course of expiation, should win the pardon of heaven, and free his family from the curse. Over each step of this dismal round a deity presided. To the prosperous man came the goddess Insolence, and if he admitted her to his hearth, she led him into sin. Often Atè, who clung to him for some ancestral fault, would send Persuasion to him, to make him open his doors to Insolence. Then he would kill or wrong a man, a brother perhaps, or a father, and the righteous indignation of the spectators of his crime would be embodied in or expressed by Nemesis and the stern Erinnys, and these would never cease to cry for vengeance on him, until the Furies seized the hapless victim, and dragged him to destruction. But when the curse at length is to be removed, then the bright gods come upon the scene: Apollo is the cleanser and the advocate; wise Minerva dictates the decision which sets the suppliant free. So strong was the light and shadow in the Greek creed, Æschylus is prone, perhaps, to dwell in the shadow, but his masterpiece, the "Story of Orestes," exhibits both in a beautiful and consistent whole.
Over these two worlds, as it were, one supreme ruler was dimly apprehended. Through all his mention of numerous deities there is ever in Æschylus a constant reference to one God, by whose will all the principles which govern the life of man have been eternally decreed. Sometimes he is identified with Jove,[1] but oftener he is vaguely thought of as an unknown God, in whom men may still trust that all is ultimately right.
- ↑ Or, as the Greeks call him, Zeus.
