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It was urged against the Thebans that they overturned the altar at Aulis and scattered the sacrifice, and also that Androkleides and Amphitheus, having been bribed by Persia to induce all the Greek states to attack the Lacedæmonians, had invaded the Phokian territory and laid it waste.
Further, I have to mention that a new edition of the "Iphigenia in Aulis" of Euripides has once more turned my attention to that incomparable Greek poet. Of course, his great and unique talent excited my admiration as of old, but what has now mainly attracted me is the element, as boundless as it is potent, in which he moves.
Last of all there was the herd of literary men in search of inspiration men who could write and yet knew not what to write: like the Greeks at Aulis, they were becalmed and could make no progress, and sat impatiently waiting for a kindly wind from any quarter to come and belly out their sails.
Reality matters little in such work; the facts of life are like Helen's wraith, when they become unmanageable they vanish into thin air. About 412 the Iphigeneia in Tauris appeared. South Russia was the seat of a cult of Artemis; the goddess spirited Iphigeneia to the place when her father sacrificed her at Aulis.
He repeated it in the profoundest manner: "Sirius! And is there," he asked, "a feminine scintilla of sense in that?" "It is the name of the star I was thinking of, dear papa." "It was the star observed by King Agamemnon before the sacrifice in Aulis. You were thinking of that? But, my love, my Iphigenia, you have not a father who will insist on sacrificing you."
And when he told her that his country was Argos, she asked him many things, as about Troy, and Helen, and Calchas the prophet, and Ulysses; and at last she said, "And Achilles, son of Thetis of the sea, is he yet alive?" "He is dead and his marriage that was made at Aulis is of no effect." "A false marriage it was, as some know full well."
I have discussed and given an accurate account of all that relates to this in a special article on 'Gluck's Overture to Iphigenia in Aulis' and I only wish to add here that the musician who made such strange comments on this occasion was Ferdinand Hiller.
During this period he also composed the Love-feast of the Apostles, and did a bit of mending to Gluck's Iphigenia in Aulis. But, though scheming many things, he seemed by no means sure of his road at first. With Schröder-Devrient, the singer, and others, he discussed lengthily the question of whether he should attempt another Rienzi or go on from the Dutchman.
More than this, the chiefs of almost every state have already sworn to aid you. We have but to call upon them, and remind them of their oaths, and the mightiest warriors of our land will take up arms against the power of Troy." After nearly ten years of preparation, the princes and warriors of Greece gathered their ships and men together at Aulis, ready to make war upon Troy.
It was as it were but yesterday or the day before that the Achaians' ships were gathering in Aulis, freighted with trouble for Priam and the Trojans; and we round about a spring were offering on the holy altars unblemished hecatombs to the immortals, beneath a fair plane-tree whence flowed bright water, when there was seen a great portent: a snake blood-red on the back, terrible, whom the god of Olympus himself had sent forth to the light of day, sprang from beneath the altar and darted to the plane-tree.
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