of the Argonaut legend, who probably prophesied something about the greater conflict between Europe and Asia, of which that expedition was a type. The third was Glaucus;* but there were two pieces of that name, and the plot is not certain. The Persæ itself is modelled on the Phœnissæ* of Phrynichus: the opening words of the two are almost identical, and the scene in both is in the council-chamber of Susa, though in the Persæ it afterwards changes to the tomb of Darius. The Persæ has not much plot-interest in the ordinary sense; but the heavy brooding of the first scenes, the awful flashes of truth, the evocation of the old blameless King Darius, who had made no Persians weep, and his stern prophecy of the whole disaster to come, all have the germ of high dramatic power: one feels the impression made by "the many arms and many ships, and the sweep of the chariots of Syria," both in the choir-songs and in the leaping splendour of the descriptions of battle. The external position of the Persæ as the first account of a great piece of history by a great poet who had himself helped to make the history, renders it perhaps unique in literature; and its beauty is worthy of its eminence.
The Seven against Thebes came third in the trilogy after the Laïus* and the Œdipus.* One old version of the saga allowed Œdipus to put away locasta after the discovery of their relationship, and marry Euryganeia; there was no self-blinding, and the children were Euryganeia's. But Æschylus takes the story in the more gruesome form that we all know. The Seven gives the siege of Thebes by the exiled Polyneîkes, the battle, and mutual slaying of the two brothers. It was greatly admired in antiquity—"a play full of Ares,
