conscious of the dramatic impropriety, that he makes Theseus comment on the volubility of the herald in matters not concerning him, and wonder at his own patience in replying to him. It is therefore plain that what are called rhetorical redundancies in this and other of Euripides' plays are deliberately chosen by the poet as subservient to an important purpose—that of the political education of the people from his own point of view.
52. The Heracleidæ.—These general remarks apply to the Heracleidæ, in which the children of Heracles come as suppliants to Demophon, king of Athens, and are defended by Athens, this time against Argive insolence, and with the aid of the splendid sacrifice of Macaria, one of the fugitives. But this heroine only comes in for one act of the play, which is not concluded with her death.
Although Euripides seems here again to have used his stage as a political platform, but a platform (like the modern pulpit) on which an immediate reply is impossible, he combined, along with this main idea, a great many beautiful and affecting situations, and it may be said that for tragic interest none of his plays exceed its first part, ending, unfortunately, with a huge gap after the 629th line. Many critics have censured it in ignorance of this capital fact, and also of some lesser mutilations near the end. Indeed several ancient quotations from the play are not in our present texts, and it is the merit of Kirchhoff to have first insisted upon these difficulties, and to have critically edited the text of the play in his edition of the works of Euripides.
As this is one of the less known plays, I will briefly rehearse the argument. The play opens with the altercation between the violent and brutal Argive herald, Copreus (who, very unlike the cultivated herald of the Supplices, is to be compared to the Egyptian herald in Æschylus' Supplices) and the faithful Iolaus, who in extreme age and decrepitude endeavours as best he can to protect the children of
