The worship of divinities bearing the name of Eumenides, though unknown at Athens[666], was wider-spread than that of the Semnae, which is found nowhere outside Attica. It was possibly for this reason that Aeschylus or later tradition gave this name to the play. The Semnae were familiar figures at Athens, and, spite of many underworld analogies, the shift from Erinyes to Semnae must have been a difficult one. A great deal is borne for the glory of the gods, but there must have been among the audience men conservative and hard-headed who would be likely to maintain that, all said and done, the Erinyes were not, could not be, Semnae. If asked to believe that the Erinyes became Eumenides, they would feel and probably say: that is a matter for Colonos, for Argos, for Sekyon to consider; it affects no Athenian’s faith or practice. At Colonos it is certain that goddesses were worshipped who bore the name of Eumenides, goddesses of function and ritual precisely identical with the Semnae, but addressed by a different cultus epithet. We have the express statement of Sophocles[667], who, as a priest himself and a conservative, was not likely to tamper with ritual titles. He makes Oedipus ask the stranger who they are whose dread name he is to invoke. The answer is explicit: ‘Eumenides all-seeing here the folk Would call them: other names please otherwhere.’ Sophocles no doubt shows the influence of Aeschylus in his ‘other names please otherwhere.’ He realizes that Eumenides and Semnae are ‘one form of diverse names[668].’ This truth it was the mission of the reconciling monotheist always to preach, but he would scarcely dare to tamper with the familiar titles of a local cult. In fact by this very statement, that elsewhere the goddesses bore other names, he makes the local appellation certain. He may indeed have brought Oedipus to Colonos rather than to the Areopagos, where he had also a grave, just because the local attributive title of the goddesses at Colonos suited the gentle moral of his play. Again when Oedipus asks to be taught to pray aright, the Chorus lay emphasis on the title Eumenides. ‘That, as we call them Kindly, from kind hearts They may receive the suppliant[669].’