96 Ernest Heinrich Klotsche 



opinion of Euripides only that oath is valid and binding that has 

 been made deliberately and without constraint. 



In Greek life oracles and prophecies played a considerable part. 

 Belief in divination was particularly strong in the hours of politi- 

 cal crisis and national peril, as e.g., during the Peloponnesian 

 War where people were so uncertain about the future the Gods 

 held in store for them. The Greek writers reflect the influence 

 of divination in various ways. How important a figure it cut in 

 Greek thought and life is shown especially by the prominence 

 which ^schylus assigns to divination in Prometheus 484 fif. 



Oracles and Prophecies are also of frequent occurrence in the 

 tragedies of Euripides and yet the poet has no regard for the art 

 of divination. Only one of his characters speaks favorably of 

 soothsaying, — Theseus in the " Supplices " (211 fif.), and he is 

 certainly not the medium of the poet's thought. His own thought 

 on the subject finds expression in nearly all his tragedies. Un- 

 sparingly he attacks the " ambitious breed " of soothsayers, who 

 are impostors, and whose art is a lying art. And his attacks 

 upon oracles and divination are made the more effective by pre- 

 senting the oracle-god himself in the most shameful light. It is, 

 however, not only the worthless and doubtful character of the 

 seers themselves that provokes Euripides to assail the diviners. 

 The basic principle of his attack must be sought in the poet's 

 conception of divination in general. See Hel. 744 ff. ; I. A. 957 ; 

 f r. 793 ; 963. The knowledge to read the thoughts of the Gods is 

 not within the reach of mortals. Those who pretend to possess 

 this knowledge deceive people by their talk. The inscrutable 

 ways of Heaven are past finding out and therefore divination 

 cannot reveal them. It is at this point that Euripides is prin- 

 cipally at variance with his predecessors as far as divination is 

 concerned. 



The same spirit of the free-thinker, in contrast with the two 

 older dramatists, is revealed in Euripides' handling of dreams 

 and visions. The belief in the divine and prophetic character of 

 dreams and visions is universal throughout Greek literature. In 

 Homer the sender of dreams is Zeus, II. II, 4ff. i^schylus 



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