Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments. Aeschylus

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57

Mardos. Under this name we recognise the Pseudo-Smerdis of Herodotos (iii. 67), who, by restoring the dominion of the Median Magi, the caste to which he himself belonged, brought shame upon the Persians.

58

Possibly another form of Intaphernes, who appears in Herodotos (iii. 70) as one of the seven conspirators against the Magian Pseudo-Smerdis.

59

The force of 300,000 men left in Greece under Mardonios (Herod. viii. 113), afterwards defeated at Platæa.

60

Comp. the speech of Mardonios urging his plan on Xerxes (Herod. viii. 100).

61

This was of course a popular topic with the Athenians, whose own temples had been outraged. But other sanctuaries also, the temples at Delphi and Abæ, had shared the same fate, and these sins against the Gods of Hellas were naturally connected in the thoughts of the Greeks with the subsequent disasters of the Persians. In Egypt these outrages had an iconoclastic character. In Athens they were a retaliation for the destruction of the temple at Sardis (Herod. v. 102).

62

The reference to the prominent part taken by the Peloponnesian forces in the battle of Platæa is probably due to the political sympathies of the dramatist.

63

The speech of Atossa is rejected by Paley, on internal grounds, as spurious.

64

Apparently an allusion to the oracle given to Crœsos, that he, if he crossed the Halys, should destroy a great kingdom.

65

The name originally given to the Echinades, a group of islands at the mouth of the Acheloös, was applied generically to all islands lying near the mouth of all great rivers, and here, probably, includes Imbros, Thasos, and Samothrakè.

66

The geography is somewhat obscure, but the words seem to refer to the portion of the islands that are named as opposite (in a southerly direction) to the promontory of the Troad.

67

Salamis in Kypros had been colonised by Teukros, the son of Aias, and had received its name in remembrance of the island in the Saronic Gulf.

68

The Mariandynoi, a Paphlagonian tribe, conspicuous for their orgiastic worship of Adonis, had become proverbial for the wildness of their plaintive dirges.

69

The name seems to have been an official title for some Inspector-General of the Army. Comp. Aristoph. Acharn. v. 92.

70

As in the account which Herodotos gives (vii. 60) of the way in which the army of Xerxes was numbered, sc., by enclosing 10,000 men in a given space, and then filling it again and again till the whole army had passed through.

71

Another reading gives —

72

Perhaps referring to the waggon-chariots in which the rider reclines at ease, either protected by a canopy, or, as in the Assyrian sculptures and perhaps in the East generally, overshadowed by a large umbrella which an eunuch holds over him.

73

Probably directed against the tendency of the Athenians, as shown in their treatment of Miltiades, and later in that of Thukydides, to punish their unsuccessful generals, “pour encourager les autres.”

74

Teiresias, as in Sophocles (Antig. v. 1005), sitting, though blind, and listening, as the birds flit by him, and the flames burn steadily or fitfully; a various reading gives “apart from sight.”

75

Enyo, the goddess of war, and companion of Ares.

76

Amphiaraos the seer had prophesied that Adrastos alone should return home in safety. On his car, therefore, the other chieftains hung the clasps, or locks of hair, or other memorials which in the event of their death were to be taken to their parents.

77

The Hellenic feeling, such as the Platæans appealed to in the Peloponnesian war (Thuc. iii. 58, 59), that it was noble and right for Hellenes to destroy a city of the barbarians, but that they should spare one belonging to a people of their own stock.

78

The characteristic feature of the Argive soldiers was, that they bore a shield painted white (comp. Sophocles, Antig. v. 114). The leaders alone appear to have embellished this with devices and mottoes.

79

In solemn supplications, the litanies of the ancient world, especially in those to Pallas, the suppliants carried with them in procession the shawl or peplos of the Goddess, and with it enwrapt her statue. To carry boughs of trees in the hands was one of the uniform, probably indispensable, accompaniments of such processions.

80

The words recall our thoughts to the original use of the trident, which became afterwards a symbol of Poseidon, as employed by the sailors of Hellas to spear or harpoon the larger fish of the Archipelago. Comp. Pers. v. 426, where the slaughter of a defeated army is compared to tunny-fishing.

81

Cadmos, probably “the man from the East,” the Phœnikian who had founded Thebes, and sown the dragon's seed, and taught men a Semitic alphabet for the non-Semitic speech of Hellas.

82

Worthy of his name as the Wolf-destroyer, mighty to destroy his foes.

83

Possibly “from battlements attacked.” In the primitive sieges of Greek warfare stones were used as missiles alike by besieged and besiegers.

84

The name of Onca belonged especially to the Theban worship of Pallas, and was said to have been of Phœnikian origin, introduced by Cadmos. There seems, however, to have been a town Onkæ in Bœotia, with which the name was doubtless connected.

85

“Alien,” on account of the difference of dialect between the speech of Argos and that of Bœotia, though both were Hellenic.

86

The vehemence with which Eteocles reproves the wild frenzied wailing of the Chorus may be taken as an element of the higher culture showing itself in Athenian life, which led Solon to restrain such lamentations by special laws (Plutarch, Solon, c. 20). Here, too, we note in Æschylos an echo of the teaching of Epimenides.

87

As now the sailor of the Mediterranean turns to the image of his patron saint, so of old he ran in his distress to the figure of his God upon the prow of his ship (often, as in Acts xxviii. II, that of the Dioscuri), and called to it for deliverance (comp. Jonah i. 8).

88

Eteocles seems to wish for a short, plain prayer for deliverance, instead of the cries and supplications and vain repetitions of the Chorus.

89

The thought thus expressed was, that the Gods, yielding to the mightier law of destiny, or in their wrath at the guilt of men, left the city before its capture. The feeling was all but universal. Its two representative instances are found in Virgil, Æn. 351 —

and the narrative given alike by Tacitus (Hist. v. 13), and Josephus (Bell. Jud. vi. 5, 3), that the cry “Let us depart hence,” was heard at midnight through the courts of the Temple, before the destruction of Jerusalem.

90

Sc. Blood must be shed in war. Ares would not be Ares without it. It is better to take it as it comes.

91

Sc., the company of Gods, Pallas, Hera and the others whom the Chorus had invoked.

92

Reference to this custom, which has passed from Pagan temples into Christian churches, is found in the Agamemnon, v. 562. It was connected, of course, with the general practice of offering as ex votos any personal ornaments or clothing as a token of thanksgiving for special mercies.

93

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