THE HERACLEIDAE
to this point [the prayer of lolaus] I am telling you what I
saw; for what followed, I am telling you what they tell me."
Note that no rejuvenated lolaus returns to the stage. The go-
ing forth to battle of lolaus is indisputably comic, though it
is that tragic funniness that makes old age so cruel (Aeschylus
with Cilissa in The Libation Bearers, the Prophetess in The
Eumenides). As so often, Euripides has tried to cram too
much into one play, to move in too many directions at once;
but he has made livelier what started as a most conventional
piece.
One feature of the play is the supernumerary male children
of Heracles. They are on stage, presumably, from start to
finish, though they say nothing. The play is named from them,
not, as usually, from the chorus or a principal character.
Neither the daughter of Heracles nor the herald is named in
the text. The names Macaria and Copreus are in the ancient
dramatis personae. The latter comes from the Iliad. The
scene is at Marathon, on the coast of Attica.