fitted by his various gifts to be the forefather of so accomplished a people as the patron of music, poetry, medicine, and prophecy? To set before his fellow-citizens, as well as the strangers and allies who sat in the Dionysiac theatre, the pedigree of the Ionians, and consequently of the Athenians also, Euripides probably composed his "Ion."
Creusa is the daughter of Erectheus, an old autochthonic king of Athens. She has borne a son to Apollo, but through fear of her parents was compelled to leave him, immediately after his birth, in a cave under the Acropolis. The divine father, however, does not abandon the infant, but employs Mercury to transport him to Delphi, and to deposit him on the steps of the temple, where he knows the babe will be cared for. One of the vestals—apparently even then middle-aged, since she is old in the play—finds Ion, and fulfils his sire's expectations. She has, indeed, her own thoughts on the matter, but keeps them to herself until a convenient season comes for disclosing them. In the Delphian temple the foundling receives an education resembling that of the infant Samuel. He thus describes his functions:—
"My task, which from my early infancy
Hath been my charge, is with these laurel boughs
And sacred wreaths to cleanse the vestibule
Of Phœbus, on the pavements moistening dews
To rain, and with my bow to chase the birds
Which would defile the hallowed ornaments.
A mother's fondness and a father's care
I never knew; the temple of the god
Claims then my service, for it nurtured me."
