Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece

by Gustav Schwab

  But Apollo drove the black Furies out of his sunlit temple. “Away with you, terrible sisters!” he cried. “Your place is in the lion’s den where beasts lap blood, you, the hounds of the Fates, not here on the site of my pure and sacred oracle.” In vain the Furies reminded him of their office, of their rights. Apollo declared that Orestes was under his protection because he had avenged Agamemnon at his and Zeus’ command. At last the Eumenides quailed before his power, backed away from the threshold, and fled.

  Then Phoebus entrusted Orestes and his friend to Hermes, the protector of travellers, and returned to Olympus. The friends took the road to Athens, as Apollo had bidden them, and the Furies, fearing the golden rod of Hermes, followed only at a safe distance. But gradually they grew bolder. When the two arrived in the city of Pallas Athene, the Eumenides came close on their heels, and hardly had Orestes and Pylades entered Athene’s temple before the dark sisters rushed after them through the open gates.

  Orestes had thrown himself on the ground before the image of the goddess, flung wide his arms, and prayed in wild despair: “Athene, I have come to you at Apollo’s command. Receive me mercifully, for my hands are not stained with innocent blood. I am weary of wandering and begging at the doors of strangers. Obedient to your brother’s oracle I have fled through towns and open country, and now I lie at your feet and await your judgment.”

  But the Furies, who stood close behind him, raised their voices in solemn chorus. “We are on your trail, murderer!” they cried. “We have tracked your steps, dripping with blood, as the hound tracks the wounded stag. You shall find no asylum and no rest. We shall suck the red blood from your body, and when nothing is left but a living shadow, we shall take you down to Tartarus with us. Then neither Apollo nor Athene shall free you from unending torture. You are our quarry, a victim for our altar. Come, sisters, let us dance around him, and with our songs cloud his spirit with madness!”

  They were just about to begin their awful chant, when a light from above flooded the temple. The image of Pallas Athene had vanished, and in its place stood the goddess herself. Her stern blue eyes gazed on those before her, and she opened her lips to speak.

  “Who is disturbing the peace of my sanctuary?” she asked. “What visitors do I see here? A stranger is clasping my altar, and women who do not look like mortals throng behind him with menacing eyes. Tell me who you are and what you want!”

  Orestes was speechless with fear. He trembled and could not rise. But the Erinyes did not hesitate to reply. “Daughter of Zeus,” they said, “we shall tell you everything just as it is. We are the daughters of Night and are called Erinyes.”

  “I know you,” said Athene. “Word of you has come to me often. You are the avengers of perjury and of the murder of kinsman by kinsman. But what can have brought you to my temple?”

  “This man, who lies at your feet and soils your altar with his presence!” they answered. “He has slain his own mother. Judge him! We shall honor your verdict, for we know that you are stern and just.”

  “If I am to make judgment,” said Pallas Athene, “I must first hear what the stranger has to say. How can you defend yourself against the accusation of these goddesses? What is your country, your line? What has befallen you? You shall cleanse yourself of the crime you have been accused of. I permit this because you are lying before my altar and clasping it as a suppliant. But now answer me and be unafraid.”

  At last Orestes ventured to raise his eyes. He half rose, so that he was still on his knees, and said: “Athene! You need not fear for your temple. I have not committed a murder which cannot be atoned for. I am not clasping your altar with hands that desecrate. I was born in Argos. You must have known my father. He was Agamemnon, the ruler of many peoples, the man who guided the Argive fleet to Troy and whom you helped destroy the citadel of proud Ilium. When he returned from his conquest, he did not die a natural death. My mother and her lover tangled him in a net and slew him in his bath. For a long time I lived in a foreign land, but when I returned, I avenged my father. I do not deny it. I avenged the murder of my beloved father by slaying my mother. And it was your own brother Apollo who urged me to do this deed. His oracle threatened me with unending anguish if I did not punish my father’s murderers. Now judge, O goddess, whether I have done right or wrong. I shall bow to your verdict.”

  The goddess was silent and thoughtful. Finally she said: “The matter which I am to judge is so strange and involved that no law-court on earth would know what to do about it. Although I am going to choose mortal judges, it is right that you have turned to an immortal for help. For I shall summon the judges to my temple and preside over the court. If the judges find they cannot arrive at a verdict, I myself shall decide the issue. In the meantime this stranger shall live in my city unmolested. But you, you implacable goddesses, shall not taint these precincts any longer. Return to Tartarus and do not come back to this temple until the day of the trial. Both parties shall collect evidence and summon witnesses, while I call on the wisest and best men in my city to solve this difficult problem.”

  When the goddess had set a day for the trial, Orestes and Pylades, as well as the Furies, were dismissed. The Eumenides obeyed Athene without demurring. They left the city and returned to the underworld. Orestes and his friend were hospitably received in Athens.

  When the day of the trial dawned, a herald called those citizens whom Athene had chosen to a hill opposite the acropolis. This hill was sacred to Ares, and for this reason it was called Areopagus, or Ares-hill. The goddess was already there, and both the accusers and the accused had arrived. But a stranger had also appeared and taken his place beside the accused. When the Erinyes saw him, they cried out in alarm: “Phoebus Apollo, do not interfere with our concerns! What are you doing here?”

  “This man is under my protection,” replied the god. “He came to Delphi to seek refuge in my temple. I have purified him of the blood he spilled, and so it is only right that I should help him. I have come to testify for him, and also to defend him before the court which my sister Athene has summoned. For it was I who counselled him to murder his mother and told him that in the eyes of the gods this would be a devout act and pleasing to them.”

  As he spoke, the god came closer to Orestes. And now Athene opened the court and asked the Erinyes to state their accusation. “We shall be brief,” said the eldest of them, who had been chosen to speak for them all. “You, whom we accuse, answer us. First, did you or did you not murder your mother?”

  “I do not deny it,” said Orestes, who had paled at the question.

  “And how did you commit the crime?”

  “I pierced her throat with my sword.”

  “At whose advice or instigation did you do this?”

  “At his who stands beside me,” said Orestes. “Apollo gave me his commands through an oracle, and he is here to confirm my words.” Orestes then went on to explain that in killing Clytaemnestra he had not thought of her as his mother, but only as the murderess of his father. Apollo seconded him in a long and eloquent speech. The Furies countered his words. The god first painted the murder of Agamemnon in dark colors, but they argued that Clytaemnestra had not killed a kinsman but only her husband, while Orestes had murdered his mother. Then the eldest said: “Now we have launched all the arrows we had in our quiver, and we shall await the verdict of the judges in silence.”

  Athene had the stones for voting distributed among the judges. Each was given a black stone to indicate guilt, and a white one for innocence. The urn which was to hold the stones was set up in the middle of the fenced-off space. And now Athene rose from the raised seat she occupied as the head of the court and addressed the judges before they cast their votes. Standing erect in all her divine majesty she said: “Citizens of Athens, listen to what the founder of your city has to say to you on this first occasion you have assembled to give judgment at a murder trial. This tribunal shall remain within your walls for all time to come. Here, on the sacred hill of Ares, where the Amazon
s once camped when they waged war on Theseus, where they brought sacrifice to the god of war, here the Court of the Areopagus shall assemble and keep the citizens of Athens from doing wrong. I herewith establish this court, made up of the best men of this city. They shall be stern, just, and incorruptible. They shall not take bribes nor look to their profit, but protect the rights of everyone in the land. The citizens shall reverence its dignity and uphold it as a pillar of strength, such as no other people in Greece or elsewhere on earth can boast of. This is my will as to the future. And now, judges, remember that you have sworn to serve the law; put your votes into the urn, so that this issue may be decided.”

  Silently the judges rose from their seats. One after another approached the urn and dropped into it a stone. When all had voted, chosen citizens, who were also under oath, counted the stones. And then it appeared that there were just as many black as white, and that the goddess, who had reserved the right of decision for herself, would have to give the verdict. Again she rose and said: “I was not borne by a mother. I, a virgin, sprang from the head of Zeus, my father, and I protect the rights of father and son against those of the mother. And so I shall not take the part of the woman who slew her husband to please her wicked lover, but cast my vote for Orestes, who killed his mother because she murdered his father.” With that she left her place, took a white stone, and added it to the rest of the white stones. “This man,” she then said solemnly, “is herewith, by a majority of votes, pronounced ‘not guilty.’ ”

  When she had given the verdict, Orestes turned to her. He was deeply moved. “O Pallas Athene,” he cried, “you have saved my line and given me back my native land. All Greece will exalt you for what you have done, and say: ‘Argive Orestes is again living in the palace of his fathers, rescued by the justice of Athene and Apollo and of the Thunderer, without whose will this could not have come about.’ And now, before I start for home, I swear to this country and this people that no Argive in all time to come shall ever make war on the devout Athenians! And if, after my death, one of my countrymen should break this oath, I myself shall rise from my tomb to punish him, send misfortune to dog his footsteps, and prevent him from carrying out his cursed plans against this city. Farewell, noble protector of justice, and people of Athens. May victory and welfare attend you in war and all else you undertake.”

  Then Orestes left the sacred hill of Ares, and his friend Pylades, who had never left his side during the entire court proceedings, went with him. The Furies did not venture to oppose the verdict of Athene, and besides they feared the strength of Apollo, who was prepared to see that the judgment of the court was upheld. But the eldest, who spoke for the rest, rose from the plaintiff’s seat and confronted the god and the goddess. In a deep hoarse voice, she defiantly questioned the verdict. “Woe to us!” she cried. “Younger deities have trodden underfoot the age-old laws; they have wrested the power from our hands, from us who are the elder. We are scorned. We cannot vanquish them with all our anger. But you, Athenians, shall live to regret your judgment! On this ground, where justice has been scoffed at, we shall pour out the venom seething in our hearts. Blight shall attack your fields, destruction shall overtake all that is living. With famine and plague we shall haunt this land and this city, we the offended and derided goddesses of night.”

  When Apollo heard this terrible curse, he intervened and tried to appease the mighty deities. “Be gracious,” he said to them. “For you were neither defeated nor dishonored. The number of black stones and white was the same. The judges did not override you. The accused, who was forced to choose between two sacred duties, and in choosing was bound to neglect one, has been saved through the will of Zeus who guarded him. So do not vent your anger on the innocent people of this land. For in their name I promise you a worthy sanctuary in this country. The citizens of Athens shall bring you offerings year after year and revere you as the implacable goddesses of just revenge.”

  Athene confirmed his words. “Believe me, majestic goddesses,” she added. “If you make your home in another country you will regret it and long for the earth you have spurned. The citizens of Athens are ready to hold you in high honor. Choruses of men and women clad in crimson robes will sing your glory. Your sanctuary shall be in the sacred cave beside the temple of King Erechtheus, and every house that does not honor you will be unblessed.”

  As they listened to these promises, the Furies gradually grew calmer. They consented to remain in that country and were pleased to think that they, as well as Athene and Apollo, were to have a sanctuary in the most famous of all cities. In the end they grew so gentle that they, on their part, solemnly swore to shield the city from wild weathers, from drought and plague, to guard the herds, to bless marriages, and, with the Fates, their half sisters, to work for the welfare of the entire region. They went so far as to wish everlasting peace and prosperity to the people. Then the dark sisters left the Areopagus and the city. Athene and Apollo gave them thanks, and all the citizens of Athens accompanied them with blazing torches and chants of praise.

  IPHIGENIA IN THE LAND OF THE TAURI

  After leaving Athens, Orestes and Pylades again went to the oracle of Apollo in Delphi. Orestes had indeed been acquitted, but he had not recovered from his madness and asked the god what he was now to do. The priestess said that the prince would be restored to health and happiness in Mycenae, but that first he was to sail to the peninsula of the Tauri, where Artemis, Apollo’s sister, had her temple. There he was to carry off the image of the goddess, which, according to a legend of the barbarian people of that region, had fallen from heaven and had been reverenced there ever since. When he had taken it by force or ruse, he was to bring it to Athens, for the goddess had grown tired of the savage people of that alien land, and longed for gentler worshippers. As soon as this was accomplished, his madness and exile would be at an end.

  Pylades did not desert his friend but accompanied him on this dangerous quest. The Tauri were in the habit of sacrificing to Artemis all the shipwrecked or other strangers who came to their shores. In war, they cut off the heads of their captured enemies, fastened them to poles, and fixed these on the roofs of their houses, as guardians to keep watch over the land.

  Now the reason the oracle was sending Orestes to this cruel tribe was this. In Aulis, when Agamemnon was about to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia at the advice of Calchas, the soothsayer, a hind had appeared at the altar just as the priest brandished the blade above the girl’s throat. Artemis had removed Iphigenia from the eyes of the Argives and carried her off across the sea, through shining clouds, to her own temple in the land of the Tauri. There Thoas, the king of this barbarian people, found her and made her the priestess of Artemis. Her service required her to see to the sacrifice of every stranger who set foot in that land, and these were, for the most part, her own countrymen! It is true that she had only to consecrate the victim. It was the task of others to drag it to the altar and do the slaughtering. Still, her lot was sad and hopeless.

  The girl had been performing her distasteful office for many years. The king held her in high esteem, and the people reverenced her for her charm and gentleness. So she lived, far from her home, utterly unfamiliar with the destinies of her house. But one night she dreamed she had left the land of the Tauri and was home in Argos, sleeping surrounded by her handmaids. Suddenly the earth began to tremble and heave, and she saw herself fleeing from the palace, standing outside, while the roof shook and the colonnade swayed and crashed to the ground. Only one column of her father’s house remained upright. And all at once it seemed to her that it was turning into a man. The capital became a head ringed with blond locks, and the head spoke to her in her own language, but what it said the girl had forgotten when she awoke. All she knew was that in her dream she had obeyed the demands of her priestly office. She had sprinkled the man, who was a pillar of her father’s palace, with holy water to consecrate him for death, and while she did this, she wept. When she roused herself from her dream, her cheeks were wet
with tears.

  On the morning after this night, Orestes and his friend Pylades landed on the shore of the Tauri, and went toward the temple of Artemis. Soon they reached the structure the barbarians had put up to the goddess. It resembled a prison rather than the dwelling of a deity, and they looked at the high and solid wall in silent amazement. Orestes was the first to speak. “My faithful friend,” he said, “you have shared the dangers of this journey with me. But what shall we do now? Shall we climb the spiral stairs around the wall? I fear that, when we reach the top, this unknown building will seem like a labyrinth to us. Undoubtedly we shall find the doors to the rooms locked with iron bolts, and if our attempts to get in rouse the guards who must be placed all around the sanctuary, they will seize us and kill us. For we have heard that much Argive blood has already spattered the altar of this implacable goddess. Would it not be wiser to return to the ship which brought us here?”

  “If we did that, it would be the very first time we have taken to flight,” answered Pylades. “Let us hold sacred the oracle of Apollo. But we must, indeed, leave this place. The best thing would be to hide in a grotto on the shore, far from our ship, so that no one, seeing it, will be able to tell the cruel ruler of this country anything about its crew. But when night falls, let us venture out. We know the position of the temple. Through some ruse or other we shall get in, and once we have the image in our hands, I am sure we shall be able to get back to the shore. Brave men court danger! We have come a long way. Would it not be shameful to turn back when we are so close to the goal, and go home without the prize the god has commanded us to seize?”