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abuse, for there are still extant some lines of his, in which Cimon is most unmercifully treated. (Plut. Cim. 15; Schol. ad Aristeid. p. 515.) It is hardly necessary to observe that these attacks were mingled with much obscenity. (Schol. ad Aristoph. Pac. 741, 1142, Nub. 296, 541.)

A close relation subsisted between Eupolis and Aristophanes, not only as rivals, but as imitators of each other. Cratinus attacked Aristophanes for borrowing from Eupolis, and Eupolis in his BánTαι made the same charge, especially with reference to the Knights, of which he says,

κακείνους τους Ἱππέας

ξυνεποίησα τῷ φαλακρῷ τούτῳ κἀδωρησάμην. The Scholiasts specify the last Parabasis of the Knights as borrowed from Eupolis. (Schol. ad Aristoph. Equit. 528, 1288, Nub. 544, foll.) On the other hand, Aristophanes, in the second (or third) edition of the Clouds, retorts upon Eupolis the charge of imitating the Knights in his Maricas (Nub. l. c.), and taunts him with the further indignity of jesting on his rival's baldness. There are other examples of the attacks of the two poets upon one another. (Aristoph. Pax, 762, and Schol. ; Schol. ad Vesp. 1020; Schol. ad Platon. p. 331, Bekker; Stobaeus, Serm. iv. p. 53.)

The number of the plays of Eupolis is stated by Suidas at seventeen, and by the anonymous writer at fourteen. The extant titles exceed the greater of these numbers, but some of them are very doubtful. The following fifteen are considered by Meineke to be genuine : Alyes, Aσtpάtevtoi 'Ανδρογύναι, Αὐτόλυκος, Βάπται, Δήμοι, Διαιτῶν, Είλωτες, Κόλακες, Μαρικᾶς, Νουμηνίαι, Πόλεις, Προσπάλτιοι, Ταξίαρχοι, Υβριστοδίκαι, Χρυσουν yévos. An analysis of these plays, so far as their subjects can be ascertained, will be found in the works quoted below, and especially in that of Meineke. The following are the plays of Eupolis, the dates of which are known:B. c. 425.

being alluded to by Thucydides or any other trustworthy historian, the answer of Cicero is conciusive, that Eratosthenes mentioned plays produced by Eupolis after the Sicilian expedition. (Ad Att. vi. 1.) There is still a fragment extant, in which the poet applies the title or parnyóv to Aristarchus, whom we know to have been σTpaTηyós in the year B. c., that is, four years later than the date at which the common story fixed the death of Eupolis. (Schol. Victor. ad. Iliad. xiii. 353.) The only discoverable foundation for this story, and probably the true account of the poet's death, is the statement of Suidas, that he perished at the Hellespont in the war against the Lacedaenonians, which, as Meineke observes, must refer either to the battle of Cynossema (B. c. 411), or to | that of Aegospotami (B. c. 405). That he died in the former battle is not improbable, since we never hear of his exhibiting after B. c. 412; and if so, it is very likely that the enemies of Alcibiades might charge him with taking advantage of the confusion of the battle to gratify his revenge. Meineke throws out a conjecture that the story may have arisen from a misunderstanding of what Lysias says about the young Alcibiades (i. p. 541). There are, however, other accounts of the poet's death, which are altogether different. Aelian (N. 4. x. 41) and Tzetzes (Chil. iv. 245) relate, that he died and was buried in Aegina, and Pausanias (ii. 7. § 4) says, that he saw his tomb in the territory of Sicyon. Of the personal history of Eupolis nothing more is known. Aelian (l. c.) tells a pleasant tale of his faithful dog, Augeas, and his slave Ephialtes. The chief characteristic of the poetry of Eupolis | seems to have been the liveliness of his fancy, and the power which he possessed of imparting its images to the audience. This characteristic of his genius influenced his choice of subjects, as well as his mode of treating them, so that he not only appears to have chosen subjects which other poets might have despaired of dramatizing, but we are expressly told that he wrought into the body of his plays those serious political views which other poets expounded in their parabases, as in the Anuo, in which he represented the legislators of other times conferring on the administration of the state. To do this in a genuine Attic old comedy, without converting the comedy into a serious philosophic dialogue, must have been a great triumph of dramatic art. (Platon. de Div. Char. p. xxvi.) This introduction of deceased persons on the stage appears to have given to the plays of Eupolis a certain dignity, which would have been inconsistent with the comic spirit had it not been relieved by the most graceful and clever merriment. (Platon. 1. c.) In elegance he is said to have even surpassed Aristophanes (Ibid.; Macrob. Sut. vii. 5), while in bitter jesting and personal abuse he emulated Cratinus. (Anon. de Com. p. xxix. ; Pers. Sat. i. 124; Lucian. Jov. Acc. vol. ii. p. 832.) (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. pp. 445-448; Among the objects of his satire was Socrates, on Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i. pp. 104-146, whom he made a bitter, though less elaborate vol. ii. pp. 426-579; Bergk, Comment. de Reliq. attack than that in the Clouds of Aristophanes. Com. Att. Ant. pp. 332-366; Clinton, Fast. (Schol. ad Aristoph. Nub. 97, 180; Etym. Mag. p.18. Hellen. vol. ii. sub annis.) [P. S.]. 10; Lucian. Pisc. vol. i. p. 595.) Innocence seems EUPO'MPIDAS (Evπоμπídas), son of Daïmato have afforded no shelter, for he attacked Auto-chus, one of the commanders in Plataea during its lycus, who is said to have been guilty of no crime, siege by the Lacedaemonians, B. c. 429-8. He and is only known as having been distinguished with Theaenetus, a prophet, in the winter followfor his beauty, and as a victor in the pancratium, ing this second year, devised the celebrated plan as vehemently as Callias, Alcibiades, Melanthius, for passing the lines of circumvallation, which, oriand others. Nor were the dead exempt from his ginally intended for the whole number of the be

At the Lenaca. Novunvial. Third Prize. 1st. Aristophanes, 'Axapveîs. 2nd. Cratinus, Xeuafoμévo. 423 or 422. 'Αστράτευτοι.

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Mapikas. Probably at the Lenaea.
Κόλακες. At the great Dionysia.
First Prize. 2nd. Aristoph. Eipńvn.
Αὐτόλυκος.

Eupolis, like Aristophanes and other comic poets, brought some of his plays on the stage in the name of another person, Apollodorus. (Athen. v. p. 216, d.)

Hephaestion (p. 109, ed. Gaisf.) mentions a peculiar choriambic metre, which was called Eupolidean, and which was also used by the poets of the middle and of the new comedy.

The names of Eupolis and Eubulus are often confounded.

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eged, was in the end successfully executed by | but was pursued and defeated by Lycus, the 212 of them, under the guidance of the same two lieutenant-general of the Achaeans. (Polyb. iv leaders. (Thuc. iii. 20-23.) [A. H. C.] 19, 59, 69-72, v. 94, 95.)

EUPOMPUS (EйTOμTOS), of Sicyon, one of the most distinguished Greek painters, was the contemporary of Zeuxis, Parrhasius, and Timanthes, and the instructor of Pamphilus, the master of Apelles. He was held in such esteem by his contemporaries, that a new division was made of the schools of art, and he was placed at the head of one of them. Formerly only two schools had been recognized, the Greek Proper or Helladic, and the Asiatic; but the fame of Eupompus led to the creation of a new school, the Sicyonian, as a branch of the Helladic, and the division then adopted was the Ionian, the Sicyonian, and the Attic, the last of which had, no doubt, Apollodorus for its head. Another instance of the influence of Eupompus is his celebrated answer to Lysippus, who, at the beginning of his career, asked the great painter whom he should take for his model; and Eupompus answered that he ought to imitate nature herself, and no single artist. The only work of Eupompus which is mentioned is a victor in the games carrying a palm. (Plin. xxxiv. 8. s. 19. § 6, xxxv. 9, 10. s. 36. §§ 3, 7.) [P.S.]

EU'PREPES, celebrated in the racing annals of Rome as having carried off 782 chaplets of victory, -a greater number than any single individual before his time had ever won. He was put to death when an old man, upon the accession of Caracalla (A.D. 211), because the colours which he wore in the circus were different from those patronised by the prince, who favoured the Blues. (Dion Cass. lxxvii. 1.) [W. R.]

EURIPIDAS, or EURIPIDES (Elpinidas, Evpinions), an Aetolian, who, when his countrymen, with the help of Scerdilaïdas the Illyrian, had gained possession of Cynaetha, in Arcadia (B. C. 220), was at first appointed governor of the town; but the Aetolians soon after set fire to it, fearing the arrival of the Macedonian succours for which Aratus had applied. In the next year, B. c. 219, being sent as general to the Eleans, then allied with Aetolia, he ravaged the lands of Dyme, Pharae, and Tritaea, defeated Miccus, the lieutenant-general of the Achaeans, and seized an ancient stronghold, named Teichos, near Cape Araxus, whence he infested the enemy's territory more effectually. In the winter of the same year he advanced from Psophis, in Arcadia, where he had his head-quarters, to invade Sicyonia, having with him a body of 2200 foot and 100 horse. During the night he passed the encampment of the Macedonians, in the Phliasian territory, without being aware of their vicinity; on discovering which from some foragers in the morning, he hastened back, hoping to pass them again, and to arrive at Psophis without an engagement; but, falling in with them in the passes of Mount Apelaurus, between Phlius and Stymphalus, he basely deserted his troops, and made his escape to Psophis, with a small number of horsemen, while almost all the Eleans were either cut to pieces by the Macedonians, or perished among the mountains. Philip then advanced on Psophis, and compelled it to capitulate, Euripidas being allowed to return in safety to Aetolia. In B. c. 217 we find him acting again as general of the Eleans, who had requested that he might be sent to supersede Pyrrhias. He ravaged Achaia in this campaign,

[E. E.] EURIPIDES (Evpinions). 1. A tragic poet of Athens, is mentioned by Suidas as having flourished earlier than his more celebrated namesake. He was the author of twelve plays, two of which gained the prize. (Suid. s. v. Evpiπídns.)

2. The distinguished tragic writer, of the Athenian demus of Phlya in the Cecropid tribe, or, as others state it, of Phyle in the tribe Oeneïs, was the son of Mnesarchus and Cleito, and was born in B. c. 485, according to the date of the Arundel marble, for the adoption of which Hartung contends. (Eur. Restitutus, p. 5, &c.) This testimony, however, is outweighed by the other statements on the subject, from which it appears that his parents were among those who, on the invasion of Xerxes, had filed from Athens to Salamis (Herod. vii. 41), and that the poet was born in that island in B. c. 480. (See Clinton, sub anno.) Nor need we with Müller (Greek Literature, p. 358) set it down at once as a mere legend that his birth took place on the very day of the battle of Salamis (Sept. 23), though we may look with suspicion on the way in which it was contrived to bring the three great tragic poets of Athens into connexion with the most glorious day in her annals. (Hartung, p. 10.) Thus it has been said that, while Euripides then first saw the light, Aeschylus in the maturity of manhood fought in the battle, and Sophocles, a beautiful boy of 15, took part in the chorus at the festival which celebrated the victory. If again we follow the exact date of Eratosthenes, who represents Euripides as 75 at his death in B. c. 406, his birth must be assigned to B. c. 481, as Müller places it. It has also been said that he received his name in commemoration of the battle of Artemisium, which took place near the Euripus not long before he was born, and in the same year; but Euripides was not a new name, and belonged, as we have seen, to an earlier tragic writer. (See, too, Thuc. ii. 70, 79.) With respect to the station in life of his parents, we may safely reject the account given in Stobaeus (see Barnes, Eur. Vit. § 5), that his father was a Boeotian, banished from his country for bankruptcy. His mother, it is well known, is represented by Aristophanes as a herb-seller, and not a very honest one either (Ach. 454, Thesm. 387, 456, 910, Eq. 19, Ran. 839; Plin. xxii. 22; Suid. s. vv. Zkávdić, diaokavdiklops; Hesych. 8. v. Ekávdig); and we find the same statement made by Gellius (xv. 20) from Theopompus; but to neither of these testimonies can much weight be accorded (for Theopompus, see Plut. Lys. 30; Ael. V. H. iii. 18; Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 1; Joseph. c. Apion. i. 24; C. Nep. Alc. 11), and they are contradicted by less exceptionable authorities. That the family of Euripides was of a rank far from mean is asserted by Suidas (s. v.) and Moschopulus (Vit. Eur.) to have been proved by Philochorus in a work no longer extant, and seems, indeed, to be borne out by what Athenaeus (x. p. 424, e.) reports from Theophrastus, that the poet, when a boy, was cup-bearer to a chorus of noble Athenians at the Thargelian festival, an office for which nobility of blood was requisite. We know also that he was taught rhetoric by Prodicus, who was certainly not moderate in his terms for instruction, and who was in the habit, as Philos

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tratus tells us, of seeking his pupils among youths | ascribes also to the same date the composition of of high rank. (Plat. Apol. p. 19, e.; Stallb. ad the Veiled Hippolytus. The representation of loc.; Arist. Rhet. iii. 14. § 9; Philostr. Vit. Soph. the Peliades, the first play of Euripides which Prodicus.) It is said that the future distinction was acted, at least in his own name, took place in of Euripides was predicted by an oracle, promising B. c. 455. This statement rests on the authority that he should be crowned with "sacred garlands,' of his anonymous life, edited by Elmsley from a in consequence of which his father had him trained MS. in the Ambrosian library, and compared with to gymnastic exercises; and we learn that, while that by Thomas Magister; and it is confirmed by yet a boy, he won the prize at the Eleusinian and the life in the MSS. of Paris, Vienna, and CopenThesean contests (see Dict. of Ant. pp. 374, 964), hagen. In B. c. 441, Euripides gained for the first and offered himself, when 17 years old, as a can- time the first prize, and he continued to exhibit didate at the Olympic games, but was not admitted plays until B. c. 408, the date of the Orestes. because of some doubt about his age. (Oenom. ap. (See Clinton, sub annis.) Soon after this he Euseb. Praep. Evan. v. 33; Gell. xv. 20.) Some left Athens for the court of ARCHELA US, king of trace of his early gymnastic pursuits is remarked Macedonia, his reasons for which step can only be by Mr. Keble (Prael. Acad. xxix. p. 605) in the matter of conjecture. Traditionary scandal has detailed description of the combat between Eteocles ascribed it to his disgust at the intrigue of hu and Polynices in the Phoenissae. (v. 1392, &c.) wife with Cephisophon, and the ridicule which was Soon, however, abandoning these, he studied the showered upon him in consequence by the comic art of painting (Thom. Mag. Vit. Eur.; Suid. s. v.), poets. But the whole story in question has been not, as we learn, without success; and it has been sufficiently refuted by Hartung (p. 165, &c.), observed that the veiled figure of Agamemnon in though objections may be taken to one or two of the Iphigeneia of Timanthes was probably sug- his assumptions and arguments. The anonymou gested by a line in Euripides' description of the author of the life of Euripides reports that he same scene. (Iph. in Aul. 1550; Barnes, ad loc.; married Choerilla, daughter of Mnesilochus, and comp. Ion, 183, &c.) To philosophy and literature that, in consequence of her infidelity, he wrote the he devoted himself with much interest and energy, Hippolytus to satirize the sex, and divorced her. studying physics under Anaxagoras, and rhetoric, He then married again, and his second wife, as we have already seen, under Prodicus. (Diod. named Melitto, proved no better than the first. i. 7, 38; Strab. xiv. p. 645; Heracl. Pont. Alleg. Now the Hippolytus was acted in B. C. 428, the Homer. § 22.) We learn also from Athenaeus Thesmophoriazusae of Aristophanes in 414, and that he was a great book-collector, and it is re- at the latter period Euripides was still married to corded of him that he committed to memory certain Choerilla, Mnesilochus being spoken of as his treatises of Heracleitus, which he found hidden in кndeσrns with no hint of the connexion having the temple of Artemis, and which he was the first ceased. (See Thesm. 210, 289.) But what can to introduce to the notice of Socrates. (Athen. i. be more unlikely than that Euripides should have p. 3, a; Tatian, Or. c. Graec. p. 143, b.; Hartung, allowed fourteen years to elapse between his dis Eur. Rest. p. 131.) His intimacy with the latter covery of his wife's infidelity and his divorce of is beyond a doubt, though we must reject the her? or that Aristophanes should have made no statement of Gellius (7. c.), that he received in- mention of so piquant an event in the Thesmostruction from him in moral science, since Socrates phoriazusae? It may be said, however, that the was not born till B. c. 468, twelve years after the name Choerilla is a mistake of the grammarians birth of Euripides. Traces of the teaching of for Melitto; that it was the latter whose infidelity Anaxagoras have been remarked in many passages gave rise to the Hippolytus; and that the inboth of the extant plays and of the fragments, and trigue of the former with Cephisophon, subsequent to were impressed especially on the lost tragedy of 414, occasioned Euripides to leave Athens. Melanippa the Wise. (Orest. 545, 971; Pors. this is inconsistent with Choerilla's age, according ad loc.; Plat. Apol. p. 26, d. e.; Troad. 879, Hel. to Hartung, who argues thus:-Euripides had 1014; Fragm. Melanipp., ed. Wagner, p. 255; Cic. three sons by this lady, the youngest of whom Tusc. Disp. i. 26; Hartung, p. 109; Barnes, ad must have been born not later han 434, for he Eur. Heracl. 529; Valck. Diatr. c. 4, &c.) The exhibited plays of his father (?) in 404, and must philosopher is also supposed to be alluded to in the at that time, therefore (?), have been thirty years Alcestis (v. 925, &c.; comp. Cic. Tusc. Disp. iii. old (comp. Hartung, p. 6); consequently Choerilla 14). "We do not know," says Müller (Greek must have become the wife of Euripides not later Literature, p. 358), "what induced a person with than 440. At the time, then, of her alleged adulsuch tendencies to devote himself to tragic poetry." tery she must have been upwards of fifty, and He is referring apparently to the opposition be- must have been married thirty years. But it may tween the philosophical convictions of Euripides be urged that Choerilla may have died soon after and the mythical legends which formed the subjects the representation of the Thesmophoriazusae (and of tragedy; otherwise it does not clearly appear no wonder, says Hartung, if her death was hast why poetry should be thought incompatible with ened by so atrocious an attack on her husband and philosophical pursuits. If, however, we may trust her father!), and Euripides may then have married the account in Gellius (1. c.), it would seem,-and a young wife, Melitto, who played him false. this is not unimportant for our estimation of his this it is answered, that it is clear from the Frogs poetical character,- that the mind of Euripides that his friendship with Cephisophon, the supposed was led at a very early period to that which gallant, continued unbroken till his death. After afterwards became the business of his life, since he all, however, the silence of Aristophanes is the best wrote a tragedy at the age of eighteen. That it refutation of the calumny. [CEPHISOPHON.] With was, therefore, exhibited, and that it was proba- respect to the real reason for the poet's removal bly no other than the Rhesus are points unwar- into Macedonia, it is clear that an invitation from rantably concluded by Hartung (p. 6, &c.), who Archelaüs, at whose court the highest honours

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double dose of matrimony! The charge no doubt. originated in the austerity of his temper and demeanour above mentioned (Suid. s. v.); but certainly he who drew such characters as Antigone, Iphigeneia, and, above all, Alcestis, was not blind to the gentleness, the strong affection, the selfabandoning devotedness of women. And if his plays contain specimens of the sex far different from these, we must not forget, what has indeed almost passed into a proverb, that women are both better and worse than men, and that one especia characteristic of Euripides was to represent human nature as it is. (Arist. Poët. 46.)

awaited him, would have much temptation for one with vicious habits, yet it is also one on which situated as Euripides was at Athens. The attacks men are very apt to avenge themselves by reports of Aristophanes and others had probably not been and insinuations of the kind we are alluding to. without their effect; there was a strong, violent, Certainly the calumny in question seems to be and unscrupulous party against him, whose in- contradicted in a great measure by the spirit of the trigues and influence were apparent in the results | Hippolytus, in which the hero is clearly a great of the dramatic contests; if we may believe the favourite with the author, and from which it has testimony of Varro (ap. Gell. xvii. 4), he wrote 75 been inferred that his own tendency was even to tragedies and gained the prize only five times; ac- asceticism. (Keble, Prael. Acad. p. 606, &c.) cording to Thomas Magister, 15 of his plays out of It may be added, that a speculative character, like 92 were successful. After his death, indeed, his that of Euripides, is one over which such lower high poetical merits seem to have been fully and temptations have usually less power, and which is generally recognized; but so have been those of liable rather to those of a spiritual and intellectual Wordsworth among ourselves even in his lifetime; kind. (See Butler's Anal. part ii. c. 6.) and yet to the poems of both, the pwvâvra ovve- does there appear to be any better foundation for Toto of Pindar is perhaps especially applicable. that other charge which has been brought against Euripides, again, must have been aware that his him, of hatred to the female sex. The alleged philosophical tenets were regarded, whether justly infidelity of his wife, which is commonly adduced or not, with considerable suspicion, and he had to account for it, has been discussed above; and already been assailed with a charge of impiety in a we may perhaps safely pass over the other statecourt of justice, on the ground of the well-known line ment, found in Gellius (xv. 20), where it is attriin the Hippolytus (607), supposed to be expres-buted to his having had two wives at once,-a sive of mental reservation. (Arist. Rhet. iii. 15. §8.) He did not live long to enjoy the honours and pleasures of the Macedonian court, as his death took place in B. c. 406. Most testimonies agree in stating that he was torn in pieces by the king's dogs, which, according to some, were set upon him through envy by Arrhidaeus and Crateuas, two rival poets. But even with the account of his end scandal has been busy, reporting that he met it at the hands of women while he was going one night to keep a criminal assignation,—and this at the age of 75! The story seems to be a mixture of the two calumnies with respect to the profligacy of his character and his hatred of the female sex. The Athenians sent to ask for his remains, but Archelaus refused to give them up, and buried them in Macedonia with great honour. The regret of Sophocles for his death is said to have been so great, that at the representation of his next play he made his actors appear uncrowned. (Ael. V. H. xiii. 4; Diod. xiii. 103; Gell. xv. 20; Paus. i. 20; Thom. Mag. Vit. Eur.; Suid. s. v. Evpiπídns; Steph. Byz. s. v. Bopμiokos; Eur. Arch. ed. Wagner, p. 111; see Barnes, Vit. Eur. § 31; Bayle, Dict. Histor. s. v. Euripides, and the authorities there re-vidence guiding the troubled course of events and ferred to.) The statue of Euripides in the theatre at Athens is mentioned by Pausanias (i. 21). The admiration felt for him by foreigners, even in his lifetime, may be illustrated not only by the patronage of Archelaus, but also by what Plutarch records (Nic. 29), that many of the Athenian prisoners in Sicily regained their liberty by reciting his verses to their masters, and that the Caunians on one occasion having at first refused to admit into their harbour an Athenian ship pursued by pirates, allowed it to put in when they found that some of the crew could repeat fraginents of his poems.

We have already intimated that the accounts which we find in Athenaeus and others of the profligacy of Euripides are mere idle scandal, and scarcely worthy of serious refutation. (Athen. xiii. pp. 557, e., 603, e.; comp. Suid. l. c.; Arist. Ran. 1045; Schol. ad loc.) On the authority of Alexander Aetolus (ap. Gell. xv. 20; comp. Ael. V. H. viii. 13) we learn that he was, like his master Anaxagoras, of a serious temper and averse to mirth (σTpUQvòs kal mooyéλws); and though such a character is indeed by no means incompatible

With respect to the world and the Deity, he seems to have adopted the doctrines of his master, not unmixed apparently with pantheistic views. [ANAXAGORAS.] (Valck. Diatr. 4-6; Hartung, Eur. Rest. p. 95, &c.) To class him with atheists, and to speak in the same breath, as Sir T. Browne does (Rel. Med. § 47), of "the impieties of Lucian, Euripides, and Julian," is undoubtedly unjust. At the same time, it must be confessed that we look in vain in his plays for the high faith of Aeschylus, which ever recognizes the hand of Pro

over-ruling them for good; nor can we fail to admit that the pupil of Anaxagoras could not sympathise with the popular religious system around him, nor throw himself cordially into it. Aeschylus indeed rose above while he adopted it, and formally retaining its legends, imparted to them a higher and deeper moral significance. Such, however, was not the case with Euripides; and there is much truth in what Müller says (Greek Literature, p. 358), that "with respect to the mythical traditions which the tragic muse had selected as her subjects, he stood on an entirely different footing from Aeschylus and from Sophocles. He could not bring his philosophical convictions with regard to the nature of God and His relation to mankind into harmony with the contents of these legends, nor could he pass over in silence their incongruities. Hence it is that he is driven to the strange necessity of carrying on a sort of polemical discussion with the very materials and subjects of which he had to treat." (Herc. Fur. 1316, 1317, Androm.. 1138, Orest. 406, Ion, 445, &c., Fragm. Beller. ed. Wagner, p. 147; Clem. Alex. Protrept. 7.) And if we may regard the Bacchae, written to

477

wards the close of his life, as a sort of recantation of these views, and as an avowal that religious mysteries are not to be subjected to the bold scrutiny of reason (see Müller, Gr. Lit. p. 379, Eumen. 37; Keble, Prael. Acad. p. 609), it is but a sad picture of a mind which, wearied with scepticism, and having no objective system of truth to satisfy it, acquiesces in what is established as a deadening relief from fruitless speculation. But it was not merely with respect to the nature and attributes of the gods that Euripides placed himself in opposition to the ancient legends, which we find him altering in the most arbitrary manner, both as to events and characters. Thus, in the Orestes, Menelaüs comes before us as a selfish coward, and Helen as a worthless wanton; in the Helena, the notion of Stesichorus is adopted, that the heroine was never carried to Troy at all, and that it was a mere lowλov of her for which the Greeks and Trojans fought (comp, Herod. ii. 112-120); Andromache, the widow of Hector and slave of Neoptolemus, seems almost to forget the past in her quarrel with Hermione and the perils of her present situation; and Electra, married by the policy of Aegisthus to a peasant, scolds her husband for inviting guests to dine without regard to the ill-prepared state of the larder. In short, with Euripides tragedy is brought down into the sphere of every-day life, тà оiкeîα πрáyμатa, oîs xpéμeľ, ols cuveoμev (Arist. Ran. 957); men are represented, according to the remark of Aristotle so often quoted (Poët. 46), not as they ought to be, but as they are; under the names of the ancient heroes, the characters of his own time are set before us; it is not Medea, or Iphigeneia, or Alcestis that is speaking, says Mr. Keble (Prael. Acad. p. 596), but abstractedly a mother, a daughter, or a wife. All this, indeed, gave fuller scope, perhaps, for the exhibition of passion and for those scenes of tenderness and pathos in which Euripides especially excelled; and it will serve also to account in great measure for the preference given to his plays by the practical Socrates, who is said to have never entered the theatre unless when they were acted, as well as for the admiration felt for him by the poets of the new comedy, of whom Menander professedly adopted him for his model, while Philemon declared that, if he could but believe in the consciousness of the soul after death, he would certainly hang himself to enjoy the sight of Euripides. (Schlegel, Dram. Lit. lect. vii.; Aelian, V. H. ii. 13; Quint. Inst. Or. x. 1; Thom. Mag. Vit. Eurip.; Meineke, Fragm. Com. Graec. i. p. 286, iv. p. 48.) Yet, even as a matter of art, such a process can hardly be justified: it seems to partake too much of the fault condemned in Boileau's line:

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of Euripides, viz. the enervating tendency of hu exhibitions of passion and suffering, beautiful they are, and well as they merit for him from the Aristotle the praise of being "the most tragic of ears poets." (Poët. 26.) The philosopher, however, th qualifies this commendation by the remark, that, u while he provides thus admirably for the excite in ment of pity by his catastrophes, "he does not arrange the rest well" (εἰ καὶ τὰ ἄλλα μὴ εἰ επε oikovoμeî); and we may mention in conclusion the em chief objections which, artistically speaking, have a been brought with justice against his tragedies pref We need but allude to his constant employment how of the "Deus ex machina," the disconnexion of Ala his choral odes from the subject of the play (Aris does Poët. 32; Hor. Ep. ad Pis. 191, &c.), and the A extremely awkward and formal character of hist prologues. On these points some good remarks will be found in Müller (Greek Lit. pp. 362-364) and in Keble. (Prael. Acad. p. 590, &c.) Another E serious defect is the frequent introduction of frigid yv@uaι and of philosophical disquisitions, making Medea talk like a sophist, and Hecuba like a free the thinker, and aiming rather at subtilty than simplicity. The poet, moreover, is too often lost in the rhetorician, and long declamations meet us, equally tiresome with those of Alfieri. They are then but dubious compliments which are paid him in reference to these points by Cicero and by Quintilian, the latter of whom says that he is worthy to be compared with the most eloquent pleaders of the forum (Cic. ad Fam. xvi. 8; Quint Inst. Or. x. 1); while Cicero so admired him, that he is said to have had in his hand his tragedy of Medea at the time of his murder. (Ptol. Hephaest v. 5.)

Euripides has been called the poet of the sophists,-a charge by no means true in its full extent, as it appears that, though he may not have escaped altogether the seduction of the sophistical spirit, yet on the whole, the philosophy of Socrates, the great opponent of the sophists, exercised most influence on his mind. (Hartung, Eur. Rest p. 128, &c.)

On the same principles on which he brought his subjects and characters to the level of common life, he adopted also in his style the every-day mode of speaking, and Aristotle (Rhet. iii. 2. § 5) commends him as having been the first to produce an effect by the skilful employment of words from the ordinary language of men (comp. Long. de Subl. 31), peculiarly fitted, it may be observed, for the expression of the gentler and more tender feelings, (See Shakspeare, Merch. of Venice, act v. sc. 1; comp.Müller, Greek Lit. p. 366.)

According to some accounts, Euripides wrote, in Peindre Caton galant et Brutus dameret; all, 75 plays; according to others, 92. Of these, and it is a graver question whether the moral ten- 18 are extant, if we omit the Rhesus, the genuinedency of tragedy was not impaired by it,-whether, ness of which has been defended by Vater and in the absence especially of a fixed external stan- Hartung, while Valckenaer, Hermann, and Müller dard of morality, it was not most dangerous to have, on good grounds, pronounced it spurious. To tamper with what might supply the place of it, what author, however, or to what period it should however ineffectually, through the medium of the be assigned, is a disputed point. (Valcken. Diatr. imagination, whether indeed it can ever be safe 9, 10; Hermann, de Rheso tragoedia, Opusc. vol. to lower to the common level of humanity charac-iii.; Müller, Gr. Lit. p. 380, note.) A list is ters hallowed by song and invested by tradition subjoined of the extant plays of Euripides, with with an ideal grandeur, in cases where they do not their dates, ascertained or probable. For a fuller tend by the power of inveterate association to account the reader is referred to Müller (Gr. Lit. colour or countenance evil. And there is another p. 367, &c.) and to Fabricius (Bibl. Graec. vol. ii obvious point, which should not be omitted while p. 239, &c.), the latter of whom gives a catalogue we are speaking of the moral effect of the writings also of the lost dramas.

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