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V. The Oresteia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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Like the rest of the Oresteia the theme of Agamemnon is retribution, a theme which even in this single play spans more than one generation and embraces a complex interaction of human and divine combined with an element of family curse. Paradoxically, however, of the vast perspective that Agamemnon presents in terms of time and space it has not been events actually portrayed upon the stage that have attracted most attention so much as their antecedents, described by chorus and characters alike often in graphically enigmatic terms. The fact, however, that so much of the overall effect depends upon description and interpretation of past events by characters and groups intimately involved in them itself raises important questions for the reaction of the audience. Are we for instance to take the description of what took place at Aulis as objective truth or as subjective and flawed rationalization, hedged around with ambiguous nuances and constituting yet another element in that aura of unease which surrounds so much of the action? Further complication arises from the actual chronological presentation of motivating forces. Consistently it is the human aspect which appears first, naturally so since it is this that establishes personal guilt and sows the seed of future retribution, but that human motivation is often subsequently portrayed as concomitant with the will of heaven and coincident with the curse on the House of Atreus. Take for instance the theme of Atreus’ treatment of his brother Thyestes which ultimately serves as the background to the present generation’s bout of bloodletting. Though it underscores historically and morally much of what we see and hear in Agamemnon, it comes to the fore only in the Cassandra scene, long after the introduction of Iphigeneia and Troy, and receives its most telling expression from the lips of Aegisthus, whose specious use of it to justify murder compounds rather than resolves the cycle of retribution. The effect throughout the play is thus a constantly shifting basis of perspective, producing in scholarly assessments of the action a stark divergence of opinion typified at the extremes by the dichotomy between literal and symbolic approaches to the text.

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Research Article
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New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 18: Aeschylus , 1986 , pp. 23 - 33
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

Notes

1. See further Winnington-Ingram (1983), pp. 78-100.

2. Peradotto, J.J. for instance, ‘The Omen of the Eagles and the ΗΘΟΣ of Agamemnon’, Phoenix 23 (1969), 249fCrossRefGoogle Scholar., questions whether Artemis actually demanded the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, seeing it instead as the prophet’s proposed remedy for the contrary winds at Aulis; cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983), pp. 85ff.

3. For contrasting views of hereditary guilt in the play see Hammond, N.G.L., ‘Personal Freedom and its Limitations in the Oresteia’, JHS 85 (1965), 42–55 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leahy, D. M., ‘The Role of Cassandra in the Oresteia of Aeschylus’, BRL 52 (1969-70), 144-77Google Scholar; Smith (1973), 8; Gagarin (1976), pp. 62f. Lebeck’s belief (1971), pp. 34f., that Agamemnon 149ff. refer back to the Thyestean episode is far-fetched, but finds support in Edwards, M. W., ‘Agamemnon’s Decision: Freedom and Folly in Aeschylus’, CSCA 10 (1977), 23fGoogle Scholar.

4. Thus’Page in Denniston & Page (1957), p. xxv, argues it is only the eagles’ feast that Artemis abhors; cf. Dawe (1966), 15ff.; Lawrence, S. E., ‘Artemis in the Agamemnon’, AJPh 97 (1976), 97–110 Google Scholar, who presents a useful brief discussion of possible interpretations, as do Peradotto (1969), and Lloyd-Jones, H., ȘArtemis and Iphigeneia’, JHS 103 (1983), 87–102 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who points to Artemis as Mistress of the Animals to explain the apparent contradiction in the goddess as preserver yet demanding blood. In contrast Whallon, W., ‘Why is Artemis Angry?’, AJPh 82 (1961), 78–88 Google Scholar, sees the omen as symbolizing the tendency to teknophagy that hounds the Atreid line.

5. Sommerstein, A. H., ‘Artemis in Agamemnon: A Postscript’, AJPh 101 (1980), 165–9 Google Scholar; Kitto, cf.H.D.F., Form and Meaning in Drama2 (London, 1964), p. 2 Google Scholar.

6. Neitzel, Cf.H., ‘Artemis und Agamemnon in der Parodos des Aischyleischen Agamemnon’, Hermes 107 (1979), 10–32 Google Scholar, who sees the sacrifice as Artemis’ attempt to prevent the war by setting a price on the destruction of Troy that should deter the Atreidae from embarking on the expedition, and concludes that Agamemnon’s claimed assertion of the sacrifice’s Tightness in the sight of heaven is a blasphemy and the reverse of what the goddess in fact wanted; id., ‘Funktion und Bedeutung des Zeus-Hymnus im Agamemnon des Aischylos’, Hermes 106 (1978>), 406-25. In contrast Bergson, L., ‘Nochmals Artemis und Agamemnon’, Hermes 110 (1982), 137-45Google Scholar, argues against Neitzel that as part of the curse on the House of Atreus Zeus and Artemis place Agamemnon in an impossible position: he cannot refuse to destroy Troy, since this is enjoined by Fate, yet the means employed to make this possible, the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, ensures by its savagery his own destruction. In this respect Artemis becomes an instrument of Zeus’ will, not his opponent.

7. Kitto (1964), pp. Iff.; Ewans, cf.M., ℈Agamemnon at Aulis: A Study in the Oresteia’, Ramus 4 (1975), 17–32 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Resumes of the problem and suggested solutions are given by Edwards (1977); Lloyd-Jones (1962); Gantz, T. N., ‘Inherited Guilt in Aeschylus’, CJ 78 (1982-3), 1–23 Google Scholar; Peradotto (1969), 250ff. In Smith's view (1973), the necessity lies in Agamemnon’s own desire for the war, not the constraint of the gods.

9. Winnington-Ingram (1983), pp. 93ff. See too n. 6 above.

10. Page in Denniston & Page (1957), pp. xxvif.

11. Lloyd-Jones (1962), 191ff.; cf. Lebeck (1971), p. 35.

12. Hammond (1965); Gantz (1982-3), 11ff.; Peradotto (1969), 251ff., who argues that since it was the Atreidae who gathered the expedition, they could equally abandon it, since its ‘sending’ by Zeus is the chorus’ interpretation of events, not a fact.

13. Op. cit. (1950), vol. Ill, p. 625.

14. Op. cit. (1966), answered by Bergson, L., ‘The Hymn to Zeus in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon’, Eranos 65 (1967), 12–24 Google Scholar. Exactly when the Hymn ends has also been a matter of dispute: 183 or 191. Clinton, K., ‘The Hymn to Zeus, ΠΑΘΕΙ ΜΑΘΟΣ and the End of the Parodos of Agamemnon’, Traditio 35 (1979), 1–19 Google Scholar, sees it extending to the end of the Parodos.

15. Smith, P. M., On the Hymn to Zeus in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (Scholars Press, 1980), pp. 16ff., 41ff.Google Scholar; Rabel, R. J.,‘Pathei Mathos: A Dramatic Ambiguity in the Oresteia’, RSC 37 (1979), 181–4 Google Scholar.

16. Alternatives include equating it with ‘the doer will suffer‘ or ‘wisdom through experience’. See further Clinton (1979), 2ff.; Ewans (1975), 23ff.; Gagarin (1976), pp. 139ff.

17. Smith (1980), pp. 21ff.; cf. Dodds (1960), 29ff.; Lloyd-Jones (1956), 62. Smith regards the phrase as a commonplace signifying experience will teach those who will not learn any other way, and referring to Paris. Tempting, though ultimately unsatisfying, are Lebeck’s suggestion (1971), p. 26, that it is the chorus and audience who learn and suffer as they witness the fate of Agamemnon, or Rabel’s (1979), that the lesson is learned not by any individual but constitutes a historical progression towards the justice of Eumenides.

18. Op. cit. (1963), 50.

19. Fraenkel (1950), vol. II, pp. 441f.; Denniston & Page (1957), ad 931ff. A useful brief survey of interpretations is provided by Simpson, M., ‘Why Does Agamemnon Yield?’, PP 26 (1971), 94–101 Google Scholar.

20. Op. cit. (1960), 28.

21. See further Winnington-Ingram (1983), pp. 88ff.; Lebeck (1971), pp. 74ff.

22. Gagarin (1976), pp. 97ff.; Winnington-Ingram (1983), pp. lOlff., 132ff.; Taplin (1977), pp. 340ff.; most recently Goldhill, S., Language, Sexuality, Narrative: the Oresteia (Cambridge, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the imagery of the play in general see Fowler, B. H., ‘Aeschylus’ Imagery’, C&M 28 (1967), 1–74 Google Scholar; Peradotto, J. J., ‘Some Patterns of Nature Imagery in the Oresteia’, AJPh 85 (1964), 378-93Google Scholar.

23. Taplin (1978), pp. 122ff.; (1977), pp. 342f., 356ff.; Lebeck, cf.A., ‘The First Stasimon of Aeschylus’ Choephoroe: Myth and Mirror Image’, CPh 62 (1967), 182–5 Google Scholar.

24. On the syntactical methods used by Orestes to rebut his mother see Ireland, S., ‘Stichomythia in Aeschylus: The Dramatic Role of Syntax and Connecting Particles’, Hermes 102 (1974), 518 Google Scholar.

25. Gagarin (1976), p. 98; Winnington-Ingram (1983), p. 141, esp. n. 34.

26. The attribution of 691-9 to Clytemnestra has been the almost invariable choice of editors following the evidence of the oldest manuscript, M. Winnington-Ingram on the other hand, (1983), pp. 216-18, argues that they should be given instead to Electra, an instance of double-irony from a character who already knows the truth that seems needlessly over-subtle.

27. Op. cit. (1979), ad 691.

28. Cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983), p. 116.

29. Winnington-Ingram (1983), pp. 137f. rightly notes that Orestes’ words at 297 are designed not to question the validity of the oracle but to emphasize it, and that the human motivation that follows does not replace the divine command but adds to it.

30. Op. cit. (1983), pp. 135ff.

31. See Lebeck (1971), pp. 93f.; Conacher, D. J., ‘Interaction between Chorus and Character in the Oresteia’, AJPh 95 (1974), 330ffGoogle Scholar.

32. Op. cit. (1959), pp. 98f.

33. Op. cit. (1974*), 339.

34. Winnington-Ingram (1983), pp. 138ff.; Lebeck (1971), pp. llOff. In order to produce a climax that brings Orestes to his resolve, 434-8 have often been transposed to follow 455, unnecessarily so, since the contents and context of the stanza show Orestes brought to his resolve by Electra’s indictment of their mother for the dishonour paid to Agamemnon’s burial, then confirmed in it by the chorus’s subsequent description of his mutilation.

35. Dodds’s claim that Orestes knew his act was a crime even before he committed it, op. cit. (1960), 30, is founded on little more than passing references in the sections before the murder: 930 for instance.

36. Op. cit. (1983), 21.

37. Thus Lucas (1959), p. 101, refers to the awkwardness of an apparently dual solution to Orestes’ guilt - one in which he is purified by Apollo, another in which he is acquitted by the Areopagus, and the ‘curious manner’ in which the function of the Erinyes expands and contracts. Similarly Lebeck (1971), p. 134, sees in Clytemnestra’s awakening of the Furies a mirror image of the Commos in Choephoroe in which ‘ritual grandeur gives way to a literal enactment verging on parody’.

38. That the play deals with more than Orestes’ slaying of his mother - hence it does not end with his acquittal - is well described by Winnington-Ingram (1983), p. 164.

39. Cf. Dawe (1963), 58f.

40. Zeus’ treatment of Cronos as the chorus’s reply to Apollo’s championing of the male, the god’s own tricking of the Fates, the assertion that the mother is no true parent of the child. Lebeck, who provides a resume of reactions to the scene, (1971), pp. 135ff., describes these as ‘quibbling and trivial’, but her own attempt to justify the scene displays little inner conviction.

41. Thus Kuhns, R., The House, the City and the Judge: The Growth of Moral Awareness in the Oresteia (Indianapolis, 1962), pp. 41ffGoogle Scholar. The best treatments of the trial scene in its full context remain those of Kitto (1964), pp. 58ff., and Winnington-Ingram (1983), pp. 120ff.

42. Op. cit. (1976), pp. 76f.; cf. Kitto (1964), p. 62.

43. Cf. Lbeck (1971), pp. 124ff.; Kuhns (1962), pp. 46ff.; Vickers, B., Towards Greek Tragedy (London, 1973), pp. 413ffGoogle Scholar.

44. i.e. Apollo’s assertion of the prime importance of the male as opposed to the Erinyes’ championing of the female. Winnington-Ingram (1983), pp. 123f., aptly notes that if Apollo’s arguments solve an intellectual problem they leave untouched the undeniable emotional response to matricide.

45. ‘The Vote of Athena’, AJPh 96 (1975), 121-7.

46. Op. cit. (1964), pp. 65f.; cf. (1966), pp. 19ff.

47. He suggests (1977>), pp. 392, 399, that there may originally have been at least two more couplets, including 676f. and 679f.

48. Winnington-Ingram (1983), p. 125, n. 110; Hester, D. A., ‘The Casting Vote’, AJPh 102 (1981), 265-74Google Scholar.

49. If the arrangement of 711-33 is indeed meant to represent the jury voting, it is tempting to see the final triplet as signifying not Athena’s coming forward to vote, as Kitto suggests, but the votes of two human jurors, one for, one against, foreshadowing the final balance, though all this must remain speculation.

50. Taplin points out (1977), p. 409, that the chorus of Eumenides is an even more active participant in its play than the Danaids of Supplices.

51. Cf. Brown (1983), 28f.

52. Op. cit. (1983), p. 165; cf. Lebeck (1971), pp. 145ff.

53. Cf. Gagarin (1976), pp. 83f.

54. Winnington-Ingram (1983), p. 74; cf. Taplin (1977), pp. 362-415.

55. For the detailed arguments in favour of an early revelation see Brown, A. L., ‘Some Problems in the Eumenides of Aeschylus’, JHS 102 (1982), 26–32 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56. Taplin (1977), pp. 369ff. Certainly the dramatic shock of a sudden eruption of the Erinyes from within the shrine would be a considerable coup de théâtre, even if the anecdote of it causing women to go into premature labour (Life) is exaggerated.

57. Taplin (1977), pp. 395-407, provides the detailed argumentation.