Sounds from his central cave the voice of truth?
Him we obey in all that he commands:
Obeying his commands I slew my mother:
Drag him then to your bar, put him to death:
The guilt is his, not mine. What should I do?
The guilt on him transferred, is not the god
Sufficient to absolve me? Where shall man
Find refuge if the god, at whose command
I did it, will not now save me from death?
But the attitude of Tyndareus and Menelaus towards Orestes’ act which is revealed in their conversation with Orestes is fundamentally different. This attitude discloses a condemnation of private vengeance from the standpoint of social justice. As we conceive it, this attitude would normally have been adopted by Greek States, not only in Euripidean times but also in Draconian times. We have suggested that Euripides is following, in the play, a post-Draconian Argive legend—we use the term ‘post-Draconian’ merely to indicate that the legend presumes the existence of State interference in the trial and punishment of homicide. This legend was therefore, as we conceive it, so historical, so ‘modern’—in a sense—that it demanded little or no conscious archaising on the part of Euripides. Tyndareus says to Menelaus[52]: