Eumenides

Apollo is the Greek god associated with prophecy, healing, and culture. One of the young Olympian gods denounced throughout the play by the older Furies, Apollo is the authority who commanded Orestes to exact vengeance for the murder of his father by killing Clytemnestra and Aegisthus—a detail not present in the original mythology, but possibly invented by Aeschylus.

Unlike the Furies, Apollo does not accept that matricide is a more serious crime than a wife killing her husband. In fact, as a representative of the patriarchal divine order of Zeus, Apollo is inclined to the reverse view—that a woman who kills a man is particularly dangerous and must be punished at whatever cost, even if it is her own son who must kill her (as in the case of Orestes). At Orestes’s trial, Apollo even makes the extraordinary case that mothers play only an incidental role in the reproductive process, and that only fathers are biologically responsible for the birth of a child—and it is this patriarchal view that wins out in the end. Apollo thus illustrates the way in which the newer gods subvert the ancient privileges of the older gods, who are represented by the Furies.

Athena is the Greek goddess of war and wisdom, and the patron goddess of the city of Athens. She would very likely have been played by the same actor who played the Ghost of Clytemnestra. Athena occupies a very special role in the dichotomized world of the play. Though she belongs to the younger generation of gods, much like her brother Apollo, Athena is also female and thus has something in common with the matriarchal Furies and the other older generation of gods. Athena, accordingly, is more conciliatory than either Apollo or the Furies. Thus, while Apollo and the Furies each view their own case as right and the case of the other side as wrong, Athena sees nuance. She admits that the case of Orestes is too complex to be judged by a single entity and initiates the murder trial at the Areopagus. Later, after Orestes is acquitted, Athena uses her considerable powers of persuasion to placate the raging Furies.

Though Athena is eager to settle conflicts peacefully, fairly, and intelligently, she never lets anybody forget that she is also very powerful. On the one hand, she is the patron goddess of a city that embodies justice and possesses “intelligence not to be despised” (850), but, on the other hand, she also “knows the keys to where [Zeus’s] thunderbolts are locked” (829). Yet Athena is not quick to anger or violence, which is key to her ability to reconcile the opposing forces not only of Eumenides, but also of all three plays of the Oresteia. The virginal, motherless Athena counterbalances the violent and animalistic sexuality and aggression of Clytemnestra. Athena is thus able to end the cycle of violence and retribution, establish legal justice, and reconcile the old and new gods.

The Chorus of Eumenides is made up of the Furies (called the Erinyes or Eumenides in Greek). The Furies were goddesses associated with the Underworld, whose primary function was to vengefully punish wrongdoers—especially “those who have shed the blood of men” (421). Aeschylus depicts his Furies as terrifying and hideous in appearance and behavior. In the Prologue, for instance, the Pythia compares them to Gorgons or Harpies, both famous mythological monsters. The Furies belong to the older generation of gods, and their female gender is important to them: They are matriarchal, championing the rights of the mother over that of the father throughout the play, which in part fuels their unrelenting pursuit of the matricide Orestes.

The Furies see themselves as “straight and just” (312) and complain throughout the play that the younger gods subvert and challenge their ancient privileges. But the justice and privileges of the Furies are called into question by the trial and eventual acquittal of Orestes. In the end, the Furies are transformed: Won over by Athena, they accept new cult honors at Athens and, in so doing, adopt new functions and a new idea of justice as a civic institution rather than private retribution. On stage, they act out shedding their old identity quite literally, as they exchange their black robes for red ones. In thus assuming responsibility for the welfare and prosperity of Athens, the Furies adopt a holistic idea of justice based on law and social order rather than blood-guilt and retribution, turning into the gentle “Eumenides” (a Greek title meaning, possibly euphemistically, “Kindly Ones”) or the local Athenian Semnai Theai (“Holy Goddesses”).