Double tragedy | 17 September 2015

To examine an ancient text requires an understanding of the ancient imagination. The Oresteia is set in a primitive world where people believed that every animal, tree, stone, river, mountain, star, cloud and clap of thunder was inspired by a spirit controlled by the gods. Heaven signalled its wishes through dreams, oracles or chance events which were interpreted by prophets. What we understand by ‘faith’, i.e. a volitional fealty to a particular religious code, didn’t exist. There was no free will either. Mortals chose between one divine instruction or another. The genius of Aeschylus was to commit his characters to a cycle of moral conflicts where every act of obedience was also an act of betrayal. Agamemnon must avenge Helen’s rape by attacking Troy but to gain a fair wind he must sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia. Clytemnestra must avenge Iphigenia by committing the sin of murdering Agamemnon. Their son, Orestes, must avenge Agamemnon by killing Clytemnestra.