138 EUEIPIDES. ignited stone ^ : he tells them that the overflowing of the Nile is merely the consequence of the melting of the snow in ^Ethiopia^, and that the sether is an embodiment of the Deity ^ In his political opinions Em^ipides was attached to Alcibiades and to the war party ; and in this again he was opposed to Aristo- phanes, and, we may add, to the best interests of his country. He endeavours to inspire his countrymen with a contempt for their for- midable enemies the Spartans'^, and with a distrust of their good faith^ ; in order that the Athenians might not, through fear for their prowess, scruple to continue at war with them, and might, through suspicion, be as unwilling as possible to make peace. We find him also united with the sophist Gorgias and the profligate Alcibiades in urging the disastrous expedition to Sicily; for he wrote the Trilogy to which the Troades belonged, in the beginning of the year 415^, in which that expedition started, manifestly with a vi^v to encourage the gaping quidnuncs of the Agora to fall into the ambi- tious schemes of Alcibiades, by recalling the recollection of the suc- cess of a similar expedition, undertaken in the mythical ages ; and it has been conjectured that his wiser opponent wrote the Birds in the following year to ridicule the whole plan and its ori- ginators^ Besides obliterating the genuine character of the Greek Tragedy, by introducing sophistry and philosophy into the dialogue, Euripides degraded it still farther by laying aside all the dignity and koXo- KayaOla which distinguished the costumes and the characters of iEschylus and Sophocles, by vulgarizing the tragic style ^, by intro- ducing rags and tatters on the staged, by continually making men- tion of the most trivial and ordinary subjects", and by destroying the connexion which always subsisted, in the perfect form of the 1 Oi-est. VI. 984, and the fr. of the Phaethon. 2 Helen, i — 3, fr. of the Archclaus, ^ Troad. 878 seqq.
- For instance, in his ridiculous exhibition of Menelaus in the Troades, and in the
Orestes. See particularly Orest. 717 sqq. ; Aiidrom. 590. ^ Andromache, 445 seqq. c See Clinton, F. H. 11. p. 75. ^ See J. W. Siivern's interesting Essay on the Birds of Aristophanes. 8 See Miiller, Hist Lit. Gr. I. p. 336 [483]. In Hercid. Fur. 859, it is clear that o-TctSta dpajxovixai, the reading of Elor. 2, is a gloss on the genuine G-TadLodpofxrjau}, which ought to be restored. And in Electr. 84 1, we ought certainly to read rjXdka^e 6' (hs dvTjCrKCOV <p6vtp. » Ran. 841 sqq. ^^ Ih. 980 sqq.
