Justice in the Oresteia Aeschylus was a

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

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parent. The Furies are transformed into the more peaceful Eumenides û but only after Athene intervenes to assuage their dissatisfaction with the result of the trial. Central to the ôOresteiaö is the Greek concept of justice. How should crime be punished? Only by socially sanctioned retaliatory murder? In terms of this story, whose right of revenge is paramount, ClytemnestraÆs or OrestesÆ? Holly (2000) sees a change in the concept of justice by Aeschylus at the end of the Eumenides from blood feud and revenge to a kind of trial by jury, even though the male-biased Athene casts the decisive vote in favour of Orestes: ôAeschylus does wind up the story at the end of the Eumenides, by changing its rules. The end of the Oresteia is not the end of the story that begins in the Agamemnon but rather the beginning of a new story that has a different system of justice in mindö. Part of the genius of Aeschylus is in showing how each characterÆs interests or emotional state prevent them from seeing the legitimacy of their antagonistÆs point of view. Neither Orestes nor his sister Electra can appreciate the depth of hatred aroused in their mother Clytemnestra by their fatherÆs sacrifice of Iphigenia. In their blindness to her feelings they
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Approximate Word count = 1334
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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