Transpierce this bosom, on myself their blood
Avenging? or t’avert that infamy
Which waits me, shall I rush into the flames?
Presently he begins to feel that he should not be considered fully culpable[204]; yet he sees that it will be difficult for him to establish ‘extenuation’ as a plea.[205] The fit of madness which Hera had sent upon him was indeed a grim reality, but it would be difficult to prove it in a court of justice. Moreover, in the Euripidean account Hercules is an alien in Thebes. His native State is Argos.[206] We have said that exile was not permitted as a penalty for voluntary kin-slaying in historical Greece. We have quoted[207] Plato for the law that even involuntary slaying between aliens was punished by perpetual exile. If Hercules was an alien at Thebes, so also were his children. In Homer[208] Thebes is the birthplace of Hercules, but this Homeric fact is not accepted by Euripides. In the following passage Hercules regards exile rather than death as his correct and proper punishment, but owing to the difficulty of proving involuntariness he fears that no city will receive him. Thebes, he says, he must leave. To Argos, his native home, he cannot return, because, as he says,[209] he has been already banished from that State owing to his feud with Eurystheus. In other places he will indeed be called a kin-slayer, and if he cannot prove his innocence he may be banished. This statement lends support to our theory that in historical Greece exile was not permitted for voluntary kin-slaying.[210] He says[211]:
My fate is such
That in my native Thebes I must not dwell:
But if I here continue, to what temple
Or friends can I repair? for by such curses
I now am visited, that none will dare
To speak to me. To Argos shall I go?