The Oresteia Analysis

In Oresteia, justice is mainly of revenge, it is clear that revenge is a messy form of justice as one has to wait for someone to wrong them before they can revenge and after they carry out their vengeance, a relative or friend of the slain person will also revenge against them and the cycle continues until there is no one else to be killed or made to suffer in the process. In the first and second parts of Oresteia, Agamemnon and Libation Bearers, it is shown how the destructive power and retributive justice lead to the immense destruction of both familial and civic capacities. This form of justice threatens the survival of the house of Atreus. These two parts of the trilogy seem to describe the workings of what can be clearly described as the natural justice where one is punished according to the crime committed as in ''an eye for an eye'' form of justice.

We can see how Clytemnestra is outraged by Agamemnon's act of killing their daughter Iphigenia at Aulis in order to please the gods to calm the seas so that he could sail for Troy to wage war. Apollo is very helpful in revealing the wrongs done to the Aegisthus father by Agamemnon's father in the past. Aegisthus rejoices at the death of Agamemnon, he says that the gods above who avenges for man have done justice to him for the sins of his father. Agamemnon's father had killed Aegisthus siblings and served the father the head, feet, and hands of his children at a feast. Agamemnon lines 1580 '' The kindly light of this day's dawn brings justice in its train. Once more I now can say that the gods above, avengers of men, do gaze with care upon the troubles of this earth, since here I see this man laid low, entangled in the mesh of the Furies' robes, "From this text it is evident that Furies were largely involved in avenging the wrongs done to people in the polis.

He does not act at his personal level but according to the orders of the modern gods who have the development of the polis at heart as opposed to the Furies. Seeing the destruction brought about by the retributive justice brought about by the cycle of violence threatens the survival of the royal household, the gods seek for a different solution to justice. For the polis to survive to higher and modern civilization, a different method of resolving conflicts of a moral question. This is the beginning of the turning point of injustice. The play, The Libation bearers ends with the god Furies driving out Orestes to Athena's shrine. Athena tries to make the jury understand that law is not only about the forms of justice but it is all about justice itself, unlike what the Furies believed.

With the new form of justice, the jury is mandated to understand the circumstances and the reasons behind the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes. Athena understands that she, herself cannot make the final judgment and needs the gods and the jury to decide "by all rights "…by all rights, not even I should decide a case of murder-murder whets passions. Eumenides lines 486-487. She thus seeks the counsel of the humans when the gods disagree. The Furies also make Athens their home as offered by Athena. This leads to lasting peace among the gods and the immortals. With this final resolution, the curse of the house of Atreus comes to an end. The feuds among the gods also come to an end. This transition is of importance to the polis in that, the new justice system is borne and laws of judging people's wrongdoings are put in place.