Pericles' Winding Road to Power

A History of Mankind (110)

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Athenians were very fond of talking and of complex arguments. Thus, theatre flourished in their city, evolving from a celebration of epic great deeds and betrayals by fearsome gods, into a continuation of agora discussion by other means.[1]

Nothing exemplifies this better than “Oresteia,” a highly complex series of three plays[2] originally produced in 458 BC by Pericles’ own client Aeschylus, presenting an alternative conclusion to the Iliad[3]: instead of the entertaining tale of the rascal Ulysses, we have a realist story about Agamemnon’s disastrous return from Troy, his subsequent murder by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, and the subsequent retribution by Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.

The Oresteia shows the high degree of sophistication that Athens already had at this relatively early point in its history. First of all, Aeschylus had to assume familiarity with the original, well-known Iliad tale of Agamemnon and his friends wasting ten years in heroic, manly fights and finally taking over Troy thanks to Ulysses' brains.

Building up on that, Aeschylus weaves a tale about the proper roles of men and women, explored through Clytemnestra, who is characterized in the opening lines of the trilogy as a “woman … that organizes like a man”.[4]

In the end, Aeschylus manages to depict what for many would appear as a terrifying other-world where women are in control, silence (and kill) their husbands, and take precedence over their sons. In the second play, Orestes restores the traditional order by killing Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, as the original tale in the Iliad demanded, but then he must face harsh justice in the third, where he's presented as far from blameless. With a deadlocked jury, only the intervention of the goddess Athena tips the scales in Orestes favor.