Play: The Eumenides

Overview
Aeschylus’ The Eumenides, first performed in 458 BCE as the final play of the Oresteia, concludes the cycle of blood vengeance that begins with Agamemnon’s murder and continues through Orestes’ revenge. It shifts the framework of justice from private retribution enforced by ancient chthonic powers to a civic, rational order embodied by Athena and the Athenian court. Pursuit yields to adjudication; curses are converted into blessings; the city secures harmony by integrating older forces into a new legal and religious settlement.

Delphi: The Pursuit of Orestes
The play opens at Apollo’s temple in Delphi, where the Pythia discovers Orestes asleep, ringed by the Furies, primeval goddesses who avenge blood kin. Orestes has killed his mother, Clytemnestra, to avenge his father, Agamemnon, and the Furies demand blood for blood. Apollo, who commanded the matricide, defends Orestes and drives the Furies back, promising refuge and a path to acquittal in Athens. The ghost of Clytemnestra rises to rouse the sleeping Furies, reproaching them for neglect, and sets them back on the hunt. The stage is charged with the clash between new Olympian authority and ancient underworld sanctions, the Furies’ hissed meters and Orestes’ supplication underscoring terror and urgency.

Athens: Appeal to Athena
Orestes reaches the Acropolis and grasps the statue of Athena as a suppliant. The Furies arrive, tracking the scent of blood guilt, and surround him, singing of their ancient function and the cosmic necessity of their work. Athena appears, poised and deliberative, and questions each side. Orestes asserts he acted under divine command to avenge a father wronged; the Furies insist that the murder of a mother is the most sacred violation and cannot be washed away. Recognizing the complexity and civic implications, Athena refuses to decide by fiat. Instead she establishes a court of citizens on the Areopagus to hear the first homicide trial, with Apollo as advocate for the defense and the Furies as prosecutors. The moment inaugurates a permanent civic institution to replace endless vendetta.

The Trial and Verdict
Before the jurors, the Furies argue from ancient right and kinship duty: blood cries out from the ground and must be answered, else society rots. Apollo counters that Clytemnestra killed a king and guest, that Orestes acted justly, and that the father’s principle is primary; he provocatively claims the mother is a nurse of seed, not the true begetter. Athena, born from Zeus alone, signals sympathy with this reasoning yet binds herself to the vote. Ballots are cast; they fall evenly split. Athena adds her vote for acquittal, declaring that when votes tie, mercy prevails. Orestes is freed of pollution and vows Argive-Athenian friendship, departing under Apollo’s sanction.

From Furies to Kindly Ones
The Furies erupt in rage, threatening to blight the land and render wombs barren, asserting that a city that undermines ancestral justice will wither. Athena meets their fury with respect and persuasion, promising honor, a seat in a grotto beneath the Areopagus, and worship as protectors of fertility, oath, and civic prosperity. She reframes their role: not persecutors of vengeance but guardians against future bloodshed, feared and revered as foundations of the city’s moral order. Gradually the Furies accept, transformed into the Eumenides, the Kindly Ones. The play ends with a solemn torchlit procession escorting them to their new sanctuary, hymns blessing Athens with concord and abundance. Aeschylus seals the trilogy by reconciling old and new, embedding primal wrath within lawful institutions, and imagining a polity where justice is public, reasoned, and ritually secured.