Athenians in the names and acts of their founders is on a par with that in the once accredited tale of Brutus and other Trojans settling in Britain; or of Joseph of Arimathea planting the first shoot of the holy thorn at Glastonbury. Joseph and Brutus, like Cecrops and Erectheus, have vanished from history, and nothing except the genius of a poet could recall from the shades and clothe with living interest King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Readers will perhaps pardon a short digression, if it tend to throw light on the dramatic art of Euripides, when contrasted with that of Æschylus; or rather, on a change that took place in the taste of their respective audiences.
The story of Orestes, in the handling of which Æschylus and Sophocles stand farthest apart from Euripides, is chosen as perhaps the most striking instance of the struggle between old faith and new rationalism, as exhibited in the Athenian drama. To the elder of these poets the symbolisms of the legend were perfectly clear. Apollo, a purifying and avenging god, prescribes the duty and the mode of retribution, and protects the avengers of blood. After the command has been issued to visit the death of Agamemnon on his murderers, Pylades, in the legend, though almost a mute person in the drama, is Apollo's principal agent in nerving Orestes to the execution of his dreadful task. Pylades was a Crisean by descent. Now, from the Homeric hymn to Apollo, it appears that the original Pythian temple was in the domain of the town of Crisa. At Crisa Orestes dwelt as an exile;
