The most perfect specimens of the Greek drama which time has spared to us, the tragedies of Sophocles now extant, contain, unfortunately, little to my purpose. We shall hereafter see that those plays have been unfortunately lost in which insanity must have been a prominent feature; but it also seems likely that Sophocles was intentionally sparing in his introduction of madness on the stage. We have had one instance of this in the case of Orestes, who is the most prominent mad hero of Æschylus and Euripides, and yet is portrayed by Sophocles as perfectly sane; and the story of Hercules, in its different treatment by Sophocles and Euripides, is another example.