mark for the enemy's arrows. Against him goes Actor, who will not boast, but do; "and I doubt not," says the king, "that he will keep the hateful monster outside the city, only to draw a more furious attack upon the man who carries her."
The sixth chief is Amphiaraus, the prophet, who knew from the first the fate that awaited the expedition. Even now he is rebuking Polynices bitterly for leading foreign arms against his native land.
"How grateful to the gods must this deed be,
Glorious to hear, and in the roll of fame
Shining to distant ages, thus to lead
These foreign arms to waste thy bleeding country,
To raze those princely mansions where thy fathers,
Heroes and demigods, once held their seats!"
And for himself he says:—
"Prescient of fate I shall enrich this soil
Sunk in the hostile plain. But let us fight.
One thing at least is mine; I will not find
A vulgar or dishonourable death."
The warrior-prophet alone bears no device upon his broad shield, for he
"Wishes to be, not to appear, the best."[1]
Eteocles enlarges on the misery of the fate that makes a righteous man a companion of the wicked, and exposes him to a share in their punishment.
- ↑ When the play was produced at Athens this line was recognised as a description of Aristides, the actor turning towards him as he sat in the theatre, and the whole audience applauding the application.
