Fig. 1 Orestes at Delphi, Python Painter, Paestan Red-Figure, circa 345 BCE, British Museum, London (1)
In the Oresteia of Aeschylus (c. 525-455 BCE), his "last and greatest work", (2) Greek literature develops the new kind of justice – marked by reason, juried decision and extenuating circumstances – that eventually superseded the chthonic justice of simplistic vengeance pursued by the mythical Furies (Erinyes), in some way paralleling the legendary precedent of Solon’s (c. 638-558 BCE) legal reforms (3) over Draco (c. 640-20 BCE) and his Draconian harsh legal tradition in Athens. According to Plato (Protagoras 342e-343b), Solon is upheld as one of the legendary Seven Sages of Greece.
Among many other ideas Aeschylus seems to examine in his dramatic tragic trilogy (Agamemnon, Libation Bearers and Eumenides), he might be probing what kind of laws and punishments appear to follow different types of homicide. One of the playwright’s questions may also be whether his Greek society rightly prioritized types of homicide: could one homicide trump another in terms of severity? How could one ultimately find justice in punishing violent crime and where will it all end? Are there ever extenuating circumstances in a violent crime? This is one of the first literary inklings of the rational basis of modern law, however tenuous it may appear to us.
Fig. 2. W.-A. Bouguereau. The Remorse of Orestes, 1862. 227 x 278 cm. Chrysler Collection, Norfolk, Virginia
There is at least one triangulation of familial relationships in the Oresteia between father, mother and son, (also implied between father, daughter, mother), as well as another between husband, wife and offspring. This kinship is reduced here in some way to the meme of the nuclear family as the core of society in the polis. Aeschylus also shows that unchecked violence gives birth to further violence, murder begets murder.
First, although the sacrifice of Iphigenia is described in the tragedy (Agamemnon 200-45, 1503-04, 1525-26) - the tragedy is named after him, although ironically it could as easily have been named Clytemnestra since she is by far the more visible protagonist - Agamemnon has allowed their daughter Iphigenia to be sacrificed for his pride (Agamemnon223-24). This is filicide, slaying of a child by the parent.
Second, following and stemming from the death of Iphigenia, in the first play Agamemnon is then "justifiably" murdered (Agamemnon 1340-45) by his angry wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. This is uxoricide, slaying of a spouse.
Third, their son Orestes - conspiring with his sister Electra - kills his mother Clytemnestra,matricide in Greek society (Libation Bearers 990-95 ff.) because she slew his father. But Aeschylus may suggest this murder may have been seen by some Greeks as mitigated by Apollo's complicity in ordering it (Eumenides 83-84, 594).
Although we do not really see them earlier through the other murders as Aeschylus portrays them, the Erinyes or Furies immediately spring up from the earth after Orestes to hunt him down (Libation Bearers 1048-50). One of them is Tisiphone, specifically the “Avenger of Homicide”, her name literally meaning that very task, like a bloodhound as she tracks the smell of blood (Eumenides 245-47). In the Oresteia, they are Gorgon-like and described as such (Eumenides 47-49).
This is roughly where the Eumenides begins. Even if Apollo has ordered Orestes to punish his mother with death (Eumenides 83-84, 594) – because Clytemnestra has putatively contaminated the family even further in her allotted social role by killing her husband (Agamemnon 1400-01, 1407-14, 1426-30)- nonetheless Orestes is mercilessly hunted by the Furies and flees to Delphi for refuge and purification. Here Apollo informs him the Furies are at least as great as he is; he is a later Olympian, implying they are earlier, more powerful Titans, so he cannot merely call them off (Eumenides 70-73). Instead Apollo tells Orestes to go to Athens for sanctuary. Orestes then obeys Apollo, fleeing to Athens for refuge, with the Furies hot on his trail, where he implores Athena, goddess of wisdom, to intercede on his behalf.
Why do the Furies not visibly pursue Agamemnon or Clytemnestra in the tragic trilogy? Although Cassandra sees their invisible force around the palace in more than mere prolepsis, because her prophecies are cursed in never being believed, Clytemnestra cannot see this warning. Yet why do the Furies appear fully embodied to actively pursue only Orestes? Is it partly possible that Clytemnestra and Orestes are linked by blood, the domain of the Furies, through her womb and her blood in birth, unlike the others? Or is there something far more primal in their vengeance? In their own words put in their collective mouth by Aeschylus, whether he truly agrees or not, Clytemnestra was "not of the same blood as Agamemnon" (therefore less culpable?) but Orestes slew his mother "that nearest bond, a mother's blood" (Eumenides 605-08). This relationship may also render Clytemnestra less culpable for killing Agamemnon in their eyes, not the least because Iphigenia was also thus closer to her mother than her father by the same blood argument. Orestes asks if he is blood kin to his mother, and the Furies seem to answer in the affirmative. How much of this reflects a contemporary or earlier Greek view is difficult to establish, but it certainly has a bearing on the tragic trilogy, one of whose dominant themes is "blood guilt". One can find a likely paronomasic word play in Agamemnon between guilt or "error" (in Aeschylus' Greek ‘αμαρτων hamarton) and "blood" (Greek ‘αιματος haimatos) only one line apart in Agamemnon 214-15. Whether or not the patriarchalisms of the text are justifiable or what the whole story meant in its own time is a whole separate problem, but one amply discussed in Komar, especially in terms of patriarchal vs. matriarchal tensions in the trilogy and Greek society at large seen through the lens of this and related Classical literature. (4)
Finally in the remainder of the Eumenides, taking place at the newly initiated Areopagus ("Mars Hill") court at Athens, Orestes’ trial by a jury of twelve men ensues against the angry demands of the Furies. Apollo comes in the precedent role as advocate, witnessing he has purged his suppliant Orestes of blood (Eumenides 577-79). (5) A hung jury results in equal votes for and against Orestes. Athena herself casts the deciding vote in favor of Orestes (Eumenides 734-44). From this point forward, hung juries should be acquittals to protect the potentially innocent if insufficient compelling evidence is shown. Thereafter after a reasoned speech by the gods, especially Athena, the Erinyes-Furies will be euphemistically known as the “Kindly Ones” (Εὐμενίδες) "retired", but only if they agree, persuaded by her wisdom, to a cave shrine made to them under the Acropolis, which finally appeases them (Eumenides1043-45).
In the second work of art above, Figure 2, by W.-A. Bouguereau (circa 1862), The Remorse of Orestes, Orestes flees from the murder of his mother Clytemnestra (his knife is seen in her breast). He is pursued by the foul and ugly Furies, always angry, and whose unkempt hair is writhing with snakes because they represent chthonicity, “earth power” (fromchthonos, χθονος) derived in or under the earth where snakes reside. Orestes covers his ears from their terrifying screams that will make anyone mad whom they pursue, their potent immediate effect seen in his eyes. They will range the earth after their prey and generally carry burning torches or snakes, just as the artist Rubens has also earlier depicted the Fury Tisiphone in his Tarquin and Lucretia of 1610. (6) Bouguereau has added another iconographic detail for the Furies: their breasts are often suggested as having purplish dark nipples, heavy and taut as if in passion, because the smell of human blood gives them joy (Eumenides 253). It is a night scene because they are the "Children of Night" (Eumenides 322, 416).
In the first work of art above, Figure 1, attributed to the Python Painter (circa 345 BCE), a Paestan red-figure late Classical vase, the scene depicts two conflated venues of Oresteia, Delphi and Athens, although mostly Delphi. The fugitive Orestes - holding the murder weapon in his right hand - crouches for sanctuary at the omphalos or navel stone of Apollo at Delphi, which he bloodies with the gore of homicide (Eumenides 43-44). At his left (our right) is Apollo himself holding a laurel branch. To the right of Orestes (our left) is Athena, to whom he looks and will soon flee in the next development of narrative at Athens. Above and between Orestes and Athena is the tripod of Apollo at Delphi. Above and behind Athena, who stands with one foot on her boundary stone of Athens, where Orestes will be safe at least until judgment, is most likely the ghost or shade of his dead mother Clytemnestra (top left), egging on the Furies (Eumenides 114-16). Above the tripod of Apollo is one Fury, with another Fury next to Apollo, at whom the god gazes. Some suggest instead this winged figure on the far lower right is instead a Nike, winged goddess of victory. If it is truly a snake above her head, however, arguable to some, it should be a Fury. It is clear that the duet of framing gods protect Orestes from the Furies, who are always iconographically depicted with snakes to represent their chthonicity in death-avenging associations. The Delphic moment is depicted near the opening of the Eumenides,(80-175 & ff) a climactic episode where it is still indeterminate which justice will prevail, the old avenging justice of the Furies or the new rational justice of Apollo, god of reason, and Athena, goddess of wisdom. The proleptic Athens moment presupposes the impending trial where Orestes will be acquitted on a "hung jury" vote, which rule Athena imposes and then reinforces by casting the final vote herself for Orestes, a triumph of new law over old.
Notes:
(1) British Museum GR 1917.12-10.1, Python Painter, Paestan Red-Figure (Italian) circa 345 BCE.
(2) H. J. Rose. A Handbook of Greek Literature. Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy Carducci (originally Methuen, 1950), 1996, 154.
(3) R. J. Hopper. The Early Greeks. New York: Harper and Row, 1977, 190
(4) Kathleen Komar. Reclaiming Klytemnestra: Revenge or Reconciliation. University of Illinois Press, 2003, esp. 139& ff.
(5) See Rush Rehm. Greek Tragic Theater. New York, London: Routledge, 1994, 97-104
(6) Elizabeth McGrath. Rubens' Subjects From History II. Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, Part XIII (1), vol. II London: Harvey Miller, 1997, 226-27; Patrick Hunt. Roman Use of the Rape of Lucretia and Artists’ Mythic Reuse: Where Britten’s Opera Departs and Returns. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Opera Theater, 2008.
Photo Credits: Figure 1, courtesy of British Museum, London; Fig. 2 public domain, both in Wikimedia.
Copyright © 2009 Dr. Patrick Hunt
Stanford University
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