have thus the Titan, the symbol of finite reason and free will, depicted as the sublime philanthropist, while Zeus, the supreme deity of Hellas, is portrayed as the cruel and obdurate despot, a character peculiarly revolting to Athenian sentiment.
The attempt to explain this apparent anomaly has given rise to a variety of theories and speculations. It is urged by some that at the time of Æschylus so sharp a line as drawn, in the minds of educated men, between religion and mythology, that the latter was accepted simply as poetical imagery, and was employed by the poet without any definite moral aim. Others imagine, with Welcker, that Æschylus, as a contemporary of Zenophanes, and one initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, maintained an antagonistic attitude towards the traditional creed, and that in the Promethean trilogy he seized the opportunity to enter his protest against it, by representing the head of the Olympian system under so revolting an aspect. It must be remembered, however, that the Athenian drama formed part of a solemn religious festival, celebrated by the entire population, and that the popular theology was intertwined with the national and political life not only of Athens, but of Hellas. The magnificent statues of Pallas Athena and of Olympian Zeus, executed at enormous cost by Phidias, the contemporary of Æschylus, were doubtless regarded by the multitudes assembled at the national festivals as symbols of divine and very awful realities; and if we turn to the remaining dramas of the poet we find his delineation of these divinities in harmony with
