Of Phoebus save thy life.
Creusa in the ensuing dialogue advances a plea of justification. She argues that if Ion came to Athens, sooner or later he would have slain her through dynastic rivalry:
I sought
To take away the life of you, a foe
To me and to my house....[314]
Lest I should perish if your life was spared.[315]
But this was also the plea of Eurystheus when he sought the lives of the Heracleidae. In Greek law the plea has no validity. Ion commands his mother to leave the altar,[316] saying
Shalt thou ’scape unpunished
For thy attempt to slay me?[317]