The Children of Heracles
Driven from city to city by Eurystheus, the orphaned sons and daughters of Heracles take refuge at an altar in Marathon, where their aged guardian Iolaus asks Athens for asylum against an Argive herald demanding they be handed over. Athens accepts, war follows, and an oracle answers that the battle cannot be won without the death of a virgin. Written early in the Peloponnesian War, it is a frankly patriotic suppliant drama and among the least performed of the surviving plays.
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