been indicated at all. But is such a contrast really indicated? Does the futile protest of the Chorus represent the Athens of Euripides, and does the action of Aegeus typify the Athens of a barbarous past? If not, how do we explain the facts of the drama? In our view, it is Jason, not Medea, who is the villain of this play. Medea had left her home, her kindred, everything that life held dear, for the love of a Greek adventurer. Jason never taunts Medea with the slaying of his father. He had commanded it. Driven forth as an exile from the land of Thessaly, she clings to her blood-stained mate. In Corinth he deserts her, and she is ordered to go away—anywhere, somewhere, into the great unknown. To the distracted mind of a desperate woman who sees herself deserted in a friendless world comes then the image of a two-edged sword, begotten of slighted love and sexual jealousy. Love rejected, love transferred, transforms Medea from a faithful friend into a dangerous enemy. Her children, erstwhile the sweetest pledges of affection, are now so many goads which stimulate her vengeance. The conflict of passions which rages in Medea’s breast is depicted by Euripides with matchless skill. It proclaims her at once human and insane. Subjectively therefore she need only plead guilty to extenuated homicide, to slaying in a passion; and if such a plea were accepted she would be entitled in Greek law[277] to the sanctuary of exile. Why then does she bind Aegeus by an oath? We suggest that the explanation is to be found in the distinction between the objective or legal aspect of an act and its subjective or psychological aspect. It would have been difficult for Medea to have established her plea in any court, formal or informal. Aegeus might not have given her the benefit of the doubt, as Theseus did to Oedipus, and Medea could take no risks. Furthermore, this legend has an archaic setting, and portrays a Greek story of a period which was antecedent to the establishment of regular State courts of justice and to codified international law. This explains why Aegeus observed his oath. There was no authority of an international religion to declare that it was not binding. Viewed in this light, the protest of the Chorus in our last quotation is a confirmation of our hypothesis. They actually approve of the slaying of Kreon and of his daughter, though they regret that they should have suffered for Jason’s infamy. They say[278]:

Heaven its collected store of evil seems
This day resolved with justice to pour down
On perjured Jason. Thy untimely fate
How do we pity, O thou wretched daughter
Of Kreon, who in Pluto’s mansions go’st
To celebrate thy nuptial feast.

When the Chorus urge Medea not to slay her children, we feel that they are prompted by feelings of pity and humanity, rather than by any sense of legal or religious guilt. In the following passage in which we see the strongest and most emphatic instance of their disapproval of Medea’s act, their main objection is that her act is unusual! Only one woman, they say, has ever been known to do such a deed before![279]

Art thou a rock, O wretch, or steel to slay
With thine own hand that generous race of sons
Whom thou didst bear? I hitherto have heard
But of one woman who, in ancient days,
Smote her own children, Ino, by the gods
With frenzy stung....
But she, yet reeking with the impious gore
Of her own progeny, into the waves
Plunged headlong from the ocean’s craggy beach.
Can there be deeds more horrible than these
Left for succeeding ages to produce?

Thus, in this play we have no Euripidean contrast of barbarous with civilised morality. Euripides favours Medea; so does the Chorus; so does the plot. So strong is her passion, so conscious is she of her own moral rectitude, so magnanimous is her soul, that, if Aegeus had not come, she would have carried out her plans, and if Aegeus had not sworn, she would have done the same. But with her blood-stained hands she would have driven into her heart the sword which had just drained the life blood of her children.

THE ‘HIPPOLYTUS’

The scene of the _Hippolytus_ is laid in Troizen, in S.E. Argolis, the realm of Pittheus, the maternal grandfather of Theseus, King of Athens. Thither Theseus has come, because, says Euripides, he was sentenced to one year’s exile for the slaying of Pallas and his sons. Aphrodite says[280]:

But from Cecropia’s realm since Theseus fled
To expiate his pollution, with the blood
Of Pallas’ sons distained, and with his queen
Sailed for this coast, to punishment of exile
Submitting for one year.

Now Pausanias informs us[281] that ‘justifiable homicide was the plea of Theseus when he was acquitted for killing Pallas and his sons.’ We have pointed out[282] that Pallas and his sons were slain in a civil war in Attica. As they were technically rebels, and unjust aggressors, seeking to dethrone Aegeus (the father of Theseus), who was the reigning monarch, it was quite natural that from one point of view the act of Theseus should have been morally regarded as justifiable homicide. It would not have required a court of justice to have established the validity of such a plea. Had not Eteocles been automatically ‘acquitted’ for the slaying of Polyneices? But why does Euripides speak of a sentence of one year’s exile? This penalty in relation to kin-slaying (Pallas was a brother of Aegeus) can only have one meaning. Plato assures us[283] that if a kinsman slays a kinsman in a passion, and if the deceased before he expires shall have ‘forgiven’ him and absolved him from blood-guiltiness, the deed shall be regarded as involuntary homicide for which the normal penalty was one year’s exile. To explain this reference in Euripides, therefore, Theseus must be conceived as guilty of extenuated kin-slaying which was ‘forgiven.’ But we are nowhere told that the Pallantidae forgave their slayer! We have said[284] that there was a legal affinity between the conceptions of justifiable and of extenuated slaying. Yet the two kinds of homicide were never identified, and it would be all the more difficult to identify them when the deed concerned a King of Athens. Hence we must suppose either (1) that Euripides has here abandoned the tradition mentioned by Pausanias, or (2) that the legal aspect of the slaying of the Pallantidae had become confused in the legends, before Euripides, with the legal aspect of some other deed of blood with which the name of Theseus was associated.

During the sojourn of Theseus at Troizen, where his son Hippolytus was being brought up, Phaedra, the second wife of Theseus, sought to seduce into adulterous intercourse her step-son, Hippolytus. Euripides represents Hippolytus as an Orphic votary,[285] and we will condone the anachronism[286] because it emphasises the probability of Hippolytus’ repudiation of Phaedra’s suggestions. Phaedra, in shame and anger, committed suicide,[287] but in revenge for the puritan’s rejection of her love, she left behind her a letter in which she accused Hippolytus of forcible violation.[288] Such an accusation, followed by suicide, would be sufficient to convict Hippolytus in either ancient or modern times. It would have convicted him of attempting an ‘indecent assault,’ and of attempted adultery. But would it have convicted him of having caused the death of Phaedra? Theseus believed him guilty of all these crimes, and decided to banish him from Troizen, pronouncing against him, in addition, a virulent curse which, in the religious atmosphere of the ancient world, was as dangerous to the life of Hippolytus as the σήματα λυγρά were which were sent, in analogous circumstances, by Proitus to the King of Lydia, in the legend of Bellerophon.[289] He says[290]:

O Neptune, O my sire,
Since thou hast firmly promised that thou thrice
Wouldst grant me what I prayed for, now fulfil
One vow, and slay my son, nor let him ’scape
This single day, if thou with me design
To ratify the compact thou hast made....
Moreover I will drive him from the land:
For of these twofold fates, or this or that
Must smite him: Neptune, when he hears my curses,
Will plunge the miscreant to the shades of hell;
Else, cast forth from this region, and ordained
To wander in some foreign land, a life
Of the profoundest misery shall he drag.

The crimes which Theseus attributes to Hippolytus are so many and so various that it is impossible to connect this penalty of banishment with the homicidal aspect of Phaedra’s death. The penalty is too severe, as his action in causing Phaedra’s death could hardly have been regarded even as manslaughter.

It is to be noted that Hippolytus was banished from Athens as well as from Troizen.[291] After leaving Troizen, as he was travelling along the coast, he was assailed by a sea-monster which was sent by Poseidon, within sight of the Scironian rocks[292] (this point, we shall see, is important for the correct analysis of the legend): the horses took fright, and Hippolytus was dragged behind the chariot until he was mortally injured. He was brought back to Theseus; and as Artemis miraculously revealed to Theseus his innocence of the crime which had been alleged against him, the father and the son became reconciled; and, before he died, Hippolytus absolved his father from the guilt of blood.[293] Thus the play ends.

We have said[294] that in early Greece, and even amongst the Achaean caste, adultery was not punishable by death. Hence the curse of Theseus renders him liable to blood-guilt. He ‘contrives’ death, he is αἴτιος φόνου,[295] even if he does not actually slay Hippolytus. He confesses his guilt in the closing scene. Now the ‘forgiveness’ of a dying kinsman did not absolve the slayer from all punishment. He had still, in historical Greece, to endure a penalty of one year’s exile from his home-land. Is it not strange, therefore, that in this play Theseus suffers no punishment for the death of Hippolytus? Troizen was reputed to have been the birth-place of Theseus; Athens was the birth-place of Hippolytus. Euripides remembers the latter fact when he represents the exiled Hippolytus as debarred from Athens. But he forgets the former fact when he makes Troizen a place of exile for Theseus! Pausanias says[296] that Theseus went to Troizen to be purified for the slaying of Pallas and his sons, and that at Troizen Phaedra accomplished the death of Hippolytus. Moreover, Pausanias tells us[297] that over the royal portico of the Athenian Prytaneum there was an earthenware statue which represented Theseus in the act of hurling into the sea a certain brigand named Sciron. For Euripides, Sciron is the name of a sea boulder in the Saronic gulf. But Plutarch assures[298] us that Sciron was a kinsman of Theseus, that Theseus slew him, and that as an atonement he instituted the sacred Isthmian games!

It seems obvious that Euripides has either adopted an eclectic attitude to these various legends of Theseus, or that they had become ‘fused’ before his time. But he is not concerned with legal accuracy or consistency, so much as with the construction of an intelligible plot of intense human interest. To Euripides it must have appeared improbable that the temporary sojourn of Theseus at Troizen was connected, as Pausanias alleges, with purgation rites, since these rites would normally have been performed at Athens. Moreover, the brief period of time which such rites would have necessitated does not afford a sufficient explanation of his ‘exile’ for the space of one year. Again, it was absolutely necessary to suppose that Theseus returned to Athens. But, for this, it was necessary to assume that he was ‘forgiven’ by Hippolytus whom he, directly and immediately, and Phaedra indirectly,[299] caused to be killed. But we have not yet discovered the secret of that one year’s sojourn at Troizen. We believe that it is in the legend of Sciron, which Euripides ignores, that we must seek the real origin of the tradition concerning a ‘forgiveness’ and a period of one year’s exile, in the life of Theseus. We have already[300] pointed out how closely these two ideas may be correlated. We suggest that the real legends of Theseus presented some such facts as the following:

1. Theseus slew Pallas and his sons, was acquitted by the Delphinium court,[301] and was purged at Athens.

2. Phaedra, not Theseus, caused the death of Hippolytus.[302]

3. Theseus slew a kinsman,[303] named Sciron, in Attica, but Sciron, before dying, forgave his slayer. Theseus therefore went into exile for one year—not to Troizen—but to the Isthmus where he instituted a sacred festival. He could not have gone into exile to Troizen, for this realm belonged to him (since he was the grandson of Pittheus[304]), and in Euripides he claims the right to banish Hippolytus from Troizen.[305] He was certainly a citizen of Troizen since in legend he was born there.

We must suppose, therefore, according to this hypothesis, either that Euripides selected different elements from these legends and joined them together, or that they had been confused in some one legend before his time. In this fusion the forgiveness was shifted from Sciron to Hippolytus. Theseus was conceived as the cause of Hippolytus’ death; Sciron was ignored and the slaying of Pallas was regarded as extenuated but not as justifiable homicide.

THE ‘ION’

The most important incident in the _Ion_ is the attempted murder (βούλευσις) of Ion, the eponymous ancestor of the Ionians, by his mother Creusa, who does not know that he is her son. Thus we meet once more a homicide problem forming the basis of a drama, and a solution of that problem which requires for its intelligibility the application of homicide-law. Euripides is deliberately pandering to Athenian national pride when he represents Ion, by repute the son of Xuthus, as really the son of Apollo and Creusa.[306] In the temple of Delphi he is reared as a minister of the god. Creusa has almost forgotten the issue of her ancient amour, and by a tragic irony comes with Xuthus to Delphi, to consult Apollo as to the causes of her childlessness. Apollo informs Xuthus that he will give him a son and heir, and Xuthus is led to believe that his newly found ‘son,’ Ion, is the offspring of some intrigue of his youth. When Creusa hears about this ‘stranger,’ she regards him with hostile feelings, and decides to kill him by poison. In this design, however, she does not succeed. Have we here, then, a ‘plot to kill’ or attempted murder? The legal essence of the former, we have seen,[307] is the realisation of the plot. Therefore, the guilt of Creusa is that of attempted murder or βούλευσις. No one except Apollo is supposed to be aware until the end of the play of the real relationship which exists between Ion and Creusa. Hence, we have here a suggestion of an act which, like that of Oedipus, is objectively related to kin-slaying, but which, subjectively, must be regarded as ordinary ‘attempted murder.’ We have seen[308] that in early Greece attempts to kill and actual slayings were accorded equal punishment. But we find in the _Ion_ that Creusa is not punished at all! The explanation of this problem is the main object of our present inquiry.

When the attempted murder of a minister of Apollo is discovered and reported, the whole civic machinery of the Delphian State is put in motion.[309] A court is held at which Ion is the accuser. He charges his mother with attempted murder, but there is a subtle suggestion of the additional guilt of attempted sacrilege. This court of Delphian nobles condemns Creusa to death. Creusa’s servant says[310]:

Delphi’s rulers have decreed
My queen shall be thrown headlong from the rock,
Nor hath one single voice, but the consent
Of all, adjudged her death, because she strove
E’en in the temple to have slain the priest.
Pursued by the whole city, hither bend
Her inauspicious steps. She through a wish
For children to Apollo came: but now
She perishes with all her hoped-for race.

The Chorus recommend Creusa to take refuge in a sanctuary.[311] She answers that sanctuary is valueless as a refuge against the sentence of death. The Chorus comfort her with the assurance that while she remains in the sanctuary she cannot be slain.[312] But Ion, who by a tragic irony leads the executioners, leaves no doubt that her refuge will not avail her. He says[313]:

Behold
The sorceress, what a complicated scene
Of treachery hath she framed, yet trembles not
The altar of Apollo to approach.
As if Heaven’s vengeance could not reach her crimes.
But neither shall this altar nor the temple
Of Phoebus save thy life.

Creusa in the ensuing dialogue advances a plea of justification. She argues that if Ion came to Athens, sooner or later he would have slain her through dynastic rivalry:

I sought
To take away the life of you, a foe
To me and to my house....[314]
Lest I should perish if your life was spared.[315]

But this was also the plea of Eurystheus when he sought the lives of the Heracleidae. In Greek law the plea has no validity. Ion commands his mother to leave the altar,[316] saying

Shalt thou ’scape unpunished
For thy attempt to slay me?[317]

At this critical moment the Pythian priestess intervenes, and requests Ion to desist. She holds that the attempt of Creusa was mitigated by ‘passion’—and that therefore she did not deserve to die. She says[318]:

Wives with inveterate hatred ever view
Their husbands’ sons sprung from another bed.

Thus does Apollo override the verdict of his priests! But he goes farther. Creusa, according to the oracular interpretation of her act, was guilty of an ‘extenuated’ attempt to kill, and should therefore in strict law[319] have been punished by a penalty of temporary exile. Yet she is permitted to return forthwith to Athens, her native country! In the following verses Ion is urged to ‘forgive’:

Banish from thy soul
This rancour, now the temple thou art leaving,
And on thy journey to thy native land.[320]

But we have not yet rendered the _dénouement_ legally intelligible. We think that it can only be explained by one hypothesis, namely, by assuming that Apollo takes upon himself the responsibility for Creusa’s act. It was he who, by concealing the true facts, had provoked Creusa to attempted murder. It was he, therefore, who must take the blame. We have seen that there is no doubt that otherwise Creusa would have suffered death. That penalty is an archaic one, being based, as we think, on the notion of the absence of discrimination in early Greece between degrees of homicide-guilt. In the more subtle analysis of Apollo we may see perhaps a suggestion of Euripides as to the evolution of such distinctions, which characterised the historical period. But it is possible that such distinctions existed in Pelasgian groups, though not in Achaean or quasi-Achaean societies. If there is anything legally improbable in this legend, it is obscured by the dramatic interest which attaches to the recognition scene between the mother and the son. Moreover Euripides and therefore the legend which he follows were compelled to indicate the important fact that Creusa _did_ return with Ion to Athens, and that the glorious mother of the Ionian race had not been stained by the guilt of kindred bloodshed.

THE ‘ANDROMACHE’