Only in the _Helena_, when fairly driven to bay, does he show the pluck of a soldier. Nothing can be more contemptible than the Agamemnon of _Iphigenia in Aulide_. He is a feeble, double-minded dastard, who has aspired to the commandership in chief from motives of vulgar ambition, and who finds himself unable to hold his own against cabal and mutiny. This is perhaps a development of the Homeric conception, but with all the Homeric radiance, the dignity that shields a monarch from disgrace, omitted. But unfortunately for this attempt to make Greek tragedy more real and living, more representative of the actual world, the cothurnus, the mask, the chorus, the thymelé, the gigantic stage, remained. All the cumbrous paraphernalia of the Æschylean theatre environed the men and women of Euripides, who cut but a poor figure in the garb of demigods. In trying to adapt the mould of Greek tragedy to real life, Euripides overpassed the limits of possibility. The mould broke in his hands. The same inevitable divergence from the Æschylean system is observable in every department of the tragedy of Euripides. While Sophocles had diminished the direct interposition of mysterious agencies, so frequently invoked by Æschylus, and had interested his audience in human character controlled and tempered by an unseen will of God, Euripides went further. With him the affairs of life are no longer based upon a firm foundation of divine law, but gods intervene mechanically and freakishly, like the magicians in Ariosto or Tasso.[5] Their agency is valuable, not as determining the moral conduct of the personages, but as an exhibition of supernatural power which brings about a sudden revolution of events. Independently of their miraculous activity, the human agents display all varieties of character: every shade of virtue and vice is delicately portrayed; pathetic scenes are multiplied; the tendernesses of domestic life are brought prominently forward; mixed motives and conflicting passions are skilfully analyzed. Consequently the plays of Euripides are more rich in stirring incidents than those of his predecessors. What we lose in gravity and unity is made up for by versatility. Euripides, to use a modern phrase, is more sensational than either Æschylus or Sophocles. Aristotle called him #tragikôtatos#, by which he probably meant that he was most profuse of touching and exciting scenes.