one of ten on a Committee of Public Safety,[1] when the great disaster of the Sicilian expedition filled all hearts with fear, we may see in his acceptance of the office a proof of the love of his country, which led him to return, at the age of eighty-two, to public life. His acceptance of the oligarchic revolution effected by the Four Hundred, two years later, (B.C. 411,) as the least of two evils, was natural enough to one of his age and character. Some passages of the extant plays, however, seem to have a distinct reference to the passing political changes of the time. The language of the Chorus in "Œdipus the King," (882–895,) and "Œdipus at Colonos," (1537–8,) is manifestly directed against the reckless licence which, not satisfied with its emancipation from popular superstition, threw itself into outrages like the mutilation of the Hermæ busts and the profanation of the Mysteries; while the words, seemingly opposite in tendency, (497–501,) which maintain the judgment of common sense against the claims of soothsayers, may have been meant as a protest against the credulous fear,
- ↑ Προβούλοι. Thuc., viii. 1, compared with Aristot., Rhet., iii. 18. In the latter passage Sophocles is said to have been charged by Peisander with having consented to a measure which he confessed to be mischievous, and to have defended himself by saying that nothing better was open to him. The absence of any distinguishing epithet leads us to think of the more famous Sophocles; the anecdote is characteristic, and the members of the Committee are expressly said to have been chosen from among those who were venerable by age and character. The statement of the Vit. Anon., that he took a conspicuous part in "home statesmanship and embassies," both at home and abroad, is in favour of the identification.
