The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides by Aeschylus
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Greeks had an intoxicating culture, or at least it seems to us. All of the iniquities and superstitions of the ancient people have been buried or lost, leaving only the perfect skeletons of buildings and the greatest of their literary productions. As a result, they strike us as a race of superpeople. This trilogy certainly furthers this impression, for it is a perfect poetic representation of the birth of justice and ethics out of the primordial law of retaliation.
The most basic ethical principal is loyalty. We are born into a family, establish reciprocal relationships with friends, become a contributing member of a mutually supporting group, and so naturally feel bound to treat this network of people with the proper respect and kindness. But loyalty has several problems. First, one’s family, friends, and group are largely determined by chance—and who is to say that our family and friends are the most worthy? Second, loyalty does not extend outside a very limited group, and so does not preclude the horrid treatment of others. And, as the Greek plays show us, the bounds of loyalty can sometimes cross, putting us in a situation where we must be disloyal to at least one person.
This is the essential problem of Antigone, where the titular character must choose between loyalty to her city or to her dead brother, who betrayed the state. This is also the problem faced by Orestes, who must choose between avenging his father and treating his mother properly. In Sophocles’ play, the problem proves intractable, leading to yet another string of deaths. But Aeschylus shows that by submitting the bonds of loyalty to a higher, impartial court that we can resolve the contradictions and put an end to the endless series of mutual retaliations that loyalty can give rise to.
The rise of judicial procedures, and of concepts of ethics that extend beyond loyalty to fairness, was a crucial step in the rise of complex societies. Aeschylus has given us an immortal dramatization of this epochal step. But, of course, this play is more than a philosophical or historical exercise. It is a work of high drama and poetry, worthy to stand at the first ranks of literature for its aesthetic merit alone. The Greeks continue to enchant.
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