deities are represented as consoling the terrified Hellas in face of the threatening purposes and preparations of the mighty king of Asia." Moreover, "out of the gigantic block of Persian marble at Rhamnus, three leagues from Marathon, which the Persians are said to have intended for a trophy, Phidias (also a prophet) created one of the most sublime of the Greek statues of the gods, that of Nemesis, whose stern form and gesture admonished the Greeks: 'Be not lifted up; to God alone belongs the glory!'"[1]
It may be remarked, in conclusion, that this drama, by the profound humiliation of Xerxes, strikingly enforces the Hellenic principle that the supreme intelligence, which Æschylus invariably identifies with the will of Zeus, cannot suffer any inferior power, human or divine, to overpass its legitimate limits, and thus interfere with the harmonious working of the whole. At the same time the dignity of the Persian empire is vindicated by the description of the glorious and happy life which the Persians enjoyed under the rule of Darius, which had been forfeited by their impiety in acting in opposition to the divine decrees; moreover, by introducing the ghost of the mighty king, not only as the stern rebuker of his son's overweening pride, but also as deprecating in the most emphatic manner any subsequent invasion of Hellas, we see, in this early historical drama, an approach to the great principle of classical dramatic art, which finds its
- ↑ Bunsen's 'God in History.' Translated by Miss Winkworth.
