"What is justice? How is it related to vengeance? Can justice be reconciled with the demands of religion, the violence of human feeling, the forces of Fate?

"These questions, which puzzled thoughtful Athenians in the decades after the battle of Marathon, provided the theme for Agamemnon, The Choephori and The Eumenides - those grim tragedies that make up the Oresteian Trilogy. In these plays Aeschylus (525-c.456 BC) takes as his subject the bloody chain of murder and revenge within the royal family of Argos - a chain finally broken by the intervention of the goddess Athene."

(Taken from back of 'Penguin Classics' edition)

My Thoughts

Many tomes have been written analysing these three plays - I will restrict my comments to a purely subjective reaction to them.

As I mentioned in my review of Lucius Apuleius' Transformations, my reading material seems to be taking a reverse chronological trend - in tackling Aeschylus, I have almost hit the limit - not much literature before his work is still extant.

The threesome is set around the second millennium BC, although much of the mythology that forms the root of its plot predates this by several more thousands of years. It is appropriate that the plays are a trilogy, as they tackle three different forms of justice.

In Agamemnon, we are shown Clytemnestra's interpretation of old Chthonian justice (from before the time of Cronos, the age of anarchy), where revenge is required for various impious acts, and the Furies are sent to torment those who would go against this. Clytemnestra slays Agamemnon as he returns in triumph after capturing Troy, tricking him into what she sees as 'just revenge' for his sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia (this sacrifice, incidentally, was prescribed by one of his seers to change unfavourable winds ten years before - perhaps the seer is the one that should have been punished?).

In The Choephori, we are shown the new justice of the 'young gods', as Apollo's Oracular rulings are obeyed by Orestes, Clytemnestra's son, who kills his mother and her lover in a further act of revenge. Unfortunately, this action clashes with the justice of the older deities (the killing of a blood-relation, one's mother, is an act that must be paid for, whilst the killing of a husband, not a blood-relation, according to the Furies, is of no consequence), and the play ends with Orestes fleeing from the Furies.

In the final play, The Eumenides (meaining 'Kindly Ones', a strange alternative name for the Furies) we find Orestes appealing to Apollo to help him - after all, Apollo was the one who told him to kill his mother. Apollo recommends approaching Athene, the goddess of Wisdom, for a resolution to the problem, and we are shown the newest and highest form of justice - Athenian (or court) law, where judgement is made by a jury of 12 men, with a casting vote from Athene herself if necessary.

Through these plays, an enormous number of parallels and contrasts can be drawn with philosophy and society today - as an example, I was surprised how little the basis of today's judicial system has changed since Athenian days. Some wry comment is also made (by Apollo) on the marriage bond (see above, in The Choephori), which he uses to show the inconsistencies in the archaic Chthonian justice. The Furies are furious (excuse the pun) at this.

I was fortunate in that the copy of the plays I was reading were previously used by Wendy, my wife, a past student of Ancient Greek civilisation, and the notes she had written in the margins throughout the book gave me an excellent insight into Greek society of the time, allowing me to compare my own reactions to the reactions of the original audiences. If you decide to read the trilogy, I would recommend this edition (Penguin Classics, Philip Vellacott), as the translator's introduction is similarly descriptive of the attitudes of the era, as well as giving the necessary historical and mythological backgrounds.

I am now considering learning Classical Greek, so that I can go and read the original!