oracles of uncertain sound, divided counsels. With all that followed we are only so far concerned as it enters into the one life which we are studying, and of him we have to think as glowing with the same indignation as his older countrymen, too young as yet to share with them the danger and the glory of battle, sent with the women and children to the asylum offered by Salamis. Thence he may have seen in the distance the smoke of the burning houses and temples, which the soldiers of Xerxes had destroyed; thence soon there came floating rumours that strange portents had given presage of the imperishable freedom of his own Athens. If in the description of Colonos we trace the old man's recollections of his boyhood, we can trace it not less distinctly here. The sacred olive had proved itself inviolable and sacred, the terror of the swords of their enemies. No invader, flushed with the insolence of youth, or hoary with age, should be able to destroy it.[1]
So the weeks passed on, till at last Salamis rivalled the immortality of Marathon, and then there came to the young Sophocles the highest honour which was possible for an Athenian youth. Others had won the victory. He was chosen to be the representative of the people in their thanks to the Gods who had
