In light of ancient greek philosphy of crime and punishment, ancient greek tragedies of Orestia and Oedipus Rex has been analysed. Tragedies like Oedipus Rex and the Oresteia play a significant role in shedding light on to the concepts of justice and how crimes were evaluated on prescribed terms, a...
The concept of Justice in ancient Greece was interlinked with Daimon and
thumos, where justifications of crimes committed may be blamed on to the God’s
doing or will, rather than failure on one’s part of being in control of oneself.
Tragedies like Oedipus Rex and the Oresteia play a significant role in shedding
light on to the concepts of justice and how crimes were evaluated on prescribed
terms, and the verdict sealed.
Justice is a main theme in Aeschylus’ Oresteia because it consists of three
murderous crimes, all committed to avenge the previous one. In the first tragedy,
Clytemnestra, the murderer, stands accused but not guilty of the crime, while she
admits to the crime by dragging Agamemnon’s body to the public and denouncing
herself. She provides justifications, as to what prompted the crime; Agamemnon’s
lust for power which prompted him to mercilessly sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia
to the Gods, for his assured victory, and his bringing back a concubine with
himself, invoking her obvious jealousy. However, at the same time she claims to
have been serving as an agent to the God’s will who wanted to avenge and punish
Agamemnon for his destruction of temples, killing of his daughter and to carry on
his family curse of his Father, Atreus’ crimes. In the eyes of the Greeks, the two
most heinous and unforgiving of crimes, is the destruction of temples and the
shedding of one’s own kin’s blood; both which had been already done by
Agamemnon and his father as well. Clytemnestra refuses to take the blame for
the crime, even though evidence proves otherwise, because the spectator later
learns that Aegisthus, Clymenstra’s ally in the crime and lover, was the son of
Thyestes, brother of Atreus who had killed his nephews and served their flesh as
food to their father in an invited feast. Aegisthus does not seem to act through
the God’s command, because he openly uses aggressive phrases and words to
indicate his selfish goal to only have been revenge. Both the murderers use the
word justice to mean revenge against Agamemnon for all the sins he had
committed against them or in general, but they choose to hide behind the
concept of thumos, which implies the way for the divine to act in the mortal
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