Due to the fact of similarities between authors writing in the same place and time, we often make the mistake of presuming their viewpoints are identical on the given subject. It would be a mistake to expect Aeschylus\' Agamemnon and Euripides\' Medea to express identical views on the subject; each ...

How The Eumenides is Symbolic of Political Changes. Throughout history, literature has been used to represent the politics of the times. Thus is true in Aeschylus' The Eumenides. The struggle of old and new, dark and light, woman and man, is part of how Aeschylus represents the changing politics of ...

Cassandra was the daughter of Hecuba and King Priam, the rulers of Troy during the Trojan War according to Homer\'s Iliad. Cassandra was a beautiful young woman, blessed with the gift of prophecy by Apollo, who was infatuated with her. Unfortunately, she shunned Apollo at the last minute and he adde...

In the characters of Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Antigone >and Medea, the ancient Greek playwrights Aeschylus, >Sophocles, and Euripides offer four distinctly different >views of the roles which women played in Greek society. >While women definitely played a role which was subservient >to the one played...

A mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability is called a hero; a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities. In early Greek plays, they are taller and larger than any other men. They were very strange and attractive, while an anti-hero i...

The word hubris is Greek for exaggerated pride or arrogance. In Greece it was punished swiftly by the Greek gods, and was believed to be a horrible sin. In the first part of the trilogy, Oresteia: Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Agamemnon is the epitome of hubris. He exudes his pompous pride so much throug...

Trilogies of Greek drama are sometimes based upon a reoccurring theme. In Aeschylus' The Orestia, the theme of the "curse on the house of Atreus" foreshadows the fate of the trilogies characters. The curse is based upon the revenge ethic. It is believed that justice and personal rev...

The Role of Fate and the Gods in Antigone Divine law can be defined as a rule or regulation coming directly from the gods. According to Greek mythology, each god is believed to possess individual and unique powers that can either help or hinder the lives of mortals. Their role in the lives of h...

A) Moira is an ancient Greek word for a predetermined fate. It's meaning points out that everything does not depend on free will. There are certain things in life that one cannot control. Moira plays a central role in Sophocles' Oedipus because the play's conflict is between fate a...

"Destruction of power is unjust, destruction of corrupt power deserves justice." Disobeying the god of gods, Zeus, a mere titan with the power of foresight challenges the powers of the heaven that ultimately leads to his destruction. Prometheus Bound, a play by Aeschylus, portrays the ...

Aristotle defines Greek tragedy by the presence of a 'great mistake' performed by the protagonist due to particular flaws, which leads to an inevitable sequence of events. One of the flaws is that of Hubris, the capital sin of pride, and thus the antithesis of two ethics that the Greeks...

In a legalistic system of justice, human beings are responsible for their actions because they are assumed to have at least some control over their own actions and their environment. Therefore, taking into consideration certain mitigating factors, they can be judged for their actions, and be punish...

The story of Oedipus, one of the first examples of a literary tragic hero, is of a man plunged suddenly from prosperity and power to ruin and disrepute. We see him at the height and the depth of his worldly fortunes. Oedipus, whom in the first scene the Priest calls \"the first of men,\" to whom all...

Aeschylus's plays "Agamemnon", "The Libation Bearers", and "Eumenides" were all based on one parent child conflict that gradually manifested into one the best-known curses in Greek mythology. Tantalus, one of Zeus's many sons, started this havoc when he attemp...

Justice and Social Order in the OresteiaDemocracy, emerging in the city-state of Athens, allowed unprecedented power to her citizens. Among these new powers was the ability to legislate. Yet, legislation was not without its problems. First the citizens must agree upon what is just and unjust, and th...

In ancient Greece there was once a matriarchal society. We know this because it is evident in the literature that has passed into our hands and from the religions of these ancient peoples. While this evidence is before us the reason for the change to a patriarchal society is not so evident. Very lit...

Orestes was one of posterity of the house of Atreus. He also was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon and the brother of Electra and Iphigenia. The main character of The Libation Bearers, the second part of Aeschylus¡¯ great trilogy, the Oresteia, Orestes was able to go through with his father¡Â...

In order to devise an accurate definition of what a myth really is, a handful of elements must be incorporated into one. A myth is not just a fictional story. A myth needs to follow certain guidelines in order to be categorized as such. Some rudiments of a myth would incorporate religion of any k...

PART I: Mythology: Man\'s Shelter From the Unknown Since the start of time nature\'s song has resounded throughout creation. It is an eerie song, one of life and death, inextricable disorder and soothing serenity. Alone in the wilderness, accompanied only by life\'s primordial symphony and the beat...

AthenaBack in time when Greece was making its mark in history as one of thegreat civilization of the Ancient World, there was a great deal of emphasis on theGods and Goddesses. To the Greeks the world was governed by the Gods and theywere the reason many things happened in the world, mostly thing ...

Tragedy was performed in Athens at the annual festival of Dionysus, the Great, or the City, Dionysia in late March. Competition was held on three successive mornings of the festival. Three tragic poets, who had been selected earlier in the year, each presented a tetralogy, consisting of three traged...