Aeschylean tragedy, which never disentangles the individual from the group, also shows a direct and constant involvement of divine forces in human action. With Aeschylus gods appear on stage not only to frame the plot by delivering the prologue or bring the action to closure as dei ex machina, as in Sophocles and Euripides, but to play a major role in between. Their physical presence and active participation form the very heart of the action in Eumenides and Prometheus Bound. Human figures, in contrast, are passive: in Eumenides Orestes has practically a token role in a trial that opposes Apoho and the Furies. In Prometheus Bound human beings are either the targets of Zeus’ wrath or the helpless recipients of Prometheus’ gifts, and their only representative on stage, Io, ‘‘the girl with horns’’ (588), is the victim of Zeus’ lust and Hera’s resentment.
In both plays the young Olympians and the ancient gods come into conflict because of human beings, for the consideration shown to men leads to an encroachment upon divine privileges. But from Eumenides to Prometheus Bound benefaction and guilt change sides. In Eumenides it is the ‘‘young’’ god Apollo, spokesman (prophetes, 19) and expounder (cf. exegeito, 595, and exegou, 609) of his father Zeus, who protects Orestes (64, 90) and promises to deliver him from his pains (83). But by showing consideration to a matricide, he behaves like a ‘‘thief’’ (149, 153) and wrongs the old female deities, the Furies, whose privilege and prerogative is to drive such criminals from their homes (210). In Prometheus Bound itis the ‘‘old’’ Titan son of Gaia/Themis (not, as in Hesiod’s Theogony, her grandson), who is philanthropy incarnate (11, 28; also 123, 385,446). But in order to save men and prevent them from going crushed to Hades (236), he had to ‘‘steal’’ (8, 946) the fire that was Hephaestus’ privilege (30) and challenge Zeus’ apportionment of honors to the gods.
In the Oresteia the conflict is preceded by cooperation and ended by a new settlement. In Agamemnon Zeus, the Fury, and Night joined forces: ‘‘Zeus sends on the transgressors her who brings punishment, though late, the Fury’’ (58-59); together, Zeus the king and kindly Night have cast the net of all-capturing destruction upon the towers of Troy (355-60). Similar alliances figure in Libation Bearers: Apollo threatens Orestes with the attacks of the Furies (238-84), the chorus invokes the Fates and Zeus together to punish Agamemnon’s murderers (306-7), and Electra appeals both to Zeus and the powers below in her prayer (394-99). It is only in Eumenides that the conflict breaks out. The first movement of the play, at Delphi, demonstrates that the old deities cannot be overcome by violence and Apollo’s golden bow. It is only at Athens that they yield to Athena’s gentle persuasion and the power of Zeus agoraios (973), the god associated with ‘‘assembly’’ (agora) and speech-making, when they are offered an honored home in the city. To be sure, there is also an allusion to the other side of Zeus’ power, the brute force of his thunder (826-28), but it is mentioned only to be excluded. This integration of the Furies into the new order does not come as a complete surprise, since the Furies embody values, such as fear and reverence for justice (516-25), that are indispensable to social life.
In Prometheus Bound, similarly, Prometheus helped Zeus against Cronus and the Titans before opposing him. In Prometheus Bound the ‘‘new’’ master of the gods, whose representatives’ names are, significantly, the Greek words for ‘‘strength’’ and ‘‘violence,’’ and who rules by laws of his own invention (403) without constitutional authority (151), attempts, like the Apollo of Eumenides, to impose his will by sheer force. In the prologue he chains Prometheus to the rocks, and in the epilogue he threatens to entomb him underground and send an eagle to feast upon his liver when he reemerges into the light. Zeus cannot overcome Prometheus’ resistance and the conflict between brute force and cleverness reaches an impasse. But by piecing together the prophecies of the hero in Prometheus Bound and what we know about Prometheus Unbound, we have reason to believe that eventually a compromise was reached between Zeus and the Titan. Taught by time, the new god will assume a different character in the future: Io will be released from her wanderings and hailed as ‘‘the glorious wife of Zeus’’ (834), her descendant Heracles, who is also the son of Zeus, will put a stop to Prometheus’ tortures (872-73), and Zeus himself will achieve harmony and friendship with Prometheus (191-92). This change will be mirrored by a parallel advance in the human world. Men were given technical knowledge and skills by Prometheus, but they are still lacking the virtues that belong to Zeus and make possible the existence of human communities; these virtues, in the words of Plato’s Protagoras (322c), are dike and aidos (justice and restraint).
Even when they are not physically present on stage, gods play a major role in Aeschylean drama. Their statues are visible in the orchestra in Seven against Thebes and Suppliants. Their messages arrive in the form of omens, oracles, dreams, and prophecies given by inspired interpreters. In the Oresteia the Atreids are dispatched to Troy by an omen (two birds of Zeus feasting upon a hare) interpreted by Calchas. The cursed prophetess Cassandra foretells on stage the murders to come. By Apollo’s threatening oracle, Orestes is sent home and commanded to avenge his father’s death. Clytemnestra has a terrifying dream, which according to the palace prophets signifies the wrath of those below the earth against the killers. Moreover, the gods preside over the development of the plot in a mysterious way, for ‘‘the desire of Zeus is hard to hunt’’ (Suppliants 87).
In Seven against Thebes the quarrel between the two brothers and the duel that follows are clearly the result of both human and supernatural agencies. On the one hand, there is the desire of the two brothers to have sole control of Thebes and of Oedipus’ property. On the other, there is the wrath of Apollo, who avenged the disobedience of Laius on the race of Oedipus (800-802) and the role of the Fury that embodies the curse of Oedipus (70, 699-700, 720-75, 790-91, 886-87, 976-77, 986-88, 1054-56).
Gods also share a joint responsibility for every crucial event of the Oresteia, as is emphasized by such compound forms of the word aitios (responsible) as metaitios (five occurrences), sunaitios (one occurrence), or paraitios (one occurrence). Human and divine causation are so entwined that an expression such as ‘‘the ever again arising guileful keeper of the house, the unforgetting child-avenging wrath’’ (Agamemnon 154-55) can be interpreted as a direct reference either to the human agent, Clytem-nestra, or to the daimon of the house. In Agamemnon Aeschylus presents the Trojan War as occurring through the will of Zeus and also of Agamemnon, for the kidnapping of Helen was an outrage against the house of the Atreids and a violation of Zeus’ law of hospitality (401-2); the sacrifice of Iphigenia, demanded by Artemis (150-51), was also passionately desired by Agamemnon (215-17); and Troy was ‘‘uprooted’’ by Agamemnon ‘‘with the help of the mattock of Zeus, who does justice’’ (525-26). The murder of Agamemnon was the work of Clytemnestra, who avenged both her daughter’s death and Agamemnon’s infidelities, and of Aegisthus, who punished the son for the crimes of his father, but it was also the work of the gods who punish the killers of many (Agamemnon 461-62), of‘‘Zeus cause of all, doer of all’’ (1486), and of‘‘the daimon that fell upon the house and the descent of Tantalus’’ (1468-69). Cassandra was killed by Clytemnestra with the help of Apollo the destroyer, who avenged Cassandra’s deception on him (1080-82, 1202-8, 1275-76). In Eumenides Orestes’ acquittal was made possible by the cooperation ofthe Athenian jurors and of Athena, who cast the last vote.
This cooperation of gods with men is not only to be read a posteriori in the outcome of events. It is also visible beforehand in human decision-making (for example, in the deliberations of Agamemnon or Orestes in the Oresteia). Much ink has been spilled over Agamemnon’s dilemma. According to Denniston and Page (1957) or Lloyd-Jones (1962), the king had no choice but to do what he does, on account of the curse. For Fraenkel (1950), on the contrary, ‘‘Aeschylus... makes it clear that all the evil... has its first origin in [Agamemnon’s] own voluntary decision’’ (2: 99). But the best analyses remain those of Lesky (1966), Rivier (1968), and Vernant (1972b), which do not try to simplify Aeschylean thought by eliminating either the king’s ‘‘passionate desire’’ (215-16) for war (and for the sacrifice which is its necessary preamble) or ‘‘the evil counsels of merciless infatuation’’ (222-23) that suggest a divine agency. The comparison with Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis is quite illuminating. In that play Agamemnon pretends to be a mere victim of fate and complains that he has ‘‘fallen under the yoke of necessity’’ (443). Aeschylus’ description is more ambiguous: his Agamemnon has himself‘‘slipped his neck through the strap of compulsion’s yoke’’ (218). In Libation Bearers, Orestes’ presentation of his own motives for avenging the death of his father similarly juxtaposes divine and human causation: on the one hand the mighty oracle of Apollo (269-97), and on the other grief for his father, the loss of his inheritance, and the desire to liberate the Argives from their tyrants (298-304).
World History
