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Altering Viewpoints -- the development of the ancient Greek city-state as seen in Aeschylus' Orestia and Aristotle's Politics
When considering primary source materials as a tool for evaluating historical events,
it is essential to identify the type of writing involved so that one can accurately consider the
perspective it presents and how that perspective then affects its interpretation of historical events
(Koeller). In dealing with the Hellenic and Hellenistic periods of history, two of the primary
sources available are reflected in the drama utilized by Aeschylus and the philosophical writings
as demonstrated by Aristotle. To effectively evaluate these sources, it is necessary to understand
the backgrounds of their diverse outlooks on events and then lay their biases against a modern
understanding of history if one is to determine their historical effectiveness.
The drama is an ancient art form. Speculation has considered its roots to go as far
back as Paleolithic times where dramatic action might be incorporated in the retelling of a
hunting expedition perhaps even using a skin from a slain animal to create the first costume(s)
(Turpin). The concept of relating an actual event became associated with sympathetic magic
wherein the belief was held that if one acted as if something were true (e.g. a successful hunt), it
would be true (Turpin). The other terminology applied to this idea is that of mythopoeic thought
wherein man attempts to explain through the supernatural what he cannot understand (Koeller).
Through the centuries, the more formal roots of drama are directly related to religious
developments with examples to be found in Egyptian writings, the Hebraic scripture (Job
and Song of Solomon, for example), and with the Ancient Greeks among others
(Turpin). With the Greeks the relationship of drama with mythopoeic or religious beliefs is
easily seen in the development of the great dramatic contests associated with the Dionysia, a
festival celebrating the god Dionysus (Turpin, Koeller). At this festival the great dramatists
staged new works in hopes of winning this important competition. Thus, from its inception,
Greek drama was inseparably linked with mythopoeic thought.
The resulting tragedies were written in the form of trilogies (three connected plays)
followed by a satyr play. Although there are numerous excellent examples of Greek tragedy, the
only extant trilogy is that of Aeschylus known as The Orestia. The Greek drama
developed with some very specific guidelines as to its makeup. One of its unique elements was
the use of the Chorus. The concept for this group, ranging in size from 12 to 50, arose from the
ritual recitations that had been a part of the worship of the deity (Turpin, Koeller). In the hands
of the playwright, this group evolved into the eyes and voice of the people as presented by the
dramatist. The Chorus would narrate, comment upon, and at times play an integral role in the
drama's progression (Turpin). In this way, drama became an accurate reflection of events as
viewed by its participants. However, because of the strong ties between drama and mythopoeic
thought that bias must be an overriding consideration in evaluating the source for historical
purposes.
In the same period when Greek drama was flourishing, a contrasting view of life
outside of mythopoeic thought arose in the area of philosophic thought. Prior to Socrates and
others like him, thought had been represented primarily in the form of sciences such as
medicine, astronomy, and mathematics; but even in man's understanding of these, there was a
clinging to the supernatural that could be neither explained nor understood. With the rise of the
Greek philosophical schools, however, man began to pursue logic and reason in examination of
mankind and the sciences abandoning the prevalent patterns of mythopoeic thought (Abbott,
Koeller).
For the philosophers the ultimate pursuit was in grasping the good life. With their
stress on the importance of reason and logos and their concept of order in the world, human
beings were seen as rational, reasoning beings. Expanding upon the reasonings of Socrates and
Plato, Aristotle took the abstract idea of "good" and defined it as telos, man's goal or
function in life which was ultimately to be happy. Aristotle defined everything by its function.
Everything had a basic purpose to fulfill (Abbott, Koeller).
Knowing the backgrounds for these two types of writing, they can be examined as
primary source documents when viewed from the perspective of their biases. Since Aeschylus
and Aristotle both address the development of civilization in their works, they lend themselves
to comparison. In an historical study of the evolution of civilization, the pattern is observed of
progression from a family-centered, nomadic society to that of a settled agrarian society. With
this settling into a fixed location, the need for a warlord to serve as the military/defensive leader
became an essential ingredient to the protection of the society. At the same time the mythopoeic
beliefs for understanding and dealing with the unknown led to the rise of a more complex
religious element in a society that was still built around the ties of family loyalty (Koeller).
Because Aeschylus examines the development of the polis in his trilogy,
The Orestia (Agamemnon AG, The Libation Bearers LB, The
Eumenides (EUM), it becomes an interesting document to peruse from the historical
perspective. In these plays Aeschylus is retelling events from the time of the Trojan War which
took place during the Dark Age of Greece. To the Greek audience, the tale of the house of
Atreus was a familiar one (AG 42). The family background of the cruel killings and the ensuing
pattern of revenge going back several generations was well-known. In The Orestia,
Aeschylus picks up this story to relate the fall of the house of Atreus as the result of the ongoing
blood-feud that came from the revenge seeking pattern of justice prevalent in this
pre-polis environment and shows how the polis and its system of justice were
necessary to the continuation of society.
Prior to the opening of the trilogy, Agamemnon had sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia,
to appease the gods and assure success for the Greek cause as they set out for Troy seeking
revenge against Paris and his family for the dishonor brought upon the Greeks as a whole and the
house of Atreus in particular when Paris stole away with Helen, Agamemnon's sister-in-law.
Clytemnestra viewed the death of their daughter as a murder and vowed to avenge her death
which is done upon Agamemnon's return from the successful conclusion of the Trojan War.
Their son, Orestes, is then faced with a moral dilemma -- to avenge the death of his father he
must kill his mother. The first act is demanded by the gods, the second one forbidden.
Whatever he does, Orestes is right and wrong at the same time (LB 289-301, 526-527, 883-888,
897-899). Finally, having killed his mother, Orestes is pursued by the Furies demanding
vengeance for the matricide. Orestes flees to Apollo who then takes him to Athena. Because of
the complexity of the issue, Athena orders a court of citizens to hear the evidence and then judge
where justice lies. Through this tale we are taken from the warrior, vengeance-seeking society
to the more advanced polis with its Court of Justice. However, we are never freed from
mythopoeic influence.
Aeschylus displays the firm mythopoeic outlook of the people through the many
prophecies that are recounted. Agamemnon was himself a warlord leader and protector of
society looked up to by the people. His actions are justified in the eyes of the people who see his
actions as being directly governed by the gods for the good of them all. Reflecting this
viewpoint the Chorus affirms "And now it goes / And where it ends is Fate" (AG 73-74). In the
inclusion of Cassandra's death (she was a prophetess) with that of Agamemnon, there is perhaps
a foreshadowing of the death of the role of prophecy as an overriding factor and the coming
progression of the determination of man's fate lying in his own hands. In Agamemnon,
Aeschylus begins the tying together of vengeance and the violence it brings connected with Fury
as a mythopoeic force and as a characteristic of vengeance (755-766). He also introduces the
concept of Justice as he begins the progression towards it by the completion of the trilogy.
Electra and the Chorus of women present a changing view of the gods (LB 119-126, 214).
Orestes' position where all winning actions are also losing ones allows Aeschylus to show the
limitations of the mythopoeic outlook that has shaped the society to this point. The Chorus gives
voice to this with the words "the one who acts must suffer" (LB 320). Later they state, "No man
can go through life / and reach the end unharmed / Aye, trouble is now, / and trouble still to
come" (LB 1014-1017). Thus the drama' audience is firmly aware of the need for a change. The
change finally occurs in The Eumenides in which Aeschylus shows, under the guise of a
mythopoeic progression, the rise of the court of Athens and the end of the reign of the Furies
who had fueled the thirst for revenge. In the opening speech we are refocused on the gods, but
this time the emphasis falls to "Mother Earth" bringing a sense of alignment with nature as a
whole and the inclusion of "Tradition" and "destiny" (EUM 1-5). When Orestes appeals to
Apollo a new concept enters the picture as Orestes asks for "compassion" (EUM 89). This
radical change in the reign of revenge is demonstrated in Athena's question, "And the murderer's
flight, where does it all end?" (EUM 434) She then calls for those involved to
summon your trusted witnesses and proofs, / your defenders under oath to
help your cause. / And I will pick the finest men of Athens, / return and decide the issue fairly,
truly - / bound to our oaths, our spirits bent on justice (EUM 501-505).
With his trial before a court not of gods, but of citizens who are given the task of deciding his
guilt or innocence in the matter and determining what punishment, if any, should be taken, we
have a major shift from the dominant role of the gods in shaping man's life. The outcome of this
first trial is a tie showing the difficult pull of both sides in this question. Because there is not
clear cut guilt established, however, Orestes is allowed to go free and the Furies are changed
from hate driven ugly creatures demanding revenge to beautiful and peaceful protectors of the
city. In Athena's facing the need for a new solution in meting out justice, she decrees that "this
will be the court where judges reign" forever (EUM 696). The evolution of the society is
revealed a few lines later when she says "The stronger your fear, your reverence for the just, / the
stronger your country's wall and city's safety" (EUM 714-715). Through this final section of
The Orestia, Aeschylus shows the change that took place as a necessary outgrowth from
the unsolvable dilemma that was the eventual end of the revenge seeking motif to a pattern of
justice where a group of citizens rather than an individual family member are charged with the
duty of determining what action, if any, must be taken. Through the role of Athena, Aeschylus
still maintains the tie of the people's actions with the mythopoeic thought pattern that has
continued to control them although he does show a questioning of these forces in the need for
progress or change.
Aristotle, on the other hand, presents the evolution of the Greek city-state as the
natural outgrowth of the human being's attempt to understand and regulate man's place in society
totally removed from all mythopoeic influences. Working from the premise that man is a
rational being, in Politics, Aristotle starts looking at how people relate to each other
(Abbott). Aristotle develops the occurrence of the political structure as an outgrowth of Nature
(107). He covers the same progression from family bands to settled people under a ruler
mentioned in the historical progression observed earlier while always maintaining that
ultimately "the state is a natural institution, [and] that Man is naturally a political animal" (108).
Aristotle presents the "administration of justice" as the duty of the citizen. Ultimately, Aristotle
says that the rise of the Greek city-state was necessary for the fulfillment of man's ability to
reach the highest status of achieving his telos or happiness (Koeller).
Although to the citizens, both collectively and individually, this higher life is
emphatically the end proposed, yet life itself is also an object for which they unite and maintain
the corporate political association; . . . . Certain it is that the majority of men endure much
suffering without ceasing to cling to life, a proof that a certain happiness of natural sweetness
resides in it. (111)
In Aristotle's understanding, the Greek city-state was the ultimate environment for
achieving telos, because that achievement required leisure to pursue the intellectual and
cultural opportunities. Since only a restricted number of people had such leisure, the number
who could attain telos was also limited. Aristotle failed to grasp any shortcomings in
such a system viewing it as natural for some to be elevated and others (particularly slaves and
women) to be relegated to naturally lower positions. Their happiness was to come simply from
being alive. All of Aristotle's conclusions are based upon reason of the intellect, but to a modern
interpreter his logical conclusions cannot stand alone, because man does not always act in a
rational manner.
On examining these two sources, then, we find that using the sensual form and social
interaction of the drama, Aeschylus' presents an history strongly biased by mythopoeic forces.
Although Aeschylus accomplishes the recounting of a transition that takes man beyond mere
superstition and into a stage of human development that calls for man to view and reason and
deal with his own actions and his interaction with others and his environment, he continues to
maintain an unreasonable tie to mythopoeic forces. Many of the elements of a factual
accounting are present and easily recognized, but the role of the gods and the people's strong tie
to Fate makes The Orestia a limited source for viewing the factual development of
Ancient Greece although it gives great insight into the psychological makeup of the people.
In direct contrast, Aristotle's philosophy denies the sensual and mythopoeic while
recounting the same evolution of society based on intellectual reasoning. Since man has a
spiritual need, it is difficult to totally isolate man's understanding whether of gods or of God
from a view of his society as Aristotle did. We know the drama was attended and enjoyed by the
masses of Aeschylus' day (Turpin) whereas the appeal of Aristotle was more restricted due to the
smaller number of educated elite who would have the capacity to follow his arguments.
However, the reading of Aristotle gives great insight into the minds of the Greek people --
particularly into the appeal of reason and the symmetry found in logic. Interestingly, rational
Aristotle laid down the guidelines for evaluating drama (with all its non-rational elements) in his
treatise on Poetics.
Mythopoeic influences whether real or imagined shaped man's interactions with
others and his environment and cannot be discounted as a force in historical development, but an
historical accounting must add to this the natural evolutions that can be found through recurring
patterns and scientific documentation of natural phenomenon. For a social historian the writings
of Aeschylus and Aristotle play a significanat part in understanding the people of Ancient
Greece -- their thoughts, feelings, and view of themselves. However, for the intellectual
historian, both sources offer more limited assistance because neither gives a totally objective
accounting. Each is influenced by his bias -- Aeschylus by the hold of mythopoeic influence and
Aristotle by his "reason."
Sources
Abbott, Dan Phillips, Ph.D. "Lectures on Ethics." Phillips University. Enid, Spring
1992.
Aeschylus. The Orestia. Trans. Robert Fagles. NY: Penguin Books, 1979.
Aristotle. "from The Poetics." Trans. J.E.C. Welldon. The Western Tradition.
Ed. Eugen Weber. 4th ed. Vol. 1. Lexington: D.C. Heath & Co., 1990. 106-114.
Koeller, David, Ph.D. "Lectures on Western Civilization to 1500." Phillips University.
Enid, Fall 1992.
Turpin, T. Jerry, Ph.D. "Lectures on the History of Drama. Phillips University. Enid,
Spring 1991.
© 1992, 1998--Faye Kiryakakis
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