the Dionysian Festival. On waking, he found himself endowed with
genius: beset inwardly with tremendous thoughts, and words to
clothe them in; so that the work became as easy to him as if he
had been trained to it for years.

He competed first in 499--against Choerilos and Pratinas, older
poets--and was defeated; and soon afterwards sailed for Sicily,
where he remained for seven years. The dates of Pythagoras are
surmised, not known; Plumptre, with a query, gives 497 for his
death. I wonder whether, in the last years of his life, that
great Teacher met this young Aeschylus from Athens; whether the
years the latter spent in Sicily on this his first visit there,
were the due seven years of his Pythagorean probation and
initiation? "Veniat Aeschylus," says Cicero, "non poeta solum,
sed etiam Pythagoreus: sic enim accepimus ";--and we may accept
it too; for that was the Theosophical Movement of the age;
and he above all others, Pythagoras having died, was the great
Theosophist. They had the Eleusinian Mysteries at Athens, and
Most of the prominent Athenians must have been initiated
into them--since that was the State Religion; but Aeschylus
alone in Athens went through life clothed in the living power
of Theosophy.

Go to the life of such a man, if you want big clues as to the
inner history of his age;--the life of Aeschylus, I think, can
interpret for us that of Athens. There are times when the
movement of the cycles is accelerated, and you can see the
great wheel turning; this was one. Aeschylus had proudly
distinguished himself at Marathon; and Athens, as the highest
honor she could do him for that, must have his portrait appear in