Destroyed us, fatal kindred to our house.
Agave adopts a similar attitude when she realises the nature of the deed which she has wrought.[357] But she cannot escape all punishment. At the end of the play Dionysus propounds an oracle of Zeus which declares[358] that Cadmus shall become a dragon, and his wife Harmonia shall become a serpent, but that they will nevertheless conquer many barbarian cities and will be borne ultimately to the land of the blessed gods. Yet they must leave Thebes now because of their impious attitude to Dionysus! Is this decree an instance of ‘collective’ punishment? Is it necessary that the entire family of Cadmus should suffer for the impiety of Pentheus which he has already atoned for by an ignominious death? It may be an explanation of this obscure punishment to say that it is collective. But what shall we say of Agave? She also has to leave Thebes. Is her exile to be regarded as a penalty for ‘impiety’ in regard to Dionysus? Surely she has already been sufficiently pious and to her cost! She was actually one of the Bacchic worshippers, in the play. Moreover, in going into exile she bids farewell to her father![359] They are all sent into exile together, yet she cannot go with her father.[360] Surely, if impiety were the offence, and the penalty were collective exile, all the offenders could have gone in conjunction. Why is Agave exiled, then, if she is condemned to separate exile? We suggest that this penalty is inflicted because of kin-slaying in religious frenzy, that is to say, in legal language, ‘in a passion.’ Plato assures us[361] that kin-slaying extenuated by passion prohibited the slayer from any further intercourse with her family. ‘If a father or mother in a passion kill their son or daughter by blows or in any other violent manner ... let them remain in exile for three years and on returning let the husband be divorced from the wife and the wife from the husband, and let them never afterwards beget children together nor dwell in fellowship with those whom they have deprived of child or brother, or have a share in their sacred rites.’ But Agave goes into exile with her sisters Autonoe and Ino, who had shared in the death of Pentheus. They too are separated from Cadmus. The reason is perhaps that Cadmus symbolises the domestic religion of their home. From him, as from their home, they must be exiled for ever.
The ‘Alcestis’
Neither the Alcestis nor the other two plays of Euripides which remain for discussion are of very much importance from the point of view of homicide-law. In the prologue[362] Apollo tells how he slew the Cyclops who forged the thunder-bolt by which Zeus slew Aesculapius, Apollo’s son, and how in consequence he went into bondage with Admetus of Pherae for a period of one year. Thus Zeus plots the death of his grandson and punishes his son for avenging it! The reason is that Zeus regards the death of Aesculapius as justified, and therefore, as Apollo’s vengeance is unjust, he must be punished. The penalty of bondage which is here referred to may be the Pelasgian servitude which we have discussed in an early part of this work,[363] or it may be a form of that same penalty which was retained under the pollution-system, in pre-Draconian days when it was indispensably connected with exile. There is here, however, no reference to pollution or to purgation. Apollo was purified for slaying the Python[364] but not for the slaying of the Cyclops! We cannot apply to the Olympian Apollo the laws which were made for mortal men. Apollo, unlike Hercules, could not be conceived as a man. It was from Olympus, the abode of the Olympian gods, that he was banished. The obvious motive for the legend is the association of Apollo with Admetus. Some reason had to be assigned for this ‘exile’ of Apollo. We may suppose that a deed of homicide was invented to explain this ‘exile,’ but that its details were not worked out. The only real importance of such a legend is that it affords a certain amount of evidence for the existence of servitude as a homicide-penalty in early Greece.
Admetus is permitted by the Fates to live if he can find a substitute. His wife Alcestis voluntarily dies in his stead. Was her death attributable to Admetus? Was he her murderer? His father, Pheres, seems to think so![365]
I go: thou shalt entomb her, as thyself
Her murderer. Look for vengeance from her friends.
Acastus is no man if his hands fail
Dearly t’avenge on thee his sister’s blood.