Eumenides As Critique Of The Polis Summary

The trilogy of Aeschylus’ The Oresteia follows a bloody feud within the House of Atreus. With this feud there are many boundaries that get crossed and challenged dealing with revenge and murder. A clear shift in justice is observed over the course of the three plays and Aeschylus shows that this shift in justice as an evolution that must happen to shape a society. The Oresteia provides a message that a society must come together to define justice in order to become unified and it must protect the interests of everyone and not just a single case or person.

The power of women remained extremely limited in ancient Greece. Women were mostly viewed as the housewives and mothers instead of being involved in society. In the excerpts Lysistrata written by Aristophanes and Roman Women Demonstrate against the Oppian Law written by Livy, lies a clear indication that women thrive to have additional power than they originally possess. In fact, women aspire to be able to have a say in the salient aspects of their community, such as wars they lose their husbands to or the allowance of the amount of jewelry that is able to be around their neck in public. Furthermore, the women start substantially weaker than the men and rapidly realize they can have power over them. In Lysistrata, the women are able to manipulate the men by taking away their number one desire. Meanwhile, in Roman Women Demonstrate against the Oppian Law, begging the men is the tactic the women use in order to achieve what they hunger for. By viewing and analyzing two sources, the audience comes to the conclusion that women happen to able to achieve further power than originally granted by protests and determination.

The conventionally accepted roles of both males and females in ancient Grecian society were well defined and manifested. Women were considered the weaker of the sexes and, thus, were expected to remain in the home and perform their domestic duties, while the men were to be rulers and bread-winners. The woman’s voice was not heard on any issues affecting the society as her opinions were thought unworthy of consideration. She was required merely to reproduce, to execute her domestic duties well and to submit incontestably to the authority of the men. In essence the Greeks valued their women almost as little as a common slave was valued.

This demonstrates to which extent women were autonomous and allowed to make their own decisions. In fact the independence that a Spartan woman had allowed her to divorce her husband if he was unable to give her children. In contrast, in the Macedonian culture, women in the ruling class had a similar and even greater power in the society comparing to the women in Sparta. Just as in Sparta, women rule during the absence of men, they appear in public and even participate in public talking. The Macedonian culture women were recognized and respected. For instance, public announcements were made about women’s activities such as public talking. In addition, women in the Macedonian culture of Ptolemaic Egypt could choose under which contract they wanted to marry: The Greek contract required guardians, while the Egyptian did not. This freedom of choice supports the idea that women were independent and to some extent free just as in the Greek culture. In both of those cultures, women ran the society in the absence of men and were free. They could make their own decision and were autonomous. The women’s role in the society proves that those societies are coincidental.

Since ancient times, though occupying an entirely different position in a society dominated by men, the female gender still holds and exerts a certain sphere of influence and power. This sphere of power is commonly underestimated and belittled, and yet feared and suppressed by the very same men who refuse to acknowledge it’s power and influence. Feminine sexuality is frowned upon by men because it is the one of the most powerful aspects granted to women, but even through suppression, their influence upon men is unavoidable. Men fear what they do not understand and despise what they cannot conquer. This existence and exercising of female power is explored in the Greek Epic, The Odyssey, in which Homer recounts the famous trials of the Greek

Some features of the institution of law which we take for granted today, which were absent in ancient Athens, include traits of peace and equality. It is worth noting that Athenians based their daily lives and societal structure off of their values of honour and victory. The desire to achieve these brought out a more aggressive nature in Athenians, as the only way to achieve honour was to achieve victory, which consequently meant a constant inner turmoil for Athens, as David Cohen specifically states in regard to the nature of Athenian men in terms of their desire for victory, “the vice of these men is that their desire for victory or honour is excessive and leads them to commit injustice in pursuit of them.” This is proven to be true through

In this paper I will be discussing how both males and females were portrayed in the book The Odyssey. While reading the story I was not surprised to see that men were treated as being superior to women. First I will discuss the roles of Odysseus and Telemachus as strong male roles throughout the story. Secondly I will discuss the role of Penelope and the goddess Athena. I will provide examples showing how males were seen as superior to women. I will do my best to paint a picture of how a model Greek male and female would of behaved during this time. If there were any instances where either a male or female violated the rules of behavior according to those times, I will discuss the situation that caused them to act differently. Lastly I will

Oedipus is admired by his subjects for being a wise and compassionate king, yet his authority does not have honorable foundations. His power originates from unintentionally killing his own father, the former King, thus establishing his authority in brutality and lawlessness. He puts all of his efforts into capturing the man who killed his father, despite the fact that his violence caused his death in the first place. The Greeks were similar to Oedipus in this way, as they did not “have an idea of absolute law.*” They understood the complexities of determining what is honorable, and constructed an approach which took into account the possible inconsistencies of law. Their society had a flexible view of what determined lawfulness, as it was not naturally “fixed, shifting and changing into its opposite.*” Essentially, they believed that being honorable is relative.

"Overview: Oedipus Rex." Drama for Students. Ed. David M. Galens and Lynn M. Spampinato. Vol. 1.

The deeds of Socrates, considered merely some trouble today, are the serious matters which have the high potential to damage the stability of the city. Athens was a direct democratic state, whereupon the decision from the court of Athens is, that is to say, the decision of public. It means that we can interpret the verdict of the jury that the city as a whole refuses the existence of Socrates. Socrates fails in persuading the jury with his defense, and the jury, with legitimate process, judges him on behalf of the entire city; the jury is justified.

       Gender is made explicit as a theme throughout the Oresteia through a series of male-female conflicts and incorrectly gendered characters dominated by the figure of Clytemnestra, a woman out of place. This opposition of gender then engenders all the other oppositions of the trilogy; conflicts of oikos and polis, chthonic and Olympian, old and young can be assigned to female and male spheres respectively.  In this essay I will look at how the polis examines itself in terms of gender by focusing on the Eumenides' exploration of the myth of matriarchy, issues of the conflict between oikos and polis and the use of speech within the polis. I will then look at how these themes are

Socrates Refutation of Thrasymachus’ Definition of Justice In Plato’s Republic he attempts to uncover the fundamental question of what is justice. He does this through creating an open and engaging dialogue between his characters. His central character, Socrates, provides a voice for many of Plato’s personal views while several other interlocutors help present traditional Greek conceptions of justice and other criticisms. In book I of the Republic, Socrates refutes an interlocutor’s—Thrasymachus—concept of justice.

My paper doesn’t try to show that the dominance of men over women started at the introduction of a legal system, but that the voices of women were still heard as long as the family was the sovereign unit of society. As long as the family was the heart and center of a society, the voices of women could be heard and they were adequately represented. The shift to the polis meant the complete alienation of women. In the family, the women had a seat at the round table; they could influence decisions albeit in a small way. In the polis however they were sidelined and relegated to the background. Gender equality and patriarchy is made evident through the progression of the play from the Agamemnon, to the libation bearers, and finally to the Eumenides. I claim that Aeschylus’s trilogy the Oresteia shows the legitimization of patriarchy and the establishment of male dominance over the

The three plays that compose Aeschylus’s Oresteia contains what seems like and ancestry of violence. The violence starts with Atreus, Agamemnon’s father, which puts a curse on the family. Then Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and Orestes all commit murder which in their mind, is justified. Ironically, this play addresses their “justified” acts of murder when Athena states, “You wish to be righteous rather than act right…”; here, Athena is addressing the Fury, but this statement applies to all of the characters that committed murder throughout this trilogy (Aeschylus line 430). This statement questions real justice versus the idea of justice. Throughout these plays, the reader is forced to decided whether or not murder can be justifiable. For example,

Orestes beseeches Apollo to testify for him admitting outright that he did murder his mother and will not deny that he did so, nevertheless asking Apollo if the God thought his actions were just (Aeschylus, 1977, p. 258; 616-17). This becomes a murder trial where the murderer has already confessed. Apollo, Athena and the Furies know that he is guilty and the jurors are aware that he is guilty, but the question is whether or not he should be cleansed of this guilt because of his reason for committing matricide. Apollo chooses his words carefully to steer the perceptions of the jurors in a certain direction. His argument depicts males in a glorious light while painting females as lesser and almost like an evil to be subdued.