The Oresteia tells the story of a killer getting killed, the killer of this killer getting killed, and the killer of that killer finally going to court instead of being killed. Aeschylus presents it in this matter to show the absurdly long chain of killings, among other problems, caused by the former system of justice. For the final killer, however, he presents a new system and shows its superiority.
The justice shown in the beginning of The Oresteia matches the system in Homer’s Iliad nearly perfectly: the entire voyage to Troy occurs because Paris took Menelaus’ wife and Menelaus wants to kill “The outlaw, the adulterer” (Iliad iii. 31) for it. Besides this, the book starts off with Achilles feeling Agamemnon has done him an injustice and …show more content…
Atreus’ wife cheated on him with his brother Thyestes, so Atreus cooked Thyestes sons and fed them to him. This made Thyestes have a son with his own daughter, who then killed Atreus. This son was the same man who killed Agamemnon. A court system such as the one Athena created could have stopped it by arresting Atreus in the very beginning, preventing every death in The Oresteia. The other example of blood justice, the entirety of The Iliad could likewise have been prevented. Paris and Menelaus would have gone to court, and some form of settlement would have been reached. If one or the other violated the settlement, it would have been clear who was in the wrong in the eyes of every warrior and god through the entire battle. The Trojan War also exemplifies another problem with blood justice. During the Zhou Dynasty of China, a concept known as the Mandate of Heaven was formed. It says that the gods bless the emperor and only let others overthrow him if he is unjust. The Zhou developed this concept to justify their overthrowing of the Shang Dynasty before them. In the matter of the Trojan War, this general mentality held true: the Greeks must have been right to fight the Trojans because the gods let them
The justice shown in the beginning of The Oresteia matches the system in Homer’s Iliad nearly perfectly: the entire voyage to Troy occurs because Paris took Menelaus’ wife and Menelaus wants to kill “The outlaw, the adulterer” (Iliad iii. 31) for it. Besides this, the book starts off with Achilles feeling Agamemnon has done him an injustice and …show more content…
Atreus’ wife cheated on him with his brother Thyestes, so Atreus cooked Thyestes sons and fed them to him. This made Thyestes have a son with his own daughter, who then killed Atreus. This son was the same man who killed Agamemnon. A court system such as the one Athena created could have stopped it by arresting Atreus in the very beginning, preventing every death in The Oresteia. The other example of blood justice, the entirety of The Iliad could likewise have been prevented. Paris and Menelaus would have gone to court, and some form of settlement would have been reached. If one or the other violated the settlement, it would have been clear who was in the wrong in the eyes of every warrior and god through the entire battle. The Trojan War also exemplifies another problem with blood justice. During the Zhou Dynasty of China, a concept known as the Mandate of Heaven was formed. It says that the gods bless the emperor and only let others overthrow him if he is unjust. The Zhou developed this concept to justify their overthrowing of the Shang Dynasty before them. In the matter of the Trojan War, this general mentality held true: the Greeks must have been right to fight the Trojans because the gods let them