Publisher's Synopsis
First presented at the festival of the City Dionysia, in 458 BCE and won the first prize, the Oresteia is the only trilogy that has survived the rapacious ways of Time to come down to us almost intact.
The myth that has inspired Aeschylus to write this trilogy is long and concerns the House of Atreus, a house which was almost obliterated by vengeance and revenge, in other words, by brutal murders. The last male of the house, Orestes survived, thanks to the new and exciting phenomenon that has emerged during Aeschylus' time, that of Democracy. The playwright shows us here this new phenomenon, in the form of a jury. The citizens of Athens, the demos, were asked by the goddess Athena to consider Orestes' guilt or innocence after he had murdered his mother, the Queen of Argos, Klytaemestra, and her lover, Aigisthus.
With this trilogy, Aeschylus shows the Athenian citizens the ills of the old and bloody ways of pursuing justice and asked them to see the benefits of the new ways of seeking the engagement and approval of the whole of the Athenian Demos, of each other in other words, of their peers. Courts from that moment on will be run just like the Parliament, the first that was built by the people and for the people. The country and its Justice systems would now be ruled by every male citizen.
Aristotle's view that all men are inherently politicians since they are members of a polis is, in this trilogy given a theatrical exhibition.
