im._--Ver. 139. Clarke renders this
line, 'He overset him, and thwacked him against the ground.']

EXPLANATION.

It is not improbable that the prediction of Calchas, at Aulis, that
the war against Troy would endure nine years, had no other
foundation than his desire to check an enterprise which must be
attended with much bloodshed, and difficulties of the most
formidable nature. It is not unlikely, too, that this interpretation
of the story of the serpent devouring the birds may have been
planned by some of the Grecian generals, who did not dare openly to
refuse their assistance to Agamemnon. The story of Iphigenia was,
perhaps, founded on a similar policy. The ancient poets and
historians are by no means agreed as to the fate of Iphigenia, as
some say that she really was sacrificed, while others state that she
was transformed into a she-bear, others into an old woman, and
Nicander affirms that she was changed into a heifer.

There is no story more celebrated among the ancients than that of
the intended immolation of Iphigenia. Euripides wrote two tragedies
on the subject. Homer, however, makes no allusion to the story of
Iphigenia; but he mentions Iphianassa, the daughter of Agamemnon,
who was sent for, to be a hostage on his reconciliation with
Achilles; she is probably the same person that is meant by the later
poets, under the name of Iphigenia.

It has been suggested by some modern commentators, that the story of
Iphigenia was founded on the sacrifice of his own daughter, by
Jeptha, the judge of Israel, which circumstance happened much about
the same time. The story of the substitution of the hind for the
damsel, when about to be slain, was possibly founded on the
substituted offering for Isaac when about to be offered by his
father; for it is not probable that the people of Greece were
entirely ignorant of the existence of the books of Moses, and that
wonderful narrative would be not unlikely to make an impression on
minds ever ready to be attracted by the marvellous. Some writers
have taken pains to show that Agamemnon did not sacrifice, or
contemplate sacrificing, his own daughter, by asserting that the
Iphigenia here mentioned was the daughter of Helen, who was educated
by Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, and the sister of Helen.
Pausanias also adopts this view, and gives for his authorities
Euphorion of Chalcis, Alexander, S