The Bolt of Justice

In Aeschylus' trilogy, the Greeks' justice system went through a transformation from old to new ways. In the beginning of the trilogy, the characters settle their matters, both personal and professional, with vengeance. Vengeance is when someone is harmed or killed, and either the victim, or someone close to them takes revenge on the criminal. This matter is proven in the trilogy numerous times.

Homer’s The Odyssey is not just a tale of a man’s struggle on his journey home from the Trojan War, but of his struggle from the consequences of revenge. The Odyssey weaves in different characters’ tales of revenge from the gods and what impact revenge actually had on those characters. Revenge is an important underlying theme in The Odyssey because, in essence, it explains why Odysseus’ journey was so prolonged and treacherous. A few examples of revenge in the poem include Orestes’ revenge on Aegisthus, Zeus’ revenge on Odysseus and his men, and Poseidon’s revenge on Odysseus. These different examples of revenge in The Odyssey show the importance of the gods’ revenge in the epic journey of Odysseus.

The Unjust even went as far as to state that Just was “ancient”. Although these traditions and ideas may be fading, they are not necessarily wrong. However, Unjust speech uses the fact that justice is ceasing to exist to imply that it is of no importance and does not necessitate a role on Greek society. The novelty of the Unjust speech allows it to flourish and triumph over the Just speech.

The pursuit of justice is an endeavor that many find to be challenging and a quest itself, as one will come across various trials and complications that may stop them in their pursuit or may mislead them. As humans, we find moral correctness and righteousness a very appealing state to be in, as justice will act as a platform to satisfy the desire for this correctness. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, we meet our miserable anti-hero, Oedipus, in his pursuit for truth and righting the wrong of the plague that is affecting his people of Thebes. As he makes efforts to solve this problem, he comes to find out that he is the source of the issue, thus exposing the tragic flaw of Oedipus and effectively making this play a very effective Greek tragedy. This pursuit of righteousness ends up being the downfall of Oedipus. In Sophocles’ Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, Oedipus pursues justice through his realization of his past, his interactions with various characters in the play, and comes to understand more of justice in his situation through his reactions to adversity in this play, in order to portray a questionably successful pursuit of justice.

In the closing passages of the Odyssey, the suitors and disloyal servants are punished for their crimes against Odysseus, and it does indeed seem that the death penalty doled out by Odysseus is harsh. However, at this particular period of Greek history, it was expected that each man take his own vengeance against his trespassers as there was no judicial system in place to deal with these problems at the time, therefore it seems justified that as their crimes stretched over a period of nearly 20 years and were directly against xenia, the law of Zeus, that Odysseus take his revenge as he wishes.

Justice in our times is almost completely different from what the ancient Greeks considered as justice. Justice, today can be defined as the quality of being just, the principle of moral rightness. In the ancient Greek era and most certainly during the time when the story of the Odyssey happened; Justice was frequently instantaneous and severe, almost unswerving. Odysseus is sometimes seen as being the one carrying out justice or being the one affected by justice. In the Odyssey, we see justice as revenge, and areas in which we can use to say that Odysseus is a just man.

Odysseus was not justified in his actions. Even though the wooers might have deserved being killed, because of how disrespectful they were to Penelope and Telemachus. They were even disrespectful to Odysseus as well, trying to steal his country from him wasn't the smartest idea. All those hateful things the wooers said still does not make killing them okay. Violence is never the answer for anything.

The Odyssey by Homer is a literary classic that presents many themes about the natures of both man and god. Although the characters of the book display characteristics relatable to those of the people today, one of the most prevalent differences between the two eras and their people is the intense violence that takes place throughout the entirety of the epic. This violence serves several functions in the work as a whole. The violence that is enacted upon the characters of The Odyssey serve as a device to convey the Greek cultural value of reverence of the gods and as a method for the author to create nuances to his characters.

Vengeance and justice was very important to Greek everyday life. It was believed that people will get revenge for their actions.

In the time of the so-called Heroic Age (roughly the Mycenaean Age, the time of the Trojan War, 1200-1100 BCE or thereabouts) standards were much, much different, and some of them, at least, for very good reasons. Probably by those standards (or the standards of Homer’s time, some 400 years later) Odysseus was considerably closer to a hero than he would be in our eyes today. Perhaps, what might now be seen as grotesquely excessive blood letting, would then have been seen as an understandable or even necessary act of retribution

Blame can always be placed several different ways, and the accused and accusers of situations battle this all the time in literature. In one text however, several arguments can be made for one side of this ever-present schism. In this particular book, more arguments can be made to assign blame to one side of the argument rather than the other. In Homer’s Odyssey, mortal men cause their own misfortune.

When Odysseus returned home to his wife and son, he took a very brutal approach to rid his home of the suitors who had invaded his household.  This revenge was also taken out upon the servants and maids who had been unfaithful to Penelope and had slept with the suitors.  Some may say this punishment was too harsh, and made Odysseus less than an honorable man.  However, Odysseus’s actions were justifiable.

In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus is away from his home, Ithaca, for twenty years. Despite the low odds of Odysseus ever returning home after such a time, those in Ithaca were expected to remain loyal to Odysseus as they awaited his return. While this was a daunting task, those who accomplished it were heavily rewarded, while those who didn’t were met with death. Upon his return, Odysseus promised Eumaeus, the loyal swineherd, that he would find him a wife, grant him property next to his own, and that he would become one of the “comrades to Telemachus, brothers from then on” (21.243). His own wife Penelope remained loyal for all of the twenty years of Odysseus’ absence, never once giving in to the many suitors who invited themselves into her home and spent years vying for her hand. While she probably would have been killed by Odysseus if she had been unfaithful to him, perhaps her greatest reward was just being able to be with her husband again and being able to live. The suitors, however, were not so lucky. Odysseus, along with the help of the goddess Athena, carefully plotted and executed the death of every suitor that entered his home and gone after his wife. With the help of his son, the swineherd, and the goddess, Odysseus took down every suitor, until “the suitors lay in heaps, corpse covering corpse” (22.414). The resulting death of every disloyal character in the epic

In the twenty-first century, a reader sees a God helping Odysseus enact revenge on a couple of suitors. In our modern society, we view murder as wrong no matter how it is justified. Even revenge murder is murder in our current society. However, based on a contemporary view, a reader would understand why Odysseus killed all the suitors. Odysseus was defending his honor.

One of the issues in Homers The Odyssey is understanding the role and function of the goddess Athena. The problem is most pronounced when examining Athena’s duality. She provides Odysseus both her counsel and assistance throughout the story yet she’s also the entity that keeps him exiled from his home. Athena’s role, similar to the other gods, is to correct apparent injustices. “Oh father Zeus and gods and bliss forever let no man holding scepter as a king think to be mild the fatherhood and mercy through his reign. Meanwhile he lives and grieves upon the island of the nymph…” Book 5 lines 9-21. These lines show that Athena is concerned about the injustice that surrounds Odysseus and his son. This suggests that gods can become active in the role of mortals and may aid them to correct inequity through their fate. This paper will explore the obligations Athena had to ensure Odysseus’ voyage home safely as well as the thematic importance of fate in The Odyssey and the intervention and the power of the gods and goddesses. Fate is one of the occurring themes throughout the Odyssey, where the intervention of the gods and goddesses is common due to the triumphs of men and women.