In the August number of this Review Mr. Rouse asks the questions 'What good purpose can be served by an exercise which is half wrong?' and 'How can any real literary feeling be present in one who knows no more of accidence and idiom than to produce such a thing?' Then follows a sketch of the oral method applied to Latin teaching with a view to raising the present low standard of composition.

Now I wish to point out that in the questions above quoted and in the method proposed, there lurks a dubious assumption: dubious, first, because it is not clear; but secondly, because even if it were clear it is probably inadequate. If we judge what the assumption is by the method proposed, it would be that the object of teaching Latin is to give boys a power of using the language. If we judge from the questions asked, or rather from the second of them, there seems to be a different object assumed, viz. to cultivate a real literary feeling.' This is not at all the same thing as giving power to use the language, and it seems to me axiomatic that till we are clear about the object in view we shall never agree upon the methods to be adopted. Moreover, even if both these objects are allowed to be legitimate, there is another, very commonly spoken of, quite

NO. CLXXXVIII. VOL. XXI.

different from either; and Mr. Rouse has not shown us if he is considering it at all: I mean the theory that Latin is taught because it is invaluable as an instrument to stimulate clearness of thought: in short as a 'gymnastic.'

In the well-known Essays on a Liberal Education, one of the writers plaintively, but truly, remarked that we have not yet made up our minds whether we read Latin authors for the sake of learning the language or learn the language in order to read the authors. To these two theories the Gymnastic' has recently been added. recently been added. But what has escaped notice is that as long as Latin teachers do not make clear to themselves and to each other what they are aiming at, so long they are certain to produce feeble results because they will be more or less spoiling each other's work.

This can be illustrated by the fate of the proposal for oral Latin teaching in our secondary schools. Such teaching is I believe very rare, partly no doubt because it demands a considerable fluency on the part of the master, partly because many masters are aiming at something else than giving command of the language, viz. either at cultivating a literary taste, or at training to think. It is possible that a teacher who is aiming at the literary sense may hail the oral method

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as a useful means to his end. He may say to himself 'these boys will never appreciate Virgil till they can read him easily; and to give the power of easy reading the oral method is excellent.' But suppose he is aiming at the gymnastic training of the mind, will his attitude be anything like so favourable? I doubt it. For the question now resolves itself into this :-Granted that clearness of thought, logical training in short, is the chief object of Latin teaching, do you give it as well by oral teaching as by the traditional method of exercises and construing? Many masters instinctively feel, I should say, that you do not. And if they feel that, they will not be eager about the oral method. And as the believers in the gymnastic theory are very numerous the oral method fares badly, and will fare badly unless it can be shown to assist the gymnastic training.

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Now this is just where the difficulty lies. Some wise man, I forget who it was, remarked that the most superficial thinkers of his acquaintance were diplomats, who had been trained to acquire languages by the ear. And I think we should agree that if the oral method were perfectly applied, the result, if successful, would be a deceptive command of the language deceptive, I mean, because it would represent very much less 'sweat of the brain' than a similar command given by the other method. A boy who can turn an English conditional sentence into Latin by ear has gained something no doubt in the process of learning how to do so; but it is something very different from, and I should say inferior to, that gained by the patient learner who has analysed the sentence, and wrestled with the ambiguities of should, would, might, etc, etc., in which our language abounds.

(1) It cannot seriously be maintained that the number of 'gymnasticists' is small. I mean those who defend the teaching of Latin mainly on the ground of the logical training it gives. It is no doubt amazing how strong is the tendency among educated men to go on working without asking themselves what it is all about. But it is impossible to listen to any discussion or follow any controversy in the public press without inferring that every educational subject, Latin among the rest, is chiefly defended on the score of its 'training' power; and training means training to think. (2) I think there is some force in this contention. It would follow from it that the oral method is chiefly needed for the less gifted boys, and of course it should not be the only one employed. We are in sore need of some psychology of the 'dunce' as we call him. What has his mind been doing before it produces a hopeless piece of composition? Speaking cautiously on a difficult question I would say that the failure is not due to the subject, but to the simple fact that at school 'dunces' are hurried along too fast. They are never allowed to see that their own work is an exemplification of law successfully applied to various phenomena, and long before they can do simple things well, they are turned on to more complex problems, and flounder along never really perceiving when they are out of their depth or not. This tragedy is partly due to large classes, partly to examinations; and if Mr. Rouse's method is applied to boys on the brink of the vast quagmire, I think it may be useful. To mediocre boys it might give an appearance of progress, but it would not necessarily mean progress in thought so much as in fluency.

There is more that might be said which I must suppress; but Mr. Rouse's question 'What good purpose can be served by an exercise which is half wrong?' demands a last word. It is very often forgotten that in the case of quite ths of our pupils such an exercise as Latin prose is only defensible on the ground that it trains the thinking powers, not at all because the boys are going some day to write prose like Cicero. But if we use Latin composition as a 'gymnastic' for a mediocre or dull boy with no sense

of idiom, obviously the performance may and will be very poor as to its results, but yet the gymnastic may be quite as successful as the state of the case permits. Why should we confuse the 'gymnastic' with the 'literary' aim? I cannot see that for many English

boys Latin composition has much to do with. their literary sense. If they have any such sense, of which there is often no evidence, it should be trained by English teaching and learning good poetry.

E. LYTTELTON.

In this paper I propose to inquire whether the scene of the Second Act of the Eumenides is rightly laid on the Acropolis and at the Erechtheum, as has been universally held, and as it was recently represented in the splendid performance of the play at Cambridge, or whether we must look for some other site which is more in keeping with the conditions of the trial of Orestes. It will at once be said, What objections are there to the traditional view-that the Acropolis is the true scene of the trial? That was the most famous spot in Athens, and on it stood the oldest temple of Athena, already known in Homeric days. Yet the difficulties of this view will be obvious as soon as they are stated. In the first place, though there were in Athens four localities all intimately associated with trials of persons charged with homicide, not one of these was situated on the Acropolis, though it is true weapons and other inanimate objects which had shed the blood of men or of oxen were tried in the Prytaneum, the ancient residence of the Archon Eponymus on the north slope of the Acropolis. Secondly, though in the play Orestes is represented as taking sanctuary at a shrine of Pallas, and as taking in his arms her ancient ẞpéras, there is not the slightest evidence that any image of the goddess Athena on the Acropolis, whether ancient or recent, offered an asylum to those who fled before the avenger of blood. Thirdly, in the play the goddess is always termed Pallas by the Pythian Priestess, by Apollo, and by the Furies in dialogue, though on two occasions Orestes does certainly address her as Athena, and she is so termed by the Furies twice in choral parts. Yet we know for certain, both by literary tradition.

and from inscriptions, that the goddess who dwelt in the strong house of Erechtheus' on the Acropolis was never called Pallas, but was invariably known either as the Polias, or as Athena (or Athenaia) Polias.1

On the other hand I propose to show that (1) there was a very ancient tribunal (if not the most ancient at Athens) for cases of homicide, more especially for that class of homicide to which Orestes pleaded guilty, situated outside the city wall to the southeast of the Acropolis; (2) that there was here a most ancient wooden image (έóavov) to which those whose hands were reddened with the blood of their fellow men might fly to avoid the instant vengeance of the pursuer ; and (3) that this image was never known by the name of Athena or Athenaia, but always by that of Pallas or Palladion.

Now as there were five different localities in or near Athens closely connected from of old with trials for bloodshed, it is most unlikely that Aeschylus would in this play lay the scene of the trial at any spot other than one of those associated in the popular mind from time immemorial with the trial of homicide. This is all the more unlikely since he represents the first tribunal for the trial of that crime as instituted for the trial of Orestes, whilst he also refers to the establishment on the Hill of Ares of a great council (βουλευτήριον) which was not only to try cases of deliberate murder, but also to keep ward and control over the public morals.2

1 Cf. Frazer's note on Paus. i. 26. 5.
2 Eum. 684 sqq.

κλύοιτ' ἂν ἤδη θεσμόν, Αττικός λεώς,
πρώτας δίκας κρίνοντες αἵματος χυτοῦ.
ἔσται δὲ καὶ τὸ λοιπὸν Αἰγέως στρατῷ
ἀεὶ δικαστῶν τοῦτο βουλευτήριον.

Down to the time of Pausanias 1 (A.D. 180) there still survived at Athens five tribunals for cases of bloodshed. (1) There. was the Areopagus, which sat on the famous hill that rises on the west over against the Acropolis. Here were tried cases of deliberate murder, wounding with malice, arson, and poisoning. (2) To the south-east of the Acropolis, outside the wall, lay an ancient shrine called the Palladion, so named from a very ancient image of Pallas, which tradition variously declared to have been brought from Ilium, or to have fallen from heaven, or else to have been set up by Athena in her repentance for having killed her playmate Pallas. Here sat the court known as the τὸ ἐπὶ Παλλαδίῳ, where were tried those who had committed involuntary homicide (τοῖς ἀποκτείνασιν ἀκουσίως). Nobody denies that Demophon was the first person tried here,' but there is a difference of opinion as to the crime for which he was tried, i.e. whether it was for accidentally killing Argives by mistake, or for accidentally trampling an Athenian under his horse's feet in the dark. (3) There was the court known as the Delphinion, also situated on the east side of the Acropolis and outside the city wall. It was a shrine of Apollo of Delphi, and in it were tried cases of justifiable homicide, e.g. those who had slain an adulterer taken in the act. 'On such a plea Theseus was acquitted when he had slain the rebel Pallas and his sons. But the custom was in former days, before the acquittal of Theseus, that every manslayer either fled the country, or, if he stayed, was slain even as he slew.' it will soon be seen that the court probably owed its name to an older legend. (4) At Phreattys, on a tongue of land projecting into the sea at Zea, was held a court to try any manslayer who, during his period of exile, might have committed another crime of the same character. The judges sat on the shore, whilst the accused was literally docked in a boat moored off the beach, that he might not pollute with the miasma of his guilt the land of Attica. (5) In the Prytaneum, as already stated, weapons, especially the axe with which was slain the ox at the Buphonia, were tried.

1 i. 28. 8-12.

If it be said that Pausanias does not refer to the trial of Orestes as having taken place at the Palladion, and consequently that this shrine cannot be the true scene of the act, I may at once point out that there is the same objection to the Areopagus, for Pausanias * says that that court was first established to try Ares for the murder of Halirrhothius, and makes no mention of the trial of Orestes at all.

Aeschylus gives us a totally different account of the establishment of the first tribunal for manslayers, but as he wrote some six centuries and a half before Pausanias, we are justified in assuming that his statement represents a far older legend than those of Pausanias, and accordingly we may leave on one side the latter's account of the first cases supposed to have been tried at the Palladion, the Delphinion, and the Areopagus. Originally the judges in all these five courts for bloodshed were the ancient body called the Ephetae. The King archon presided and probably with the fifty Ephetae made up the Fifty and One, a term by which the body was likewise known. According to Pollux the Ephetae were constituted by Draco. Up to that time the Basileus had investigated and tried all cases of bloodshed, but Draco referred such to the Fifty and One, and from this reference of such cases Pollux ascribes the origin of their name Ephetae. But like so many other provisions in Draco's enactments the body had only been reconstituted, having really existed from time immemorial. The fact that they were selected on the ground of high birth (ἀριστίνδην αἱρεθέντας) of itself indicates that they were a survival from oligarchic and monarchical times. It is highly probable that in the Ephetae presided over by the Archon Basileus (himself the shadow of the ancient king) we have the survival of the ancient Gerusia or Boule. This view will be found to be quite in accord with certain statements of Aeschylus.

By Solon's reforms the Ephetae were replaced on the Areopagus by a body consisting of ex-archons, though jurisdiction in the

minor courts was still left to them. Aristotle 1 speaks as if they still continued to sit in these down to his day, but there is evidence that by the end of the fifth century B.C. ordinary dicasts sat in the Delphinion and Palladion, for we hear of seven hundred dicasts, a number inconsistent with the Fifty and One. Pollux 2 tells us that gradually the tribunal of the Ephetae was laughed to death.

It is clear that with the courts of Phreattys and of the Prytaneum we have nothing to do in our present inquiry. The Areopagus, the Palladion, and the Delphinion therefore remain as the three possible scenes for the asylum and trial of Orestes, unless we make the wild assumption that the dramatist laid the scene of the trial at some spot never associated either in fact or tradition with trials for homicide. It is useless to urge that the dramatists are not at all particular as to the spot in which a scene is laid. For though this may be so when an Attic dramatist is composing a play the scene of which is laid at Troy, at Argos, or at Thebes, he certainly would not expose himself to ridicule and criticism from his Attic audience when dramatising a legend which was indissolubly bound up with one of the courts established for homicide, the very origin of which was ascribed to the trial of Orestes.

Let us consider what are the conditions required for the spot where Orestes was tried. First of all there must be a most ancient image of the goddess. Secondly, it must be an image to which manslayers actually fled as suppliants when they could plead that the act was involuntary, as urged by Orestes in his own defence, or that it was justifiable, as was pleaded on his behalf by Apollo. Thirdly, this image ought to bear the name of Pallas and not that of Athena, for Apollo at Delphi orders Orestes to 'go to the city of Pallas and take your suppliant seat there embracing in your arms her ancient image. And there having judges to decide on these matters, and arguments in palliation of your crime, we will find means to relieve you from your troubles, for it was even in obedience to me that you slew that body which gave you birth.' Then

1 Ath. Pol. c. 57. 2 viii. 125.

Apollo tells the Eumenides that Pallas will see justice done at the trial of Orestes. Fourthly, on that spot ought to sit the most ancient tribunal for trying homicide that was known at Athens, for Athena declares that the case of Orestes is too serious for one to decide, and therefore she will institute a thesmos to deal with such cases, who are to be the noblest of her citizens.3 These last words seem especially to apply to the Ephetae, who, as we have just seen, were chosen åpτívdηv. Moreover, when Athena says that the case of Orestes is too great. for one to decide, we seem to have a direct allusion to the tradition preserved in Pollux that 'in old days the king heard cases of bloodshed, but that Draco established the court of Ephetae.' Furthermore, this oldest court for homicide cannot be one for deliberate murder, but only for the trials of those who could plead extenuating circumstances.

ἀριστίνδην.

Let us examine the respective claims of all the three competitors beginning with the Delphinion. As this was the shrine of the Apollo of Delphi, it is inconceivable that there would be in it a most ancient image of Pallas, such as that at which Orestes took sanctuary and which he clasped in his arms. For assuredly the object of adoration in the Delphinion would have been a statue of Apollo and not that of the goddess. Moreover, this shrine of Apollo was not an immemorial place of veneration, as is fully shown by its name, for it represents that particular form of cult connected with Apollo at Delphi, and accordingly we must regard it as adventitious at Athens. As Apollo based his defence of Orestes on the ground that he was justified in slaying his mother to avenge his father, it would appear that trials of those who pleaded justification for their shedding of blood, such as those who had slain an adulterer taken in the act, or those who had slain others in self-defence, as in the mythical case of Theseus, were associated with this shrine, because Apollo was supposed to have first laid down at Athens in the case of Orestes the principle that intentional homicide could be justified.

3 Eum. 465: κρίνασα δ ̓ ἀστῶν τῶν ἐμῶν τὰ βέλτατα.