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Morals and Politics in the ‘Oresteia’2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

E. R. Dodds
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Extract

When Aeschylus wrote, no distinction between morals and politics had yet been drawn. But in our day the moral and the political element in the Oresteia have usually been examined separately. Thus, for example, Professor Dover, in his thoughtful paper on ‘The Political Aspect of the Eumenides’, makes no attempt to connect this aspect with the moral issues raised in the earlier part of the trilogy. And Sir Richard Livingstone, in his paper on ‘The Problem of the Eumenides’, denied, if I understand him correctly, that any real link exists: ‘The last 350 lines of the Eumenides’, he says bluntly, ‘are not an integral part of the trilogy. They are a loosely connected episode, stitched on its outside.’ If he is right, we may properly ask what motive was so strong, what need so urgent, as to induce the poet thus to botch the conclusion of his masterpiece. And if he is wrong, we should try to prove him wrong by making clear the nature of the link. To explore these alternatives is the chief purpose of the present paper.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 6 , 1960 , pp. 19 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1960

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References

page 19 note 3 Cf. Jaeger, , Paideia I, 323 (English edition)Google Scholar.

page 19 note 4 J.H.S. LXXVII (1957), 230 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 19 note 5 J.H.S. XLV (1925), 123 fGoogle Scholar.

page 19 note 6 So, e.g., Schmid, W., Gr. Literaturgeschichte, I, ii, 253Google Scholar.

page 19 note 7 This is well brought out by Daube, D., Zu den Rechtsproblemen in Aischylos' Agamemnon: see especially pp. 45 ff., 135 fGoogle Scholar.

page 20 note 1 Cf. Fraenkel, on Ag. 534–7Google Scholar, Lloyd-Jones on Sept. 1006 (C.Q. 1959, p. 94Google Scholar), and Robertson, H. G.'s long list of technical phrases in the Supplices, C.R. L (1936), 104 n. 3Google Scholar. The alternative rendering, ‘deliberation’, suits ill with the vividly pictorial word , ‘fling to the ground’. If Aeschylus had meant ‘reject deliberation’, I suspect he would have used , as at Eum. 215.

page 21 note 1 Despite Dover, loc. cit. p. 237, it should be remembered that ‘Libya’ was a general name for the African continent, and that its frontiers were uncertain (Pind., Pyth. 9, 9Google Scholar and schol., Hdt. 2, 16).

page 21 note 2 Cf. Ath. Trib. Lists, III, 321Google Scholar n. 88: ‘Very possibly lines 295–6 will refer to some sort of trouble in Pallene, and this would surely mean Poteidaia. It is not impossible that Poteidaia remained recalcitrant till Kimon made his Five Years' Truce in 451.’ As for the Troad, Sigeum seems to have been threatened by Persian encroachments in 451/0 (IG 2 I, 32Google Scholar, and Merittin, B. D.Hesperia, V (1936), 360 fGoogle Scholar.), and it is possible that the trouble began earlier.

page 22 note 1 C.Q. n.s. III (1953), 19 fGoogle Scholar. Jacoby has objected (F gr H III b Suppl. II, p. 528) that Aeschylus could not imply, even indirectly, that the Zeugitae were, even relatively to the , ‘mud’. I am not sure on what this judgement is based. If it means that Aeschylus could not entertain an undemocratic sentiment, it begs the question under discussion. If it means that in 458 he could not risk expressing an unpopular opinion, I should reply that in the Persae he had taken at least as grave a risk: in 472, when Themistocles, if not already ostracized, had certainly fallen from popular favour, it was surely an act of moral courage to recall so frankly his services to Greece.

page 22 note 2 Wilamowitz, 's other suggestion (Arist. u. Athen. II, 334)Google Scholar, that in founding the Areopagus Athena was ‘really’ thinking of the Heliaea, must be still more firmly rejected; it has no support in the text (cf. Bengl, H., Staatstheoretische Probleme in der attischen Tragödie, p. 54Google Scholar), and in 458 such a confusion was surely impossible.

page 22 note 3 Lucian, , Herm. 64Google Scholar, dom. 18. Did the Areopagus provide the model for Plato's Nocturnal Council (which meets in fact at dawn, Laws 961 b)?

page 23 note 1 Dover, loc. cit. p. 233.

page 23 note 2 Compare 520–1 with Ag. 180–1, 532–7 with Ag. 758–62, 538–42 with Ag. 381–4, 552–65 with Ag. 1005–13; also 517–19 and 526–8 with Eum. 696–8. Cf. Kranz, , Stasimon, pp. 172 fGoogle Scholar., and on the ‘paraenetic’ second person singular Dover, loc. cit. p. 232.

page 23 note 3 Smertenko, Clara M., ‘The Political Sympathies of Aeschylus’, J.H.S. LII (1932), 233 ff.Google Scholar; Dover, loc. cit. p. 236. Cf. also Plassart, A., R.E.A. XLII (1940), 298 fGoogle Scholar.

page 23 note 4 Cf. Radermacher, L., Das Jenseits im Mythos der Hellenen, pp. 138 f.Google Scholar; A. Lesley in P. W. s. v. Orestes, col. 988 ff.; Amandry, P., Mél. Grégoire (1949), p. 37Google Scholar.

page 23 note 5 Dindorf made the mistake of deleting 867–9 as well as 858–66, thus depriving himself of his best argument.

page 24 note 1 We possess a casualty-list of the tribe Erechtheis for one of the years 460–458, giving the names of those ‘killed in action in Cyprus, Egypt, Phoenicia, Halieis, Aegina and Megara in the same twelvemonth’ (IG2 I, 929Google Scholar, Tod 26). And it is no mere coincidence that the feelings of parents and wives who saw their men ‘changed for a handful of dust’ are unforgettably painted in the second ode of the Agamemnon.

page 24 note 2 Dover, loc. cit. pp. 236 f.

page 24 note 3 Zuntz, G., The Political Plays of Euripides, p. 11Google Scholar.

page 24 note 4 Cf. also Ag. 381 ff.; 471, 1008 ff.

page 25 note 1 Solmsen, F., Hesiod and Aeschylus, p. 220, n. 160Google Scholar. Cf. also Kaufmann-Bühler, D., Begriff u. Funktion der Dike in den Tragödien des Aischylos, p. 64Google Scholar.

page 25 note 2 Weil, H., De tragoediarum graecarum cum rebus publicis coniunctione (1844), p. 11Google Scholar.

page 25 note 3 The antecedents of have been scrupulously examined by Dörrie, H., ‘Leid und Erfahrung’, Abh. Mainz (1956), Nr. 5Google Scholar. The rule is formulated in a line ascribed to Hesiod (fr. 174), .

page 26 note 1 Cf. Daube, op. cit. pp. 148–50; Kaufmann-Bühler, op. cit. pp. 59–107; Lesky, A., Die tragische Dichtung der Hellenen, pp. 93–8Google Scholar; H. D. F. Kitto, Form and Meaning in Drama, chaps. I–III; Lloyd-Jones, H., ‘Zeus in Aeschylus’, J.H.S. LXXVI (1956), 61–5Google Scholar; Page, D. L., Introduction to Agamemnon, pp. xx–xxixGoogle Scholar; Solmsen, F., Gnomon, XXXI (1959), 472 fGoogle Scholar.

page 26 note 2 Cassandra sees her destruction as Apollo's act of vengeance for her offence against him (Ag. 1269–76). Yet in the next moment she predicts that she shall be avenged on Apollo's unconscious agents (1279–80).

page 27 note 1 Cf. the well-known scyphos by Macron which shows her tempting Helen.

page 27 note 2 This word is found no less than nine times in the Oresteia, and nowhere else in the whole of Greek literature. It would seem that Aeschylus coined it (Fraenkel, on Ag. 386Google Scholar) as a unique descriptive term for the unique situation created by the Curse.

page 27 note 3 Adkins, Arthur W. H., Merit and Responsibility, p. 124Google Scholar.

page 27 note 4 Most of them would, I think, say with Paul Tillich that ‘God's directing creativity always acts through the freedom of Man’.

page 27 note 5 On ‘over-determination’ in general see The Greeks and the Irrational, pp. 30 f., 51 f. Its modalities in Homer have been worked out by Prof. Lesky in the paper which he read to the Third International Congress of Classical Studies at London. That something of the kind must also be admitted for the Oresteia is now recognized by the more perceptive critics: cf. Daube, op. cit. pp. 172–8; Lesky, , ‘Der Kommos der Choephoren’, Sitzb. Wien, Phil.-Hist. KL, 221 (1943), Abh. 3, pp. 122–3Google Scholar; Kitto, , Form and Meaning, pp. 71–2Google Scholar.

page 27 note 6 Cf. Page, , Introd. to Ag. pp. xxiii ffGoogle Scholar.

page 27 note 7 The O.T. should not be cited as an example to the contrary. The dramatic value of that play depends not on the acts which Oedipus once committed as the puppet of destiny, but on the choices which we see him make as a free agent.

page 28 note 1 Aischylos u. das Handeln im Drama (Philol. Supp. XX, I), p. 143Google Scholar. A different way of meeting Page's objections is offered by Kitto, , Gnomon, XXX (1958), 168Google Scholar, who thinks that Agamemnon at Aulis is ‘helpless but not innocent’ because his fatal choice has already been made, at the moment when he decided to attack Troy. But if so, why the parade of weighing alternatives?

page 28 note 2 Agamemnon, II, 98 fGoogle Scholar.

page 28 note 3 1291 .

page 28 note 4 The parallelism is brilliantly brought out by Reinhardt, , Aischylos als Regisseur u. Theologe, pp. 90–105Google Scholar.

page 29 note 1 Schadewaldt, W., ‘Der Kommos in Aischylos' Choephoren’, Hermes, LXVII (1932), 312 ff.Google Scholar; Lesky, , Sitzb. Wien 221Google Scholar.

page 29 note 2 In the Einleitung to his translation of the Eumenides, p. 42.

page 29 note 3 H. Lloyd-Jones, loc. cit. p. 62; cf. Denniston, and Page, on Ag. 184 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 29 note 4 As Headlam, rightly said in his note on Eum. 520Google Scholar, ‘ is synonymous with , to know your place in relation to the gods and to your fellow-men’.

page 29 note 5 Fraenkel's picture of Agamemnon as ‘a great gentleman, possessed of moderation and selfcontrol’ is very hard to reconcile with the indications of the text. Cf. Denniston, and Page, on Ag. 810 f. and 931 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 30 note 1 It is uncertain whether at Cho. 910 means ‘contributory cause’ (like and , or ‘parallel cause’, or simply ‘cause’ (as in later usage). The use of the word at fr. 44, 7 seems to favour the second or the third view, which would make Clytemnestra, maintain the position she took up at Ag. 1497 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 30 note 2 Cho. 691–9 is certainly spoken by Clytemnestra; and comparison with Ag. 1497 ff.and 1660 suggests that it is seriously meant. Cf. Lesky, , Hermes, LXVI (1931), 207Google Scholar.

page 30 note 3 Cf. Cho. 68–9: Ate keeps the guilty one alive ‘until he is filled to the brim with sickness’.

page 30 note 4 Cf. Kaufmann-Bühler's discussion, op. cit. pp. 99–102; and Fritz, K. v. in Studium Generale, VIII (1955), 197–9Google Scholar.

page 31 note 1 Eum. 998 —not in any genealogical or topographical sense, but because ‘whom the wings of Pallas shelter, her Father cherishes’ (1001–2). Bothe's would express the thought more perspicuously, at the cost of turning poetry into prose.

page 31 note 2 Solmsen has lately put the same question in a more general form, asking ‘Have not these weighty utterances of the Chorus (in the Agamemnon) their significance also for the entire trilogy, and especially for the last piece?’ (Gnomon, XXXI (1959), 472 f.Google Scholar). The answer is surely ‘Yes’.

page 31 note 3 F gr H III b 1, p. 25.

page 31 note 4 The present paper is concerned with those aspects of the Oresteia which tie it down to a particular locus in time and place. But it should be unnecessary to add that underneath its time-bound purpose and its archaic presuppositions the Oresteia is also an enduring symbol of certain moral tests and torments which will always be part of the human condition. Great works of art can be understood on more than one level of significance.