Subjective Justice

Introduction

Euripides’ Orestes was first produced in 408 BC.1 The play opens after the title character’s notorious murder of his mother, Clytemnestra, has already been committed. Plagued by Clytemnestra’s avenging furies, a feverish Orestes lies in front of the palace doors in Argos, tended by his sister Electra. We learn from Electra that the Argives are holding an assembly to decide what should be done with her and her brother. Presuming the judgment to be unfavorable, Orestes and Electra place their hope in their uncle Menelaus, who has just returned from Troy. But Menelaus proves noncommittal and the Argive assembly hostile, even when Orestes, supported by his friend Pylades, appears before them to plead his case. The Argives sentence Orestes and Electra to death by suicide. In response, the siblings and Pylades decide to coerce Menelaus to let them go by a three-step plan: murder Helen, Menelaus’ wife and the woman over whom the Trojan war had been fought; kidnap Hermione, Menelaus’ daughter; and set fire to the palace, where Menelaus hoped to reign as king of Argos now that Orestes has been condemned. In the chaos that ensues, Helen disappears mysteriously before she can be killed, and Orestes climbs onto the roof, holding a knife to Hermione’s neck as he shouts his demands down to a distraught Menelaus. Just as Orestes orders Electra to set the house on fire, however, Apollo appears and delivers his compromise plan: Helen is taken up into the skies by order of Zeus, Menelaus is to remain king in Sparta, while Orestes is to become king of Argos and marry his cousin Hermione.

Though dealing with the famous story of the House of Atreus and popular in antiquity, Orestes is relatively less well-known today than earlier plays on the subject by Aeschylus and Sophocles. Part of this may be attributed to the canonical status of Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy and Sophocles’ Electra, as well as the labeling of Orestes as a problematic play. It employs comedic elements and the techniques of melodrama despite its status as a tragedy, notably ending with marriage instead of death or madness. Euripides has been criticized for the play’s cast of unnecessarily dislikable characters. Nevertheless, Orestes tackles questions of justice and morality that had been inconclusively or unsatisfactorily dealt with in the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles. I propose to examine in detail how Euripides presents the idea of justice in Orestes’ Argos, specifically the relative objectivity and subjectivity in the use of social and divine law by characters in the play, and which, if any, of the two sets of laws is a sufficiently objective standard against which members of society measure their actions (especially concerning Orestes’ murder of his mother). I will begin by examining whether social law may be considered the ultimate moral authority in the play.

Social Justice

The primary aspect of social law in Orestes is a traditional sense of morality combined with the new democratic morality of the law court, or certain legal proceedings that require popular assemblies as a medium. Both the traditional and democratic ideals of morality involve notions of justice, piety, duty, etc., which are more or less derived from or supported by divine law. Thus, a punishment may be considered suitable from both the social and the divine perspective. 2

The most famous example of social law in Greek tragedy is the Athenian law court of Aeschylus’ Eumenides, where the jurors, under Athena’s guidance, acquit Orestes but still manage to satisfy the Furies. 3 They bring forth a modern, democratic ideal of justice that supplants the ancient, chthonic, blood-for-blood justice of the Furies. A similar law court also plays a role in Euripides’ Orestes. After Orestes murders Clytemnestra, the Argives assemble and debate over what should be done with him and his sister Electra, who was complicit in the crime. Various arguments are put forth, principally presenting the murder and its punishment as balancing acts in the maintenance of social order, without giving much consideration to the divine side of the affair. The brother and sister are condemned to death on this almost purely social basis. It seems, then, that the Argive assembly is content to defer to social law as their ultimate authority, at least for the time being. The proceedings of the assembly come to us second-hand from a messenger who reports the scene to Electra. A clearer and more direct exposition of the case is given by Tyndareus, father of Helen and Clytemnestra, whose entire argument is based almost solely on social law. In the end, however, he seems to find social law inadequate for his purposes.

Newly arrived in Argos to mourn his daughter’s death, Tyndareus congratulates Menelaus on his safe return and gives a long speech detailing reasons in favor of Orestes’ death. He begins by accusing Orestes of taking justice into his own hands instead of following the “common law of Greece”,4 according to which he ought to have prosecuted his mother for murder and obtained her banishment, thus putting a stop to the cycle of bloodshed that haunted the family of Atreus.5 Tyndareus repeatedly stresses that he argues on behalf of the law, not for his daughter, whom he condemns as an adulteress and murderer. Though Tyndareus believes that according to the law of Greece, Clytemnestra the husband-killer should have been banished, he does not suggest a similar punishment for Orestes the matricide, nor does he explain why Orestes deserves death more than Clytemnestra. Or rather, his explanation on this point steps out of the bounds of social law and into the realm of the divine: “heaven loathes you […] heaven itself has made you mad”.6 According to Tyndareus, Orestes’s madness is ample proof that he is a criminal in the eyes of the gods. Presumably, then, heaven’s wrath distinguishes Orestes’ crime from his mother’s, condemning him to harsher punishment.

Tyndareus, who presents himself as a firm adherent of social law, evidently still finds the system of social law wanting since he names laws that condemn Orestes but avoid those that may save him; and when selective usage seems inconclusive, he resorts to divine law. He points to Orestes’s madness as a sign of divine displeasure but avoids the inevitable question: if Orestes had followed the proceedings of social law and brought about his mother’s banishment, would the gods have been satisfied? If Orestes ought to have followed social law, ought not the Argives adhere to it themselves and so exile Orestes instead of condemning him to suicide? Social law, then, was not considered sufficient as a moral authority. Tyndareus found even a subjective interpretation of social law wanting because it fails to reconcile Orestes’ position as both his father’s avenger and his mother’s murderer—for the simple reason that the dilemma is a divine one: social law overlooks the fact that Orestes’ murder of Clytemnestra was more or less commanded by a god, Apollo, “navel and center of the world”.7

Divine Justice

The ancient playwrights differed in their presentation of Apollo’s role, but it is generally agreed that the god had either directly commanded Orestes to murder Clytemnestra or informed him that he would suffer terribly if the murder was not carried out. The irony is, of course, that Orestes still suffers terribly after the murder is accomplished; as he explains to Tyndareus, his choice was between being hounded by his father’s Furies or his mother’s, and Apollo pushed him towards the latter. Orestes goes so far as to say that if social law condemns him to death, then Apollo, “the culprit”, deserves a similar punishment.8 But Apollo is divine and operates in the realm of divine law. This fact is eagerly seized upon by characters who, either lacking social law on their side or considering it less authoritative than divine law, use the latter to overrule the former. Most notably, the triad of Orestes, Pylades, and Electra repeatedly holds Apollo accountable. There are several instances in which Orestes, Electra, and Menelaus condemn the god: Electra calls him “evil”, Orestes points to him as “the guilty one,” and Menelaus describes his command of murder as “callous, unjust, and immoral”.9 Social and divine law are here in conflict. Social law condemns matricide, but the matricide acted under divine direction. Under social law, the Argives voted for the deaths of Orestes and Electra, but the divine verdict was not death—it kept Orestes alive to marry his cousin Hermione and Electra alive to marry Pylades. In both cases, divine law overruled social law completely. The command of murder, however morally offensive, is obeyed, and Orestes’ acquittal and the two marriages are announced by Apollo himself at the play’s end, regardless of whether the outcome is sanctioned by social law.

It seems natural to conclude that the play’s moral code is, at its heart, a divine one. The central character, Orestes, almost always describes his actions in terms of their relation to divine law: he claims that he was impious in murdering his mother but pious in avenging his father. He does not describe his actions in terms of justice but in terms of impiety/piety, suggesting the importance he attributes to being, first and foremost, a subject under divine jurisdiction. This is of a piece with his obedience to Apollo and his complete dependence on the god: “where can I go, what can I do, / if the god who ordered me to kill my mother / cannot, or will not, save me?”.10 For Orestes, social law clearly is not and cannot be the ultimate moral authority when divine law is his only hope of salvation.

In the Orestes myth divine justice is typically represented by the Furies (the Erinyes). Their existence and determination to punish the guilty is a constant factor in the best-known version of the myth, Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers and Eumenides. When the murder of a blood relation is involved, the Erinyes pursue the murderer relentlessly, demanding his blood in return. Their objectivity lies in the fact that they make no exceptions and accept no excuses. In Aeschylus’ Eumenides, they did not yield Orestes up even when Apollo himself appeared to plead his case. They could only be pacified by a bribe of power. In this sense, the Athenian law court of the Eumenides is witness to a compromise not between the social and the divine, but between two conflicting interpretations of divine justice.

Euripides’ Orestes poses similar questions of interpretation. There is considerable confusion as to what is objectively pious or just under divine law; characters accuse each other and themselves of acting against divine laws, but no one explains what the laws are.11 Euripides’ Erinyes seem to inflict madness on Orestes, but characters question whether such punishment is justified, and why Apollo does not save Orestes from it. What adds to the confusion is that certain ideas are considered “law” when uttered by a god, but they do not always stand up to scrutiny when uttered by a mortal .12 In the Eumenides, Apollo claims that Orestes did the right thing in murdering his mother to avenge his father because man, as the creator of life, has precedence over woman, who is merely the receptacle. He points to Athena: her existence as a goddess who sprang from her father’s head is proof that man can create life without a woman.13 A similar argument is put forth by Orestes in Euripides’ play but in less convincing language and to no effect;14 Tyndareus, to whom it is addressed, does not even take the trouble to refute it.

What, then, is the focal point of objective divine law in Orestes? That the Erinyes punish Orestes in the form of madness? But madness itself questions the objective existence and role of the Erinyes. In Aeschylus’ Eumenides, there is no doubt of their existence since they are confirmed by and interact with other characters, including the two deities Athena and Apollo. Such confirmation is conspicuously absent in Orestes. They are not part of the dramatis personae, as they are in Aeschylus. The Chorus of Argive women believe in their existence as objective beings, but they appear only to Orestes, and only when he is delirious.15 Their illusory nature is apparent from the fact that Orestes mistakes Electra for one of them.16 Menelaus seems to acknowledge their existence, but only as beings of the imagination or of myth: he “knows” the Erinyes merely as “phantoms”.17 This alternate portrayal of the Erinyes as objective, external agents and subjective, internal constructions of a diseased mind suggests that they are not to be relied upon as evidence of the objectivity of divine justice.

Even if the Erinyes, instead of being considered as objective representations of divine law, are to be understood as subjective symbols, the problem remains. According to myth, they are ordained to pursue and punish criminals such as Orestes, and their role is unchallenged until Apollo commands Orestes to murder. The seemingly objective set of divine laws upheld by the Erinyes is thrown into confusion when Apollo appears and champions Orestes’ cause. If Euripides portrayed the law of the Erinyes as subjective, Apollo’s law is even more so: in response to divine laws prohibiting matricide, he creates an entirely new set of laws that justifies Orestes’ matricide. There is no such thing as breaking the law for a being who is powerful enough to create new laws. The ultimate cause of confusion in the play is that instead of adopting Apollo’s law as the new standard, the old laws remain, and characters recognize both laws as divine and legitimate. Orestes himself experiences remorse for his actions in response to the old laws, but maintains that he acted piously in response to Apollo’s law.18

Conclusion

If divine law can be arbitrarily added on, subtracted from, or supplanted by a god’s will, how can it stand as the ultimate moral authority of Orestes? And yet it seems to stand: when Apollo appears out of nowhere at the play’s end, characters readily obey his orders.19 Menelaus and Orestes, enemies a moment before, immediately arrange a marriage between Orestes and Hermione, “the girl against whose throat [his] sword now lies”.20 The event puts an end to Orestes’ crime, his madness, and the Erinyes who were supposedly haunting him.21

Euripides’ almost complete lack of subtlety as he transitions the characters from their violent squabbles to cheerful compliance with Apollo’s orders is central to the dilemma. Is divine law what affects this transition? The subjectivity of divine law leaves a moral vacuum in the play that must somehow have been filled because, despite everything, order is restored. The characters’ obedience to divine law, variously defined, indicates that some shadow of divine justice is still used as a moral standard to maintain order in society. The void is temporarily filled, but the ultimate lack of objectivity in divine justice suggests that entropy will soon return, as it returned to Argos after Orestes’s order-destroying matricide despite Apollo’s promises.