been left behind. But the fact that the chorus in the same poet’s _Helen_ is irremediably left in the lurch after the same fashion (see pp. 160 f., above) implies that this was a lesser consideration. Again, toward the close of Euripides’ _Suppliants_, Adrastus has vowed the eternal gratitude of Argos to Athens for having secured the return of her slain. But the appearance of Athena at vs. 1183 makes her a witness to this, and her demand that Adrastus’ promise be ratified by an oath converts it into a sacred obligation. But after all these are only occasional motives, while a more important result is obtained again and again. In the _Iphigenia_, Euripides took advantage of Athena’s presence to have her foretell the heroine’s later career and final decease in Attica. It is unnecessary to point out that the presence of a divinity was highly serviceable and appropriate for such a purpose. We have already seen (p. 259, above) that exactly the same situation obtains in the _Andromache_. In this way the poet was enabled to burst through the restricting influences which caused the normal observance of the unities of time and place and to include other days and other places within the purview of his play. Frequently there is included in this an aetiological explanation of rites which were observed in the dramatist’s own day. Thus in Euripides’ _Hippolytus_ (vss. 1423 ff.), Artemis promises that the maidens of Troezen will perform certain ceremonies in honor of the hero’s sufferings, and in the _Iphigenia among the Taurians_ (vss. 1446 ff.), Athena enjoins upon Orestes to establish the temple and worship of Artemis Tauropolos at Brauron in Attica. It would take too long to examine here every instance of the deus ex machina in Euripides. For that I must refer the reader to Professor Decharme’s interesting discussion.[362] Suffice it to state that in every case the element of prediction is brought into play. This appears even in the _Orestes_, the only piece in which the theophany is frankly and undisguisedly employed to provide Euripides with a dénouement. Orestes and Electra stand condemned to death for having murdered their mother. Being disappointed in the hope of receiving succor from their uncle, Menelaus, they determine to punish him for his recreancy by slaying Helen and to hold his daughter Hermione as a hostage in order to force him to secure the recall of the decree against them. Helen has now supposedly been slain, Menelaus stands angry and baffled before the bolted doors, Orestes with his sword at Hermione’s throat taunts him from the palace roof. If any regard is to be paid to verisimilitude or human psychology, no reconciliation between these conflicting elements is possible; but at this moment Apollo appears, and his fiat (see p. 293) resolves every feud. The god goes beyond this, however, and in typical fashion predicts (or ordains) the later career of each character.