The playwrights solved the totally hopeless situations by a divine intervention in the ancient Greek dramas; the expression quoted in the title was given to this dramatic turn.

There was a lot of criticism of these solutions of dramatists; I have now quoted from Aristotle only:

“In the characters too, exactly as in the structure of the incidents, [the poet] ought always to seek what is either necessary or probable, so that it is either necessary or probable that a person of such-and-such a sort say or do things of the same sort, and it is either necessary or probable that this [incident] happen after that one. It is obvious that the solutions of plots too should come about as a result of the plot itself, and not from a contrivance, as in the Medea and in the passage about sailing home in the Iliad. A contrivance must be used for matters outside the drama—either previous events which are beyond human knowledge, or later ones that need to be foretold or announced. For we grant that the gods can see everything. There should be nothing improbable in the incidents; otherwise, it should be outside the tragedy, e.g., that in Sophocles' Oedipus.”

Aristotle, Poetics (1454a33-1454b9)

I agree with Aristotle but I have several objections against the absolute lack of faith of the divine intervention. Likewise Aristotle did not want to drive the “Deus ex machine” out totally from the artworks, he wished only to put the things onto his right place as it is readable in the above citation.

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