By an Attic law, analogous in principle to that of the Jews, (Num. xxxvi. 8; 1 Chron. xxiii. 22), heiresses were absolutely bound to marry their next of kin, if he claimed his right. The king at once asserts this as the law which was _primâ facie_ applicable to the case, and declares himself ready to surrender it if the petitioners can show that their own municipal law is on the other side. He will not thrust his country's customs upon foreigners, who can prove that they live under a different rule, but in the absence of evidence must act on the law which he is bound officially to recognise. Footnote 238: _Sc._, the pollution which the statues of the Gods would contract if they carried into execution their threat of suicide. Footnote 239: Inachos, the river-God of Argos, and as such contrasted with Neilos. Footnote 240: _i.e._, “Unconsecrate,” marked out by no barriers, accessible to all, and therefore seeming to offer but little prospect of a safe asylum. The place described seems to have been an open piece of turf rather than a grove of trees. Footnote 241: Comp. the narrative as given in _Prometheus Bound_, vv. 660, _et seq._ Footnote 242: Teuthras' fort, or Teuthrania, is described by Strabo (xii. p. 571) as lying between the Hellespont and Mount Sipylos, in Magnesia. Footnote 243: Kypros, as dedicated to the worship of Aphrodite, and famous for its wine, and oil, and corn. Footnote 244: The question, what caused the mysterious exceptional inundations of the Nile, occupied, as we see from Herodotos (ii. c. 19-27), the minds of the Greeks. Of the four theories which the historian discusses, Æschylos adopts that which referred it to the melting of the snows on the mountains of central Africa. Footnote 245: Typhon, the mythical embodiment of the power of evil, was fabled to have wandered over Egypt, seeking the body of Osiris. Isis, to baffle him, placed coffins in all parts of Egypt, all empty but the one which contained the body. Footnote 246: The fame of the Nile for the purity of its water, after the earthy matter held in solution had been deposited, seems to have been as great in the earliest periods of its history as it is now. Footnote 247: Io was represented as a woman with a heifer's head, and was probably a symbolic representation of the moon, with her crescent horns. Sometimes the transformation is described (as in v. 294) in words which imply a more thorough change. Footnote 248: Perhaps— “For not as subject sitting 'neath the sway Of strength above his own.” Footnote 249: The passage takes its place among the noblest utterances of a faith passing above the popular polytheism to the thought of one sovereign Will ruling and guiding all things, as Will—without effort, in the calmness of a power irresistible. Footnote 250: