atives, women gave a free reign to their
frolicsomeness on the occasions of these festivals. Also here men were
excluded from participation in the festival.

In Athens, where, as already stated, the mother-right made earliest room
for the father-right, but, as it seems, under strong opposition from the
women, the transition is portrayed touchingly and in all the fullness of
its tragic import, in the "Eumenides" of Aeschylus. The story is this:
Agamemnon, King of Mycene, and husband of Clytemnestra, sacrifices his
daughter, Iphigenia, upon the command of the oracle on his expedition
against Troy. The mother, indignant at the sacrifice of her daughter,
takes, during her husband's absence, Aegysthos for her consort. Upon
Agamemnon's return to Mycene, after an absence of many years, he is
murdered by Aegysthos with the connivance of Clytemnestra. Orestes, the
son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, avenges the murder of his father, at
the instigation of Apollo and Athene, by slaying his mother and
Aegysthos. The Erinnyes, as representatives of the old law, pursue
Orestes on account of the murder of his mother. Apollo and Athene, the
latter of whom, according to mythology, is motherless--she leaped
full-armed out of the head of Jupiter--represent the new law, and defend
Orestes. The issue is carried to the Areopagus, before which the
following dialogue ensues. The two hostile principles come here into
dramatic vividness of expression:

Erinnyes--The prophet bade thee be a matricide?

Orestes--And to this hour I am well content withal.

Erinnyes--Thoul't change that tune, when judgment seizes thee.

Orestes--My father from his tomb will take my part; I fear not.

Erinnyes--Ay, rely on dead men's aid,
When guilty of matricide!

Orestes--She, that is slain,
Was doubly tainted.

Erinnyes--How? Inform the court.

Orestes--She slew her wedded lord, and slew my sire.

Erinnyes--Death gave her quittance, then. But thou yet livest.

Orestes--And while she lived, why did you not pursue her?

Erinnyes--No tie of blood bound her to whom she slew.

Orestes--But I was tied by blood-affinity
To her who bare me?

Erinnyes--Else, thou accursed one,
How nourished she thy life within her womb?
Wouldst thou renounce the holiest bond of all?

The Erinnyes, it will be noticed, recognize no rights on the part of
the father and the husband; to them there exist