Aeschylus was a great 5th century playright who plumbed the deepest recesses of the human soul. He was ethically aware as few human beings have ever been, and if he did not come up with solutions for the evil that lurks potentially in every human breast, at least he outlined its extent, described it accurately, and suggested more moral alternatives.
Begun as a religious observance in honour of Dionysus, Greek tragedy reflected the central values of the culture. It was during the short but historically influential reign of Pericles in the 5th century B.C. that Aeschylus wrote the trilogy known as the Oresteia, probably greatest and most quintessential Greek tragedy that has survived from that era. This gripping series of three plays tells of the endless cycles of violence unleashed in the House of Atreus, which stretch across several generations. The curse on the descendants of Atreus is ended only by the intervention of the goddess Athene, described by Aeschylus in the ôEumenidesö, where OrestesÆ trial by jury due her and ApolloÆs intervention restores a much-needed civilizing influence to this classic blood feud.
In ôAgamemnonö the king returns from the Trojan War with his new consort, the clairvoyant prophetess Cassandra, only to be murdered in his bath by his wife Clytemnestra, who hates him for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia to appease the goddess Artemis. In her bitterness she says ôàour child is gone, not standing by our side, the bond of our dearest pledges, mine and yours; by all rights our child should be hereàö (136). In a futher plot wrinkle, she is aided by Aegisthus, son of AtreusÆ brother Thyestes, who has the double motive of avenging AtreusÆ murder of his two brothers, (whom he subsequently fed to Thyestes) and seizing the kingdom of Argos for himself.
The theme of the ôLibation Bearersö recounts the consequences of the oracleÆs decree that Orestes, the young son of Agamemnon, avenge his ...