What would have been Orestes’ proper course of action, had he been living today? Why? Orestes is a character from the play “The Libation Bearers” which was written by a Greek playwright named Aeschylus. Aeschylus was born in Eleusis, Greece 6th century and died in Gela, Italy in the 6th century. He was a famous ancient Greek because of the many plays he wrote. One of those plays is the libation bearers which I will write a little about in this paper. He is best known as “Father of Greek Tragedy.”
“The Libation Bearers” is the second play to a trilogy. The series is about justice solved by a series of blood inside the house of the man Agamemnon. A lot of tragedies take place after the Trojan war and so did this one. The Trojan war affects this play.
In this tragic play the main character Orestes has to face a difficult decision. His father was murdered and so Orestes swears to the god Apollo that he will get justice and kill whoever killed his father. A short time later Orestes finds out that it was his mother (Clytemnestra) who had killed his father because she had fallen in love with another man named Aegisthus and they had killed his father together. Orestes Doesn’t know what to do because if he doesn’t kill his mother the furies (Spirits the haunt and torment you until you die or fulfill your promise) of Apollo. And if he killed his mother her furies would be upon him. Orestes finally comes to the choice of killing his mother and flees to avoid the suffering of his mothers furies. Either of his choices would of caused suffering, but Orestes chose to avenge his father.
Back then in Greece if a family member was murdered you had every right to murder the murderer. If Orestes was alive today he would have to take his problem to the court. The court would then decide what to do about Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. They would have gone to prison and that’s all Orestes could do about the murder of his father. I’m glad that today is not like back then because people would keep getting murdered for murdering a murderer.