(5) It is probable therefore that, although this legend of the ‘sacrifice’ may have originated independently of the Oresteia, it was in conjunction with a second Attic legend which decreed for Orestes a temporary period of exile, and which depicted a less implacable but persistent pursuit by the as yet unappeased Erinnyes, that the story of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia developed and took final shape. For when once a legend has admitted in the hero a degree of guilt, it is so much easier to admit also a degree of excellence in the villain. Hence it is that in Aeschylus, who follows mainly the first of these legends, this ‘plea’ of Clytaemnestra is not presented in a natural or forcible manner. It is only at the end of the play, when the spectators are so fully convinced of the amorous infidelity, the designing malice, the flagrant hypocrisy and the murderous brutality of this queen of Argos, that they cannot attach much value to the boastful words which proclaim her love of her children, that she says to the railing critics in the Chorus[19]: Prate not of dishonour! ‘Deserving’ were rather the word. Had _he_ not prepared for his house an encumbrance of woe? Let him not loudly plead there below That in paying the price of her death whom a nation deplored, The branch I had reared from his loins, he is slain with iniquitous sword. Men shall reap what they sow. In regard to the penalty which Clytaemnestra expects to suffer, the language of Aeschylus is deliberately vague. The Chorus say[20]: Hast thou cut him off? Thou shalt be cut off from the State. Our citizens shall hate thee with firm hate. Clytaemnestra interprets these words as a threat of exile: That is your sentence: I must fly the land With public execration on my head.