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Aeschylus' 'The Orestia': A Prelude to Plato
By N. Susan Laehn, PhD
By N. Susan Laehn, PhD
Aeschylus’s Orestia, which
consists of three plays—Agamemnon, The
Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides—examines
the balance between reason and passion and explores the meaning and method of
justice. Aeschylus’s trilogy opens with
the murder of King Agamemnon at the hands of his wife, Clytaemestra. Her son, Orestes, is called to take revenge
for the death of his father, and he murders his mother and her lover. Summoned
by the ghost of Clytaemestra, the Furies, clothed in black robes and embodying the
dark forces of the passions, harass Orestes until he is driven nearly mad. On the brink of insanity, Orestes appeals to
the goddess Athena for exoneration. Athena
calls a jury to hear the case. The
Furies argue that matricide is never justified, while Orestes claims that he
was duty-bound to avenge his father. Athena
and the jury free Orestes, finding that his actions were just. Athena sublimates the Furies to their place
beneath the earth, and they are transformed into spirits of beneficence.
Sitting at the nexus of literature and philosophy, the Orestia shows that poetry can also serve
as the conduit to lessons on justice. Plato warned, in his Republic, that the poets were dangerous. Yet, the astute student of
Plato will note that his philosophy often reads like poetry. In the Orestia,
Aeschylus demonstrates that if philosophers can be poets, then poets, too, can
be philosophers. Poets, too, offer us an
understanding of justice.
Dr. Laehn is an adjunct professor of political science at Iowa State University. Views expressed here are her own and not necessarily those of the McConnell Center.
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