Theme Of Vengeance In Ancient Greece

Vengeance is a recurring theme in Greek tragedies because the act of vengeance was how social balance was restored in ancient Greece. In order to understand vengeance, an important distinction to make is that between the concepts of justice and revenge. Characters in Greek culture look for justice in all aspects of society - when someone is wronged, the offenders deserve punishment. However, as a majority of Greek literary works are tragedies, justice is often taken too far and it turns into revenge. For the purposes of this paper, “justice” is defined as when someone is punished - appropriately - for wrongdoing. “Revenge” is defined as when emotions such as anger cause the offenders to be punished far beyond what is appropriate, or if innocent …show more content…
Waging war against an entire city is not the same as running away with someone’s wife and therefore this cannot be classified as justice; it moved past that and became revenge. When he declared war, Menelaus knew that innocent lives would be lost and families would be torn apart. The damage to both the Trojans and Achaeans in the war is far more than the damage inflicted on Menelaus by Paris. Menelaus did not act rationally by declaring war on Troy – he allowed his emotions to cloud his thinking and as a result thousands of soldiers and civilians died. If Menelaus had punished only Paris, then this would have counted as justice. However, Menelaus went too far – instead of simply punishing Paris, he punished innocent people and therefore the Trojan War was not justified. Menelaus crossed the line – if he had acted without regard to his emotions, he would have only disciplined Paris and abstained from causing the death of so many innocent people. Menelaus justified the war to himself by claiming that the city of Troy was protecting Paris and Helen, yet this still does not vindicate a war – the civilians of Troy weren’t protecting Paris and Helen, the royal family was. As a result, the only people that could be punished justly were those in the royal family; the residents of the city did not need to suffer in a war that had nothing to do with