32 Attitude of Aeschylus 



useful to others than the farmer, and the Scythian steppes are untilled 

 land. A fragment, telling of a happy land 1 where all things grow in 

 plenty unsown without ploughing or digging/ reminds us of the 

 Odyssey, minus the savages: another, referring to the advance made 

 in domestication of beasts to relieve men of toil, make up the meagre 

 list. All are in connexion with Prometheus. There are two interesting 

 passages 2 in which the word yafjuopo? (landholder) occurs, but merely 

 as an expression for a man with the rights and responsibilities- of a 

 citizen. There is nothing of tillage. It was natural for the champion 

 of the power of the Areopagus to view the citizen from the landholding 

 side. He is a respecter of authority, but at the same time lays great 

 stress on the duty and importance of deference to public opinion. This 

 tone runs through the surviving plays, wherever the scene of a par- 

 ticular drama may be laid. Athenian conditions are always in his mind, 

 and his final judgment appears in the Eumenides as an appeal to all 

 true citizens to combine freedom with order. Ties of blood, community 

 of religious observances, the relation between citizens and aliens, are 

 topics on which he dwells again and again. In general it is fair to 

 conclude that, while he cheerfully accepted the free constitution of 

 Athens as it stood since the democratic reform of Cleisthenes, he 

 thought that it was quite democratic enough, and regarded more recent 

 tendencies with some alarm. Now these tendencies, in particular the 

 reforms of Ephialtes and Pericles, were certainly in the direction of 

 lessening the influence of the Attic farmers and increasing that of the 

 urban citizens, who were on the spot to take advantage of them. To 

 put it in the briefest form, Aeschylus must be reckoned an admirer of 

 the solid and responsible citizens of the old school, men with a stake 

 in the country. 



Sophocles also supplies very little. The antipathy of Greeks to 

 Barbarians appears in a milder form : Aeschylus was naturally more 

 bitter, having fought against the Persian invader. The doctrine that 

 public opinion (of citizens) ought to be respected, that obedience to 

 constituted authorities is a duty, in short the principle that freedom 

 should be combined with order, is set forth in various passages of 

 dramatic debate. Yet the scenes of the plays, as those of Aeschylus, 

 are laid in legendary ages that knew not democracy. The awful 

 potency of ties of blood, and the relations of citizen and alien, are 

 topics common to both. But I think it may fairly be said that 

 political feeling is less evident in Sophocles. This is consistent with 

 his traditional character. In their attitude towards slavery there is 

 no striking difference : both treat it as a matter of course. But in 



1 Fragm 194, 198, Dind. 

 a -^ Eum 890-1. 



