Now Zeus, though superior to all the other gods and exercising general control, was never considered, either in Grecian legend or in Grecian religious belief, to be superior in so immeasurable a degree as to supersede all free action and sentiment on the part of gods less powerful. There were many old legends of dissension among the gods, and several of disobedience against Zeus: when a poet chose to dramatize one of these, he might so turn his composition as to sympathize either with Zeus or with the inferior god, without in either case shocking the general religious feeling of the country. And if there ever was an instance in which preference of the inferior god would be admissible, it is that of Promêtheus, whose proceedings are such as to call forth the maximum of human sympathy,—superior intelligence pitted against superior force, and resolutely encountering foreknown suffering, for the sole purpose of rendering inestimable and gratuitous service to mortals.
Of the Promêtheus Solutus, which formed a sequel to the Promêtheus Vinctus (the entire trilogy is not certainly known), the fragments preserved are very scanty, and the guesses of critics as to its plot have little base to proceed upon. They contend that, in one way or other, the apparent objections which the Promêth. Vinctus presents against the justice of Zeus were in the Promêth. Solutus removed. Hermann, in his Dissertatio de Æschyli Prometheo Soluto (Opuscula, vol. iv. p. 256), calls this position in question: I transcribe from his Dissertation one passage, because it contains an important remark in reference to the manner in which the Greek poets handled their religious legends: “while they recounted and believed many enormities respecting individual gods, they always described the Godhead in the abstract as holy and faultless.” ...
“Immo illud admirari oportet, quod quum de singulis Diis indignissima quæque crederent, tamen ubi sine certo nomine Deum dicebant, immunem ab omni vitio, summâque sanctitate præditum intelligebant. Illam igitur Jovis sævitiam ut excusent defensores Trilogiæ, et jure punitum volunt Prometheum—et in sequente fabulâ reconciliato Jove, restitutam arbitrantur divinam justitiam. Quo invento, vereor ne non optime dignitati consuluerint supremi Deorum, quem decuerat potius non sævire omnino, quam placari eâ lege, ut alius Promethei vice lueret.”
[890] Æschyl. Fragment. 146, Dindorf; ap. Plato. Repub. iii. p. 391; compare Strabo, xii. p. 580.—
... οἱ θεῶν ἀγχίσποροι
Οἱ Ζηνὸς ἐγγὺς, οἷς ἐν Ἰδαίῳ πάγῳ
Διὸς πατρῴου βωμός ἐστ᾽ ἐν αἰθέρι,
Κοὔπω σφιν ἐξίτηλον αἷμα δαιμόνων.
There is one real exception to this statement—the Persæ—which is founded upon an event of recent occurrence; and one apparent exception—the Promêtheus Vinctus. But in that drama no individual mortal is made to appear; we can hardly consider Iô as an ἐφήμερος (253).
[891] For the characteristics of Æschylus see Aristophan. Ran. 755, ad fin. passim. The competition between Æschylus and Euripidês turns upon γνῶμαι ἀγαθαὶ, 1497; the weight and majesty of the words, 1362; πρῶτος τῶν Ἑλλήνων πυργώσας ῥήματα σεμνά, 1001, 921, 930 (“sublimis et gravis et grandiloquus sæpe usque ad vitium,” Quintil. x. 1); the imposing appearance of his heroes, such as Memnôn and Cycnus, 961; their reserve in speech, 908; his dramas “full of Arês” and his lion-hearted chiefs, inspiring the auditors with fearless spirit in defence of their country,—1014, 1019, 1040; his contempt of feminine tenderness, 1042.—