The Legend of Orestes: A Greek Myth Retold

by Margo McLoughlin

reprinted from Parabola Magazine, November 2008

“I establish this tribunal. It shall be untouched
by money-making, grave but quick to wrath, watchful
to protect those who sleep, a sentry on the land.”

This is the story that Pindar and others tell, of Orestes, whose father was King Agammemnon, a hero of the Trojan War:

When they were children Orestes and his sister Electra spent an afternoon following the trail of a deer through the woods near Argos. When they came upon the doe she was drinking at a forest pool. Hearing the children behind her, she looked up and sprang away, climbing a rocky path and disappearing over the ridge. Orestes ran after her, thrilled by the pursuit. "Be careful!" Electra called as he leapt up the boulder-cluttered slope. His feet were not so nimble as the doe's. As he reached the top he lost his footing and fell, gashing his forehead on a rock. Electra washed and bound the wound. "By the scar that forms here I will always remember you," she said, and kissed his brow. The two were allies, praying for their father's safe return, determined never to soften in their hatred of Aegistus, their mother’s lover.

Agamemnon, King of Argos, had been gone ten years to the Trojan War. Orestes had no memory of his father's face or voice. All he had were his sister's stories, and his mother's bitter words. But Agamemnon, the father and the husband, was coming home at last, after fighting to avenge the insult done his brother Menelaus, when Paris of Troy stole his wife Helen and took her away. The Achaeans never wanted to go to war. Odysseus feigned madness. Achilles disguised himself. But go they did. As they set out, Agamemnon incurred the wrath of Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt. Without a fair wind, without any wind at all, they were stopped in their journey. It was the prophet Calchas who told him he must sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia, to appease the goddess. Some say she died willingly. Others say that she was bound and gagged, then slaughtered like a goat. Upon her death the winds came up, blowing from the west. They were on their way. But Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra would never forgive him. Long she nurtured her bitterness and anger, taking her husband’s cousin Aegistus as her lover and planning her revenge. And so, on that day of homecoming, which should have been nothing but joy and celebration, Clytemnestra wrapped her husband in the folds of a robe and cut his throat where he sat at the edge of the bath, preparing to wash away the dust of travel.

She might have killed her son Orestes as well, to forestall his revenge, knowing how a son honors a father. But the nurse Arsinoa saved him, and sent him to the court of King Strophius on Mount Parnassus. There he grew up and, reaching his twentieth year, he returned to Argos with his friend Pylades. It was Apollo's hand that guided him, in the temple at Delphi, painting for him a future as outcast and leper, if he neglected to avenge his father.

At their father's grave, Orestes was reunited with his sister Electra—she reached up and touched the scar on his forehead. Her call for assistance had been answered. Here was the man who would achieve justice. "What is the turning of justice," the Chorus sings, "but blood stroke for the stroke of blood?"  Is justice no more than an equal share of harm done to the one who committed the crime? Or, is it a sentence, handed done in an impartial court of law, which allows for penance and return to the community?

Orestes entered his mother's home, pretending to be a traveler from Mount Parnassus bringing news of his own death. His vengeance was surprisingly swift—the stroke of a sword and both his mother and her lover lay dead. But now the Furies, those serpent-wreathed deities, arose in pursuit of the matricide. What more loathsome act on Earth than to slay one's own mother? Orestes fully expected to die for what he had done. Still, he offered sacrifices in the temple of Apollo, but nothing would appease those spirits of the underworld. Relentlessly, they pursued him, making every moment a living hell.

Exhausted, bone-weary, Orestes appealed to Apollo who had required the murder of him in the first place. Phoebus Apollo, oracle of Zeus, lulled the Furies to sleep in his temple, and sent Orestes to supplicate Athene. Before the Acropolis in Athens, Orestes knelt before the image of the goddess, pleading for respite. The Furies followed him, relentless in their hounding, but when the goddess appeared, they agreed to abide by her judgment.

It was to be a fair trial. Each player would have a turn to speak, even to ask questions. Twelve of the finest men of Athens would be jurors, and each would cast a ballot to determine the fate of Orestes. Would it be death and oblivion or freedom and a renewal of the House of Atreus? As presiding judge, Athene would cast the deciding vote. She began the trial by inviting the Furies to question the accused. Orestes did not deny that he had killed his mother. He told how Apollo had ordered him to the task. Next it was Apollo who felt the fire of the Furies' wrath as he described how Agamemnon was slain, not like a hero, but as he sat at the edge of the bath—a death that dishonored the man, a death that required vengeance. But which crime is more heinous? The murder of a husband by a wife, or the murder of a mother by a son? Must one parent be honored over the other? The jurors deliberated. The ballots were equally divided. With Athene's ballot in his favor, Orestes was acquitted and set free. But now it remained to Athene to placate the Furies, and promise them a place of honor in her temple and her land. This she accomplished through deep and eloquent persuasion. The old gods who feed on vengeance were given a home in the new order, where justice takes a fresh and different form.

Commentary

In Greek tragedy we see opposing notions of justice at every turn. Can different ideas of justice co-exist? This is the challenge of a pluralistic society. It is also the challenge of the modern world, where access to justice is limited to those living in more or less democratic societies. Even then, as we well know, there are no guarantees.

At the conclusion of his cycle of plays, The Oresteia, Aeschylus shows the goddess Athene persuading the Furies to abandon their pursuit of Orestes. This, say the scholars, represents the taming of barbarian, pre-Hellenic forces and the introduction of true civilization.  Yet, the integration of the Furies into the new system of justice also introduces an inescapable paradox: if fear and terror accompany any judicial system, in order to ensure respect for the law, what prevents that system from making use of its judicial power to control and harm its own citizens?

Ultimately, the notion of justice as personal vengeance only leads to unending cycles of violence. Succeeding generations inherit willingly or unwillingly the grievances and vendettas of their parents and grandparents. With the introduction of a legal system that includes the appointment of an impartial jury, selected from the community, there is a chance to strike a balance between good old-fashioned retribution and state-sponsored terror.