And the people who followed his lead were the same sort of people who would naturally be terrified about the mutilation of a taboo image or an eclipse of the divine moon. What they had, perhaps, acquired from the sophistic movement was a touch of effrontery. Boeotians or Acarnanians might commit crimes, when they needed to, by instinct, without stating their reasons: in Athens you had at least to discuss the principle of the proposed crime and accept it for what it was worth. A cynic or a hypocrite trained in a sophistic school might offer occasional help with the theory. Perhaps the earliest touch of Euripides' bitterness against his country comes, as we have seen, in the _Hecuba_ (p. 89). But the period we have just reached, soon after the _Heracles_, is marked by one of the most ironic and enigmatical plays he ever wrote. The _Ion_ is interesting in every line and contains one scene which is sometimes considered the most poignant in all Greek tragedy, yet it leaves every reader unsatisfied. Is it a pious offering to Apollo, the ancestor of the Ionian race? If so, why is Apollo the villain of the piece? Is it a glorification of ancient Athens, her legends and her shrines? If so, why are the shrines polluted by lustful gods, the legends made specially barbaric, and the beautiful earth-born Princess shown as a seduced woman and a would-be murderess? Nay, further, why does the hero of the play explain in a careful speech that he would sooner live a friendless slave in the temple at Delphi than a free man and a prince in such a place as Athens--a city "full of terror," where men "who are good and might show wisdom are silent and never come forward," while the men in power watch enviously round to destroy any possible rival? (598 ff. _Cf._ Euripides' words in _Frogs_, 1446 ff.) In Delphi he has peace, and is not jostled off the pavement by the scum of the earth (635)--a complaint which is often made in Greek literature about democratic Athens. I think the best way to understand the _Ion_ is to suppose that Euripides, in his usual manner, is just taking an old canonical legend, seeing the human drama and romance in it, and working it together in his own clear ironic mind till at last he throws out his play, saying: "There are your gods and your holy legends; see how you like them!" The irony is lurking at every corner, though of course the drama and romance come first.