[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—
“Excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis
Di quibus imperium hoc steterat;”
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.