the most wonderful was Egypt. There was no good or strange thing which was not supposed by the Athenians of that day to have come from Egypt. The gods of Greece, the letters, the philosophy, all inventions and all history, were popularly derived from the country of the miraculous Nile; and to explore Egypt was the great object of the traveller's ambition. Among the experiences of Herodotus his Egyptian researches occupy a prominent place; and any story which the priests chose to tell him about their animals or their gods, or their endless genealogies, was eagerly accepted. In the light of this fact we see why Æschylus dwelt so much in the "Prometheus" on the wanderings of Io, and traced her finally to Egypt; and we are ready to appreciate the interest with which a chorus of Egyptian girls, in the dress and character of their country, would be received on the Athenian stage. Of these there were of course fifty, as the story required; but as the usual number of the chorus was twelve, we must imagine twelve only of the Danaids as singing and dancing, while the rest remained silent, and probably were disposed in a group behind the actual chorus.[1]
With the entrance of these fifty Danaids the play begins. Slowly they march, with audible tramp, to the sound of their own chanting, appealing as they go to Zeus, the god of suppliants, for the protection which he especially owes them as the founder of their race. They describe in few words the causes of their flight,
- ↑ If this was part of a trilogy, the choruses of all four plays perhaps appeared here, as at the end of the "Eumenides."
