The ‘Ion’
The most important incident in the Ion is the attempted murder (βούλευσις) of Ion, the eponymous ancestor of the Ionians, by his mother Creusa, who does not know that he is her son. Thus we meet once more a homicide problem forming the basis of a drama, and a solution of that problem which requires for its intelligibility the application of homicide-law. Euripides is deliberately pandering to Athenian national pride when he represents Ion, by repute the son of Xuthus, as really the son of Apollo and Creusa.[306] In the temple of Delphi he is reared as a minister of the god. Creusa has almost forgotten the issue of her ancient amour, and by a tragic irony comes with Xuthus to Delphi, to consult Apollo as to the causes of her childlessness. Apollo informs Xuthus that he will give him a son and heir, and Xuthus is led to believe that his newly found ‘son,’ Ion, is the offspring of some intrigue of his youth. When Creusa hears about this ‘stranger,’ she regards him with hostile feelings, and decides to kill him by poison. In this design, however, she does not succeed. Have we here, then, a ‘plot to kill’ or attempted murder? The legal essence of the former, we have seen,[307] is the realisation of the plot. Therefore, the guilt of Creusa is that of attempted murder or βούλευσις. No one except Apollo is supposed to be aware until the end of the play of the real relationship which exists between Ion and Creusa. Hence, we have here a suggestion of an act which, like that of Oedipus, is objectively related to kin-slaying, but which, subjectively, must be regarded as ordinary ‘attempted murder.’ We have seen[308] that in early Greece attempts to kill and actual slayings were accorded equal punishment. But we find in the Ion that Creusa is not punished at all! The explanation of this problem is the main object of our present inquiry.
When the attempted murder of a minister of Apollo is discovered and reported, the whole civic machinery of the Delphian State is put in motion.[309] A court is held at which Ion is the accuser. He charges his mother with attempted murder, but there is a subtle suggestion of the additional guilt of attempted sacrilege. This court of Delphian nobles condemns Creusa to death. Creusa’s servant says[310]:
Delphi’s rulers have decreed
My queen shall be thrown headlong from the rock,
Nor hath one single voice, but the consent
Of all, adjudged her death, because she strove
E’en in the temple to have slain the priest.
Pursued by the whole city, hither bend