Ita erae meae hodie contigit: nam ubi partuis deos sibi invocat, Strepitus, crepitus, sonitus, tonitrus: subito ut propere, ut valide tonuit. Ubi quisque institerat, concidit crepitu: ibi nescio quis maxuma Voce exclamat: 'Alcumena, adest auxilium, ne time: Et tibi et tuis propitius caeli cultor advenit. Exurgite' inquit 'qui terrore meo occidistis prae metu.' Ut iacui, exurgo: ardere censui aedis: ita tum confulgebant[74]. Nor is there, perhaps, anywhere in ancient literature a nobler realisation of the virtue of womanhood than in the indignant vindication of herself by Alcmena,-- Non ego illam mihi dotem esse duco, quae dos dicitur, Set pudicitiam et pudorem et sedatum cupidinem, Deum metum et parentum amorem et cognatum concordiam, Tibi morigera atque ut munifica sim bonis, prosim probis[75]. On the other hand, it is difficult to understand how the part played by Jupiter, and the comments of Mercury upon that part, should not have shocked the religious and moral sense even of the Athenians of the age of Epicurus and of the Romans in the age when they were first made familiar with the Sacred Chronicle of Euhemerus. Perhaps the Romans made a distinction between the Jupiter of Greek mythology and their own Jupiter Optimus Maximus, and may have thought that what was derogatory to the first did not apply to the second. Or, perhaps, some clue to the origin of the Greek play may be found in a phrase of the Rudens, Non ventus fuit, verum Alcumena Euripidi[76]. Was the Greek writer partly parodying, in accordance with the tradition of the old comedy, partly reproducing a tragedy of Euripides? and was the representation first accepted as a recognised burlesque of a familiar piece? In any case its production both at Athens and Rome must be regarded partly as a symptom, partly as a cause, of the rapid dissolution of religious beliefs among both Greeks and Romans.