PHILOCTETES was produced in 431 B.C. with the _Medea_, _Dictys_, and _Harvesters_ (Θερισταί), when both Euripides and Sophocles were defeated by Euphorion, the son of Æschylus. Our knowledge is derived almost wholly from Dio Chrysostom[789] who compares the three plays called _Philoctetes_ by Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. He offers interesting comments on the differences in plot. In Euripides, as in Æschylus, the chorus consists of Lemnian men, but the later poet anticipates criticism by making his chorus apologize for not visiting the sufferer earlier. One Lemnian, by name Actor, takes part as a friend of Philoctetes. The “prologue” is spoken by Odysseus (here working with Diomedes, not Neoptolemus, as in Sophocles) who explains that he would not have undertaken this present task for fear of being recognized by Philoctetes, had not Athena changed his appearance. (Here, as in the apology offered by the chorus, we have implied criticism[790] on Æschylus.) The Trojans are sending an embassy in the hope of gaining Philoctetes. Later in the drama, no doubt, occurred a set dispute between the Greek and the Trojan envoys. In the BELLEROPHON Euripides seems to have gone to the extreme in depicting the passionate atheism inspired by the sight of prosperous wickedness. “If the gods do aught base,” he exclaims in a famous line, “they are not gods.” Another vigorous fragment begins:— Then dare men say that there are gods in Heaven? Nay, nay! There are not. Fling the tale away, The ancient lie by human folly bred! Base not your judgment on these words of mine— Use but your eyes. Bellerophon ascended to Heaven on his winged steed Pegasus in order to remonstrate with Zeus. This idea is used farcically in Aristophanes’ _Peace_, where Trygæus ascends on a monstrous beetle. ERECHTHEUS was a beautiful picture of patriotism. Athens being attacked by the Eleusinians and Thracians, King Erechtheus was told by the Delphic oracle that he could secure victory for Athens by sacrificing his daughter. His wife Praxithea, in a speech of passionate patriotism, consented to give up her child; Swinburne has used this fragment in his own _Erechtheus_. Another long fragment contains the advice which Erechtheus gives to his son, and which in its dry precision curiously resembles the farewell of Polonius to Laertes. While the issue of battle remains uncertain, the chorus of old Athenians sing a lyric which charmingly renders their yearning for peace: Along my spear, at last laid by, May spiders weave their shining thread; May peace and music, ere I die, With garlands crown my whitening head. I’d deck Athene’s cloistered fane With shields of Thracian mountaineers, And ope the well-loved page again Where poets sing across the years.