Oresteia V: The Eumenides–the Conclusion by Thomas Fleming • December 31, 2008 • Printer-friendly

Before going on the Eumenides , let us reflect a little on the theme.  The Greeks regarded homicide with awe.  Like Montenegrins and Albanians until recently, the brother or father of a murder victim felt a physical burden.  The would-be avenger could not eat or sleep until revenge had been taken.  The Greeks speak of agos , the pollution that affect an entire community, and the Chorus repeatedly speaks of the fear dripping like blood in the heart.

The pollution that resulted from the killing of a close relative was felt like a physical stain crying out for vengeance.  Like other vengeance–seeking peoples—Medieval Germans, Montenegrins and Albanians until recently, a Greek could not escape the claims of vengeance, and the brother or father of a murder victim felt a physical strain that could not be relieved.  He could not eat or sleep until revenge had been taken.  Greeks speak of agos, the pollution that affect an entire community, and the Chorus repeatedly speaks of the fear dripping like blood in the heart.

Like Anglo-Saxons and Montenegrins, Greeks did have system of blood money and in time, even murder trials.  The family was still ultimately responsible and had to press charges, even in Fifth Century Athens–murder was still more like a civil suit.  Obviously, the principle of vengeance left unchecked pits clan against clan and destroys the social bonds within a commonwealth. But how do we go about this business of taming vengeance, without losing sight of the basic principles?

In Classical Athens the evolving consensus on questions of justice in murder was paralleled by the rise of Athenian democracy.  After the Persian Wars (490-476?) Athens embarked on a radical course of democratization.  The reformers were determined to attack the power of the Areopagus council, a bastion of inherited privilege, first by prosecuting individual members and then by passing a law that stripped the Council (made of of ex-magistrates) of powers, which (according to Aristotle, Ath. Pol, xxv) made it “the safeguard of the commonwealth”

This same Council did, however, retain its right to try homicide cases, and in the aftermath of this constitutional revolution, Aeschylus–aristocrat, war-hero, and poet–wrote his greatest masterpiece.  The plot, as we have seen, concerns a cycle of revenge killings that culminate in a son killing his mother to avenge her murder of his father. Orestes is unable to enjoy his victory, however, because he is driven mad by the revenge-fiends, the Erinyes or Furies, that are born from his mother’s blood.

In the final play, the ominously named Eumenides (the kindly ones), Orestes is advised by Apollo at Delphi (the same god who had told him to kill his mother) to go to Athens and to put himself under the protection of the city’s patron-goddess, Athena.  She sets up a jury-trial on the Areopagus and asks the Athenian citizens to serve as jurors.   Athens, in other words, and its citizens–the politeia–are participants in the play.

The two supernatural parties in the case–Apollo and the Furies–represent contrasting visions of justice.  While the beautiful young god is brash, rationalistic, and “progressive,” the Furies are hideously ugly reactionaries–even the sight of them nauseates the Pythia–who boast of their terrible destructive power:

We delight in the overthrow
of houses, when a homebred Strife
kills a kinsman.         [vv 354-59]

These lines are sung in the binding-song of the Erinyes, the magic spell the weave to capture the soul of Orestes.  This scene–sung and danced by the black-robed monsters–terrified the audience; women were said to have gone into premature labor…..

Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, arrives and expresses her astonishment at the spectacle.  The furies are respectful and explain their function. When they complain that Orestes will not simply take an oath, whether or not he killed his mother–and if he perjures himself he is punished; Athena answers that they pursue justice in name only, that oaths must not be the means by which injustice triumphs.  This is a novel thought for the ladies in black–who must have resembled mourners at a Balkans funeral.

The laws of the Furies, announced repeatedly in the course of the three plays, are simple: blood spilled on the ground cannot be recalled into the body; bloodshed demands more bloodshed; spilled blood, if it is not atoned for by the killer, pollutes him and the community that shelters him.  They cannot understand why these fresh young gods should attempt to shield Orestes from his fate, and when Athena suggests a trial, the Furies predict disaster:

If the verdict goes to the plea and the crime
of this mother-killer.
Acquittal will turn the thoughts of all men
to immoral license.
Then many real blows struck by children
remain to be suffered by parents
in the time coming. [492-98]
In other words, rationalistic justice threatens to unravel the entire social fabric.
When Athena, ultimately, votes for acquittal either breaking or making a tie [scholars dispute the vote], the Furies have threaten to inflict Athens with
poison that drops on the earth
unendurably; and from it
a blight spreading over the ground…
killing leaves and killing children….

In other words, rationalistic justice threatens to unravel the entire social fabric.

When Athena, ultimately, votes for acquittal either breaking or making a tie [scholars dispute the vote], the Furies have threaten to inflict Athens with
poison that drops on the earth
unendurably; and from it
a blight spreading over the ground…
killing leaves and killing children….

Athena, however, realizes that no city can thrive without the support of these ancient goddesses.  Indeed, her charge to the jury [690], noting that on the Areopagaus reverence and fear will keep the citizens from injustice,  echoes their words.   The goddess uses all her powers of persuasion to make them accept her offer and become honorary citizens and resident aliens of Athens.  In gratitude, the Eumenides or “Kindly goddesses” (as they may now be called) promise to shower blessings on their adopted land, and the play closes with a ceremonial procession in which the goddesses take part, dressed in the red robes worn by resident aliens in the procession that marks the great festival of Athena at Athens–Panathenaia, which is commemorated on the Parthenon frieze.  Their joyful red garment will recall the royal crimson fabrics on which Agamemon trampled.  The conflict of  blood is resolved, just as the  imagery is  reversed.
Continuing the allusion to the Panathenaia, the torch procession at the end reflects both torch race run at Panathenaia as well as the  procession of torch lights across the  Aegeanwe hear of  at the  opening of hte Agamemnon.

Athena’s compromise–or something like it–is the legal basis of civilization.  The old laws of blood (very similar to the Germanic codes of the early Middle Ages) had in fact been too severe and uncompromising, but no society, no matter how civilized, can survive, if it is not built on the ancient foundations of kinship and revenge.  Indeed, even in civilized Athens, accidental homicide was punished by exile, unless the killer could come to financial terms with the victim’s family.  Twentieth century man, like Aeschylus’ Apollo, is contemptuous of tradition and prefers to put his trust in his own reason.

Turning our backs on the ties of blood and the demand for vengeance, we have constructed systems of criminal justice that satisfy neither the progressives, who dream of a non-retributive society, nor the ordinary people who continue to cite the lex talionis , an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, as if it were sacred Scripture [wink], and when they are denied or think that their revenge will be frustrated, they are prepared to reassert the ancient privileges of the Furies.

Aeschylus is often regarded as a democratic progressive and supporter of Periclean reforms.  Perhaps he was, thiough I very much doubt it.  He certainly did not live to see the fruits of Pericles’ policies–ruthless imperialism, suicidal war, moral decay.  But it is a moot point.  Whatever he thought of the young statesman, Aeschylus is emphatically drawing a line in the sand around the sacred authority of the Areopagus and the powers of the old religion.  Civilization depends on our ability to domesticate the forces of blood revenge and turn the Erinyes into the Eumenides, kindly ones, but try to deny the dismal reality of the Furies, and you face utter destruction.

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