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AeschylusOresteia
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Pollution
The ancient Greek concept of “miasma,” often translated as pollution, is a complicated concept concerning spiritual cleanliness and purity. Evil acts put one at risk of polluting themselves, their family, house, bloodline, or even city. While natural acts, such as sex and childbirth, were seen as minor pollutants, extreme infractions, such as rape, murder, and even cannibalism, were considered major sources of pollution. Individuals stained by crime were ostracized by society, made outcasts until the proper purgative rites were performed. This is illustrated by Orestes in the interim between The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides. In The Eumenides, clinging to the idol of Athena, Orestes proclaims, “The blood sleeps, it is fading on my hands / the stain of mother’s murder washing clean. / It was still fresh at the god’s hearth. Apollo / killed the swine and the purges drove it off” (278-281). The indicates the necessity of a rite of purgation and Apollo’s dedication to Orestes. For the pollution of homicide, a consecrated victim was a necessary sacrifice before Orestes could even stand trial for his crime. Apollo takes on the role of a priest. This direct divine intervention demonstrates the fated nature of the burden Orestes took on by committing matricide.
Failing to give the proper rites and sacrifices to the dead could also incur pollution. This is the core problem in The Libation Bearers. In this play, Apollo has revealed to Orestes that “the dead take root beneath the soil, / they grow with hate and plague the lives of men” (283-284). The curse of the dead can manifest in corporeal and spiritual consequences, including “leprous boils thar ride the flesh / their wild teeth gnawing the mother tissue, aye, / and a white scur spreads like cancer over these,” and worst of all, “assaults of Furies spring to life on the father’s blood” (285-289).
In one regard, the entire story arc of The Oresteia involves the redemption of the House of Atreus. The pollution runs deep in Orestes’ bloodline. The house’s curse was initiated by Agamemnon’s father, Atreus. According to Aegisthus in Agamemnon, Atreus violated the laws of hosting by feeding his brother, Thyestes (Aegisthus’s father), his own children. Unable to recognize what he was being served, Thyestes “picks at the flesh he cannot recognize, / the soul of innocence eating the food of ruin” (1628-29). The pollution brought on by child murder and cannibalism casts a curse upon the house of Atreus. Clytaemnestra claims to be the embodiment of this curse as she avenges another polluting act, the sacrifice of Iphigenia. It is important to note that while the gods shy away from pollution, especially within their temples, they do occasionally spur mortals into polluting acts, such as Apollo commanding Orestes to commit matricide, or Diana demanding Iphigenia’s sacrifice because Agamemnon slew one of her sacred deer. Sacrificing his daughter caused a change in Agamemnon, “his spirit veering black, impure, unholy,” (218). This demonstrates that pollution can drive mortals to frenzy. Orestes, hands wet with mother’s blood, is also driven to frenzy by the Furies for his polluting act. He is forced to flee Argos. However, unlike his father, he is able to atone for this pollution with the help of Apollo.
Justice and Vengeance
The story arc of The Oresteia demonstrates a cycle of violence and pollution stemming from vengeance. However, the actions of the characters show that vengeance and justice do not necessarily coincide; and, in a world where humanity is presided over by a pantheon of gods with varying (and often conflicting) motivations, the line between justice and crime often becomes blurred. Unsanctioned violence (which is primarily understood as violence outside of war) or personal vengeance can lead to pollution, curses, divine wrath, or attacks by the Furies. Ultimately, The Oresteia is a celebration of the Athenian democratic system of justice, the establishment of which Aeschylus attributes to Athena at the trial of Orestes. This served as an homage both to god and state, showcasing the fairness of the Athenian justice system and its divine origin.
It is important to note that the Athenian democracy enfranchised only land-owning men. This patriarchal bias is reflected in the idea of justice reflected in The Eumenides. Apollo explicitly argues that “The woman you call mother of the child / is not the parent, just a nurse to the seed, the new-sown seed that grows and swells inside her. / The man is the source of life—the one who mounts” (666-669). Athena, who was born fully grown from the forehead of Zeus, is Apollo’s prime example. Because of this, Clytaemnestra’s status as a victim is not prioritized over her murder Agamemnon. This reflects the ancient Greek idea of conception, and it shows that the justice demonstrated in The Oresteia is inherently biased in the favor of men. The Eumenides provides a divine, and thus just, origin for this bias.
The violent end of Agamemnon stems from the ancestral curse of the House of Atreus and the more recent sacrifice of Iphigenia. The king’s death is revenge for Clytaemnestra for her daughter’s death, and for Aegisthus for what Atreus did to his father. While Aegisthus’s revenge places the sin of the father on the son, Clytaemnestra’s ire is more justified: Agamemnon sacrificed their own daughter to win back his brother’s wife. However, this sacrifice was demanded by the goddess Diana, demonstrating the precarity of human life in a pantheistic world. Orestes is thrust into a similar situation when he is charged by Apollo to kill his mother. Matricide was a grave sin, polluting the murderer and incurring the wrath of the Furies, who punish violators of family relationships. However, because he has the Oracle of Delphi, Apollo, and, by extension, Zeus, on his side, Orestes is both purged of the pollution of the act and vindicated by the new justice system invented by Athena. Athena commands the men of Athens to uphold the justice by trial system she invented for Orestes’ case, effectively breaking the cycle of bloodshed perpetuated by vengeance. Justice, therefore, replaces vengeance as the main method of righting wrongs.
Oracles, Prophesies, and Fate
To Aeschylus and his contemporaries, the world was presided over by a pantheon of gods whose conflicting desires often lead to strife among mortals. However, even the gods themselves were subject to fate, a force woven by the Three Sisters/Fates, which dictates one’s destiny. Oracles were thought to be able to see into the future, to read one’s destiny according to the Fates. The Oracle of Delphi, also known as the Pythia (the character who opens The Eumenides) was Apollo’s high priestess, who presided over his temple at Delphi. Divination was integral to ancient Greek life, evidenced by its integral role in mythology. In The Oresteia, prophesy serves to enforce humanity’s role in the world as subjects to both god and fate.
Fate can be tied to one’s bloodline, as demonstrated by the cycle of violence surrounding the House of Atreus. The sins of Atreus, Orestes’ grandfather, were grave enough that the pollution he incurred cursed the next generation. According to the prophesy given to him by the Oracle of Delphi, it was Orestes’ destiny to avenge his father and free his bloodline from this curse. While he does seem to have the choice to avert the fate of murdering his own mother, the consequences of failing to do so force his hand.
Apollo is the god of prophesy, but Aeschylus suggests that his prophesies are derived from Zeus himself. In The Eumenides, for example, Apollo claims, “Not once / from the Prophet’s thrones have I declared / a word that bears on man, woman or city / that Zeus did not command, the Olympian father. / This is his justice—omnipotent, I warn you” (622-626). This suggests that the prophesy that directed Orestes to kill Clytaemnestra came straight from the top of the Greek Pantheon and is thus sacred and undeniable.
While prophesy works in Orestes’ favor, Apollo also uses it as a punishment. In Agamemnon, Cassandra, a former priestess of Apollo, is beset by visions as a punishment for spurning the god’s sexual advances. The tragic irony is that she can see the future, but other people either fail to understand, or do not believe her. Cassandra embodies the line between prophecy and fate when she walks to her death in Agamemnon’s palace. Knowing the cause of her demise is not enough to circumvent it. Because Cassandra knows it is written in destiny, she has no choice but to acquiesce to her fate.
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