In Æschylus's _Agamemnon_, we have the expiation of the crime of Atreus for enforcing cannibalism on his brother. There are several passages dealing with the crime. Ægisthus describes in detail how his father Thyestes ate the flesh of his own children and how he vomited when he was told what he had done. When Cassandra, who returns with Agamemnon, in her insane ravings is telling of the punishment to befall Clytemnestra she has a vision of the old feast of the children. The Chorus also tells about the story. All this shows the horror which was inspired by a deed, the eating of one's children, and this must mean that way back in antiquity this act was practised and that the Greeks were now describing the act as revolting. There are several other stories of enforced cannibalism in ancient literature with revenge as the motive. Herodotus tells us how the King of the Medes punished Harpagus for not killing Cyrus by making Harpagus dine on the flesh of his own son. This was in the sixth century B. C. Tereus, King of the Thracians, was served up his son by the latter's own mother, because Tereus dishonoured his sister-in-law, Philomela, and deprived her of her tongue. In one of Grimm's fairy tales, _The Juniper Tree_, we have the story of a man who is given the flesh of his own child by his wife, the child's step-mother. Seneca in the first century A. D. wrote _Thyestes_, dramatising all the repulsive episodes, describing the preparing of the children for the feast and the feast itself. The most loathsome theme is made the main idea of the story. Shakespeare has a scene in _Titus Andronicus_ where Titus makes the wicked Tamora eat the heads of her two sons baked in a pie. Crebillon wrote a cannibalistic play in the 18th century, _Atrée et Thyeste_. The tale of Saturn, who swallowed his children when they were born so as not to be dethroned in accordance with the prophecy, with the result that he was compelled to disgorge them later by Zeus, has its parallels in folk-lore among the Bushmen, Eskimos and others. It is a very old story. Freud saw in the Œdipus legend the horror reaction of the Greeks to two legendary deeds, the killing of a father and the marrying of the mother by the son, deeds which had their basis in reality and which were occasionally repeated in dreams. Similarly we can see in the Atreus legend a reaction to the idea of eating one's children, an act that used to accompany the offering of human sacrifices. But we cannot say that the cannibalistic instinct affects one's future as the Œdipus complex does. It is, however, part of our unconscious. The effectiveness of Swift's famous satirical proposition to help the poor in Ireland by suggesting that they sell the flesh of their own children for food to the rich, is due to the fact that children's flesh was actually once eaten. Swift wrote his essay with ironical intent but he was utilising an ancient historical fact, unknowingly.