fortunes. And her fortunes are such as come home to the sympathy of any audience, though her wild scheme of vengeance is rather too Greek to please modern readers. Thus we have in the Ion, a drama depending almost wholly upon the plot, and not prominent in the drawing of any of its characters, except that of Ion at the opening of the play.
We know nothing of its date beyond what can inferred from the allusion to Rhion (v. 1592), where the Athenians made an obscure promontory famous by a victory in 429 B.C. Moreover, the Athenians built a stoa at Delphi in honour of this victory, which would accordingly lend interest to the scenery. If so, the play came out about 425 B.C. It is remarkable that as in the Heracles and Helen there are practically two prologues, so here there are two resolutions of the plot—as it were two dii ex machinâ—one by the Delphian priestess, the other by Athene, who appear at the end to dispel remaining doubts. Of Creusa's character we shall have again to speak. I will only here note that the tragic situation of a distracted mother seeking her son's death unwittingly was again used by Euripides in the Cresphontes, from which a beautiful choral hymn to Peace still remains, as the readers of Mr. Browning will remember (Aristoph. Apol., p. 178).
There have been but few imitations of this play. It was brought out in a debased version by August Schlegel in 1803, but so unsuccessfully, that old Goethe, who had taken great interest in its preparation, was obliged to stand up and command silence in the pit. The Ion of Talfourd has only a general resemblance.
40. The Helena.—I do not think that any other play of Euripides can be ranked, as to prominence of plot, with the Ion, except the Helena; for the Orestes and the Electra, which stand next, though the plot is prominent and the chief personages disagreeable, yet contain much character painting of a peculiar kind—not ideal, but mere psychological analysis.
