The reference to the State in this quotation is noteworthy. In such a reference we find ourselves very far removed from the Homeric saga and the days of private vengeance! The brand or stigma which is mentioned is that civic degradation which is known as ἄτιμία. We cannot suppose that these actual words were recorded in the legend which Aeschylus follows. The statement is much too long for a real oracle! Did Aeschylus then derive this sentiment from contemporary Attic life? We have seen that the pollution-doctrine was closely associated, in Greece, with the interference of the State in matters of homicide. It follows that the importation of this doctrine into the Oresteian legend would have naturally introduced, also, the conception of Orestes as a State criminal, worthy of State punishment. When once the legend received, so to speak, this colouring, the general atmosphere of the story would have suggested such words as are attributed in this quotation to Orestes. We believe that these words of Orestes are the creation of Aeschylus’ own mind, but we do not attribute to Aeschylus the creation of the legendary atmosphere which makes such words intelligible. There is a subtle suggestion of the clash of clan-feuds which characterised the transition period of the Dark Ages in the Aeschylean description of the conflict of viewpoints between the Erinnyes of Agamemnon and the Erinnyes of Clytaemnestra—a conflict which it is improbable that Aeschylus invented. The avenging goddesses are conceived as real beings: they are not mere delusions or ‘extrajections’ of a distracted mind. We have already referred[34] to Orestes’ fear of the ‘darkling arrow’ which may be hurled at him by the Erinnyes of his father. On the other side, however, stand the Erinnyes of his mother, who are equally formidable. Orestes says[35]: Ah! ah! What grisly troup come yonder in grey robes, With Gorgon faces and thick serpent hair Twisted in writhing coils? I must be gone. This is no fancy, but a present woe. I see my mother’s Furies clearly there! This conflict Apollo, of himself unaided, is unable to avert. But we shall now see how Apollo and Athene, in conjunction, persuade the Furies of Clytaemnestra to accept ‘appeasement.’ It was thus, as we conceive it, that the religion of pollution and political synoekism ultimately overcame the resistance of the clans to new laws and new gods. It was thus that, after years of chaos and transition, ghosts came at length to obey State gods and State laws as in tribal life they obeyed the ‘dooms’ of the tribe. THE ‘EUMENIDES’