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Giulia Maria Chesi
The Play of Words
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Giulia Maria Chesi
The Play of
Words
Blood Ties and Power Relations

in Aeschylus’ Oresteia
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Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Anna Di Re Dell’Anna for her Greek lessons at school; my Cam-
bridge College, the Faculty of Classics, and my friends, Enrico Ventura, Lorenzo
Corti, Rachel Bryant Davies, Sherin Saeidi, Giulitta Nardi Perna, Kai Schöpe,
Tessa Marzotto, Helen van Noorden, Maria Kilby, Paula Ornelas, Francesco Gius-
ti, Marco Formisano and Craig Williams, for their unvaluable support; Agis Mar-
inis, Elton Barker, Pat Easterling, Lucia Prauscello, Renaud Gagné and the anon-
ymous readers of De Gruyter for their precious suggestions; Davide Ruggerini, for
the index; Maria Erge (De Gruyter) for editorial assistance.
Especially I thank Froma Zeitlin, for having done the first step; Thomas Poiss
for his integrity; Simon Goldhill, il (mio) Maestro, for his deinon example of hu-
mility, generosity, patience, and intellectual responsibility in teaching me how to
read and how to write; my dad Mario and Licia, for always being there; Jim, for
our time in Berlin-Mitte, as he was a child; Laura, for our being sisters; Diego, for
his intelligence and our love.
My deepest thanks go to my grand-mom and to Cristina – my mother, my best
friend – for having taught their child the social duty of (female) dis-obedience –
someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think –
Emma Goldman
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A Cesarina e alle sue lunghe ore

The term ‘non father’ does not exist in any realm of social categories
A. Rich, Of Woman Born
More peculiar perhaps, but sadly unsurprising, were the assessments I accepted
about fictional women. For example, I quickly learned that power was unfemi-
nine and powerful women were, quite literary, monstrous … Bitches all, they
must be eliminated, reformed, or at the very least, condemned
L. R. Edwards, Massachusetts Review 13 (1972)
Perhaps this is one of those cases, not infrequent in Aeschylus, in which the
word is more important than the man (or woman)
R. P. Winnington-Ingram, Studies in Aeschylus

Contents
Abbreviations XIII
Introduction 1
How I re-read the Oresteia: language, narrative and womanhood 1
Agamemnon 10
I Clytemnestra and Iphigeneia’s sacrifice 10
 Clytemnestra or Iphigeneia’s mother and Agamemnon’s wife 10
 Mother, daughter and sacrifice 15
 Iphigeneia’s silence and paternal violence 20
 Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s dilemma and paternal
treachery 27
 Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s dilemma and maternal
sophronein 30
 Clytemnestra’s motherhood, the Alastor and the Erinys 35
 Conclusions 43
II Cassandra, the chorus and Iphigeneia’s sacrifice 44
 Clytemnestra as an adulterous wife and a bad mother 45
 Problematising Clytemnestra’s representation as a bad mother and
a bad wife 50
 Conclusions 55
III Clytemnestra and the war against Troy 55
 The chorus on the war against Troy 57
 Clytemnestra on the war against Troy 60
 The voice of the other 67
 Agamemnon on the war against Troy 74
 The misuse of power 77
 Conclusions 81
Choephoroi 82
I Clytemnestra as mother-echthros and non-tropheus 83
 The nurse on trephein 83
 Clytemnestra on trephein 86
 Agamemnon as father-tropheus 91
 Clytemnestra as mother non-tropheus and female tyrant 95
 Conclusions 98
II Clytemnestra as mother-echthros and non-tokeus 99
Unauthenticated
XII Contents
 Agamemnon as father-tokeus and Clytemnestra as mother non-

tokeus 99
 The father-tokeus and the estrangement between mother and
son 107
 Conclusions 109
III Clytemnestra as mother-philos 110
 The adulterous wife is still a mother 110
 Clytemnestra as mother-tropheus 113
 Clytemnestra as mother-tokeus 117
 Maternal sophronein 122
 Clytemnestra as mother-philos and the death of her son 125
 Divine command against the mother and human suffering for the
mother 128
 Conclusions 130
IV Shall I kill the mother? The reality (of the metaphors) of son and
mother 131
 The blood of the mother, once again 131
 The maternal continuum, once again 135
 Clytemnestra’s dream and metaphorical motherhood 137
 Orestes and Apollonian logos 140
 Orestes’ logos and biological motherhood 142
 Conclusions 146
Eumenides 147
 The Erinyes and maternal sophronein 148
 The Erinyes, their painful memory and female genealogy 155
 The legitimacy of words 160
 Athena’s persuasion, the Erinyes and/or Eumenides 169
 Zeus, his Erinyes and the Trojan War 176
 The son, the father and the war against Troy 181
 Conclusions 184
General conclusions 186
Bibliographic References 188
Index of Names and Subjects 206
Index Locorum 208
Unauthenticated
Abbreviations
D-P J. D. Denniston, D. L. Page, Aeschylus: Agamemnon (Oxford 1957).
DK Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, ed. H. Diels and W. Kranz (6th edn.; Berlin 1952).
KN The Knossos Tablets. A translation by J. Chadwick, J. T. Killen, J.-P. Olivier (4th edn.; Cam-
bridge 1971).
L Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate, vols. 7 – 8, ed. É. Littré (Paris 1851 – 1853; repr. Amster-
dam 1962).
LSJ H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexikon, with a Revised Supplement,
(9th edn.; Oxford 1996).
LSN S. D. Goldhill, Language, Sexuality, Narrative: The Oresteia (Cambridge 1984).
OCD S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth, The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edn.; Oxford 1996).
W Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati, vol. 2, ed. M. L. West (Oxford 1972).
The editions used are: Agamemnon, Denniston-Page (1957); Choephoroi, Garvie

(1986); Eumenides, Sommerstein (1989). Ag.= Agamemnon; Cho. = Choephoroi;
Eum.= Eumenides. Other abbreviations follow the common usage for classical ab-
breviations.

Introduction
How I re-read the Oresteia: language, narrative and
womanhood
Lire c’est trouver des sens, et trouver des sens, c’est les
nommer […] Je nomme, je dénomme, je renomme: ainsi se
passe le texte
R. Barthes, S/Z
Aeschylus is the terror of systematizers

C. J. Harington, Aeschylus
The Oresteia is the tragic story of Orestes, who murders his own mother in re-
venge for his father’s assassination, and is ultimately acquitted by the court of
Athens. In order to understand the dynamics of violence and power involved
in the story of Orestes, we need to look at the complex characterisation of Cly-
temnestra as mother, wife and queen in the trilogy. Critics, starting from Simone
de Beauvoir (1949), continuing with Zeitlin in her influential article on misogyny
in the Oresteia (1978, repr. 1984 and 1996), Goldhill (1984) and more recently
McClure (1997, 1999), Wohl (1998) and Foley (2001), have focused their attention
on the negative characterisation of Clytemnestra as a bad mother, an adulterous
wife and a female usurper of male power, whose mind is darkened. However, the
Aeschylean discourse on motherhood, wifehood and power is much more artic-
ulate. Undeniably, the narrative of the play is constantly concerned with the pro-
jection of a negative image on Clytemnestra, and thereby we are faced with a
successful separation of her role as mother, wife and queen: she is not a mother
giving and nurturing life, but an adulterous wife, a tyrant and a foolish female.
Such a gesture of separation also implies exerting control over Clytemnestra. The
repudiation of her maternal role works as the crucial step in the trilogy towards:
– the definition of bloodlines as paternal (the father is the only genetic pa-
rent);
– the definition of motherhood as socially contingent (mother = the wife of the
children’s father);
– the authorisation of Agamemnon’s power in the family and in society (gen-
itor, husband, head of the family, king, warrior), in order to justify matricide.
This discourse of separation and control over Clytemnestra’s role as mother, wife
and queen allows us to agree with Seidensticker (1995: 156) that ‘the power and
authority of men, in polis and oikos, remain essentially unquestioned in drama’.
Yet, this statement might be applied only with some reservations to the Oresteia.

2 Introduction
In fact, the Aeschylean play exposes the limits of this very discourse of separa-
tion, by means of a narrative that confronts us with the characters’ and the cho-
rus’ constant failure to suppress Clytemnestra’s role as a mother giving and nur-
turing life, and to characterise her as a bad wife, a tyrant and a foolish woman.¹
In performing this failure, the play’s discourse on inter-familial violence introdu-
ces a question both on kinship relations (is kinship maternal and/or paternal?)
and on power relations (is the authorisation of power feminine and/or mascu-
line?). These questions jeopardize the very condition of the possibility of politics,
i. e. of a communal life together in the family and in society according to the au-
thority of the law of the Father.
Thus, my contention is that a re-reading of the Oresteia is required, for the
following reasons.² First, in my interpretation, we can assume that the play per-
forms a gesture of separation in regard to Clytemnestra’s female roles, without
suggesting any definitive answer to the questions it raises. Second, we can
argue that the trilogy is not an assertive and normative text, simply responding
to the question ‘Is it true that Clytemnestra either is or is not a mother giving life,
and therefore a bad wife and usurper of male power?’. Quite the contrary, as I
hope to show, the Aeschylean play unfolds as a text, which asks to be read in
connection to the related question ‘Who is Clytemnestra, i. e. is she a mother giv-
ing and nurturing life, and therefore a bad wife and an usurper of male power?’.
The difficult task of defining who Clytemnestra is affects the way in which
we interpret Orestes’ position in the family and in society. The question ‘Who
is Clytemnestra?’ fundamentally implies the question ‘Who is Orestes?’, pushing
us to ask ourselves to what degree the Oresteia is a paradigmatic text. Indeed, if
 Following Goldhill (1990: esp. p. 108) on Barthes, I use ‘character’ as ‘fictional figure’, on the
assumption that we can account ‘person’ and ‘figure’ as two fundamentally different concepts:
while a figure is devoid of any inner life, a person is not. Through language, a figure constructs a
discourse that is part of the play and its narrative. On characters in a play as lacking an inner
life, cf. also Griffith (1999: 37– 38). On Griffith, cf. Easterling and Budelmann (2010: 290). On
characters and discourse, cf. below n. 6.
 The emphasis on reading the Oresteia might raise the objection that the play was written for
the performance on stage. However, by exploring the complexities of Aeschylean language and
the related discourse on Clytemnestra’s wifehood and motherhood, my study approaches the
Oresteia as a written text, and, following Goldhill (1986: 284), assumes that ‘performance does
not efface the textuality of drama’. Moreover, one might note that a performance is a text; on this
point, cf. Goldhill (1993). On the performative dimension of Greek tragedy, cf. e. g. the ground-
breaking book of Taplin (1978); Sider (1978); Easterling (1997); Gould (2001: 174– 202); Goldhill
(2007); Ley (2007); Avezzù (2009). Especially for Agamemnon and Choephoroi, cf. Di Benedetto
(1989: 76 – 101); Hardwick (2005); Fusillo (2005); Goward (2005: 24– 42); for Eumenides, Jouanna
(2009).

we are not in the position to determine whether Clytemnestra either is or is not a

mother giving life, a good/bad wife and usurper of male power, we cannot even
say if Orestes is or is not her son and therefore that he is or is not just the son of
his father and his legitimate heir, and, finally, that power is or is not strictly male.
Therefore, as Aeschylus re-writes Homer, the tragic poet turns the story of Orestes
into a question, and precisely into a question about origins and belonging. This
is akin to saying that, in Aeschylus, Orestes no longer has a paradigmatic func-
tion as he does in Homer; and not just because of the matricide, but because his
very identity is put into question. That is to say: Orestes becomes a tragic char-
acter in Aeschylus as he stops being unequivocally the son of the father, i. e. the
male subject of power. Again, in the case of Clytemnestra (as with Orestes), the
Aeschylean text displays itself as a set of questions:
1) in regard to Orestes’ position in the Atreid family: is it the case that Orestes is
linked to his family through paternal bloodline and/or through a blood con-
nection with his mother?
2) in regard to Orestes’ position in society: is the validation of Orestes’ power as
the legitimate son and heir of his father successful? Is it the case that the
authority of male power has to exclude/include maternal (and) female
power?
According to these questions I pose to the Aeschylean text, this book problem-
atises the play’s discourse on Clytemnestra’s and Orestes’ position in the family
and society, reading the play’s narrative about interfamilial violence and matri-
cide as a narrative of uncertainties on the origins of birth and power. Thus, my
study on the Oresteia might help ‘revalue the place of blood in politics, to rethink
what blood means for patriarchal thought’.³ This is the fundamental reason why
I explore the play’s discourse on blood ties and power relations as the privileged
way to explain the dynamics of violence hunting the Atreid family. Accordingly, I
explore the characters’ rhetoric of appropriation of keywords such as τρέφειν,
τίκτειν, φίλος, ἐχθρός, ἔρνος, ὠδίς, μήτηρ, πατήρ, αἷμα (words related to the
sphere of blood ties) and δίκη, τέλος, ἀνήρ, γυνή, σωφρονεῖν (words related
to the sphere of power relations). In particular, I shall discuss:
1) how in Agamemnon, Choephoroi and Eumenides the characters’ and the cho-
rus’ appropriation of the above mentioned keywords constructs a negative
image of Clytemnestra as non-mother, bad wife and tyrant, giving shape
to a narrative of acceptance of the male origins of birth and power;
 Quote from Goldhill on Antigone (2012: 234).

4 Introduction
2) how, at the same time, the characters’ and the chorus’ appropriation of those
same keywords does not have the power to construct an authoritative dis-
course on Clytemnestra as non-mother, bad wife and female usurper of
male power and therefore unfolds a narrative of doubt and hesitation on
the male origins of birth and power.⁴
This discussion produces several considerations about how we commonly han-

dle the tragic language of the Oresteia. To begin with, the language of the Ore-
steia is not simply a means of self-representation, permanently stressing the fail-
ure in communication, which leads to conflict; and the characters do not
unambiguously appropriate keywords for themselves, while remaining irrecon-
cilable as to the usage by other dramatis personae (as we would say according
to Vernant on tragic language).⁵ It does much more than that. The language of
the Oresteia performs the difficult process of establishing the authority of a dis-
course on womanhood through the characters’ rhetoric of appropriation of key-
words. Therefore, as I intend to show, we can argue that:
1) it stages a constant failure in the process of making a decision about women
as characters in the play;
2) it also stages, in turn, the reader’s constant failure to take a position on this
characters’ failure in decision-making.
In this sense, the language of the Oresteia accomplishes two different things. My
first point concerns the act of decision-making as characters in the play. The lan-
guage of the Oresteia shows that every male deliberative action is exposed to the
danger of failing, since there is no decision-making without a discourse that jus-
 The expression ‘a narrative of doubt and hesitation’ is Prof. Goldhill’s, from the lecture ‘The
Narrative of the Chorus’, Cambridge 17. 10. 10.
 Cf. Vernant (1977: 35): ‘Les mots échangés sur l’espace scénique ont moins alors pour fonction
d’établir la communication entre les divers personnages que de marquer les blocages, les bar-
rières, l’imperméabilité des esprits, de cerner le points de conflit. Pour chaque protagoniste,
enfermé dans l’univers qui lui est propre, le vocabulaire utilisé reste dans sa plus grande partie
opaque; il a un sens et un seul. A cette unilatéralité se heurte violemment une autre unilaté-
ralité’ (italics mine). On the characters’ various usage of language as the central theme of the
Oresteia, cf. notably Goldhill (1986: 3): ‘It is the way in which what one does with words becomes
a thematic consideration of the Oresteia that makes this trilogy a “drama of logos’’ ’; Goldhill
(1997a: 136 – 150; esp. pp. 136 – 141 for the Oresteia).

tifies it, and no discourse without the violence inherent in the use of language.⁶
This implies:
1) that tragic violence against female characters in the Oresteia begins with
and fails through language;
2) that the trilogy, in all three plays, is properly concerned with failure – and not
simply with the process of decision-making;⁷
3) that male deliberative actions engage with the difficult process of defining
who a woman is (as mother, wife, queen), and of dealing with an acceptable
definition. The construction of this definition marks in the Oresteia the con-
dition for and the limits of male rationality.
My second point concerns the characters’ acts of making their decisions in rela-
tion to the reader’s act of taking a position in the text. The language of the Ore-
steia shows that it is an oversimplification to read the Oresteia following Aristo-
tle’s view on tragedy. According to Aristotle, what matters in tragedy are the
characters’ actions. This is certainly true: it is precisely actions that Agamemnon
and Orestes put into question.⁸ Yet, if we simply abide by Aristotle, we forget the
reader and miss the question that tragedy actually triggers for us. The language
of the play, in performing the characters’ constant failure in decision-making
(and thereby the inherent undecidability), forces us, as readers, to question
our own position-taking in the text. The play and its language, in other words,
cause us to take a step further into the undecidability of the text, and not, as
 Following a common practice in the Humanities and Social sciences, I use ‘discourse’ in order
to refer to the way of thinking displayed by the characters through their use of language, and
therefore to the system of values and to the conduct of actions they construct as a possible truth.
 I argue (against a common view) that the language of the Oresteia problematises the usual
Athenian practice of taking a decision in the boule rather than simply mirroring it. Cf. Hall (2010:
64– 65): ‘Deliberation means the entire process of giving and receiving advice, acquiring in-
formation, weighing up alternatives, and decision-taking. … Its importance in terms of the
decisions made by the city is underlined by the speed with which the oligarchs who took power
in 411 ousted the democratically elected Council. … The council met almost every day (Xeno-
phon, Hellenica 2.3.11), and it considered matters relating not only to the state’s finances and the
scrutiny of magistrates, but the Athenian cults, festivals, navy … Greek tragedy offers a training
in decision-making. … Aeschylean characters deliberate less than those in the other two tra-
gedians’. Yet, the Oresteia contains the two loci classici of the conflict involved in decision-
making, notably Agamemnon’s dilemma (Ag. 211) and Orestes’ tragic question ‘What shall I do?’
(Cho. 899).
 Cf. Agamemnon’s dilemma in Ag. 211 and Orestes’ question ‘What shall I do?’ in Cho. 899. Cf.
Aristot., Po. 1450b3 – 4: ‘We maintain that tragedy is primarily an imitation of action (πράξεως),
and that it is mainly for the sake of the action that it imitates the personal agents (τῶν πρατ-
τόντων)’. The translation of this passage is by Barnes (1984).

6 Introduction
Vernant would say, a step back: notably, according to Vernant, the reader under-
stands what the characters do not, namely the ambiguities of language and the
conflict they trigger.⁹ This turns Orestes’ question ‘What shall I do?’ into our own
question ‘What shall I do, therefore, who am I?’, i. e. ‘How did I become what I
am?’. Accordingly, the play engages us, as readers, in a process of destabilization
of our own identity in the family and in society, and of its unity through lan-
guage and actions.
Again, the play supports this interpretation. When the jury of Athens votes
half in favour of Orestes and half against him, his acquittal constitutes a moment
of acceptance of the play’s discourse on the separation of Clytemnestra’s role as
mother, wife and queen: Orestes is acquitted because Clytemnestra is not his
mother, but the adulterous and murderous wife of his father and king of
Argos. Yet, at the same time, the acquittal of Orestes exemplifies the failure of
this discourse on separation (the jury is divided), causing the narrative to shift
from a moment of acceptance to one of doubt and hesitation: the figure of
Orestes, acquitted in dubio pro reo, symbolises the characters’ failure to instan-
tiate the father or the mother as the sole origin of birth and power. So for whom,
as a reader, do I actually have the power to vote? In both cases (for the mother or
for the father) Orestes will be acquitted, and one way or the other we will still be
haunted by the shadow of the voices against or for Orestes, questioning our po-
sition in the text and, accordingly, what we might say in support of our position,
and what we think we are because of this position.¹⁰ This is how the story of
Orestes becomes our own story, and how this story, against Aristotle’s interpre-
tation of Greek tragedy, can hardly be read without the way of being (ποιότης) of
its reader, understood precisely as our own history of reading and, accordingly,
as our own story of permanent difficulty to establish who we are as subjects in
the family and in society.¹¹ So, when Aeschylus re-writes Homer, turning Orestes’
 Cf. Vernant (1977: 36): ‘C’est seulement pour le spectateur que le langage du texte peut être
transparent à tous ses niveaux, dans sa polyvalence et ses ambiguïtés. … Le langage lui devient
transparent, le message tragique communicable dans la mesure seulement où il fait la décou-
verte de l’ambiguïté des mots, des valeurs, de l’homme, où il reconnaît l’univers comme con-
flictuel et où, abandonnant ses certitudes anciennes, s’ouvrant à une vision problématique du
monde, il se fait lui-même, à travers le spectacle, conscience tragique’.
 Cf. Goldhill (1984a: 174): ‘the Oresteia, a play which not only dramatises a failing search for a
defined τέλος … but which also dramatises the very act of interpretation as blocked, in error, a
series of méconnaissances’.
 On the story of Orestes becoming our own story, cf. Barthes (1970: 184): ‘Tel le discours: s’il
produit des personnages, ce n’est pas pour les faire jouer entre eux devant nous, c’est pour jouer
avec eux’. On Aristotle’s ποιότης and Greek tragedy, cf. Hardy’s translation of Poetics, 1450a15 –
18: ‘La plus importante de ces parties est l’assemblage des actions accomplies, car la tragédie

story into a question, the tragic play passes this question on to his reader. Hence,
in reading the Oresteia I chose to adopt the position of a ‘resisting reader’ (Fet-
terly), in the hope to escape the tyranny of what Goldhill (with Barthes) calls the
‘critical level’.¹²
What I have said in regard to the language of the characters can be applied
to the language of the chorus as well. Since the chorus brings the dramatic
movement from a narrative of acceptance to one of doubt and hesitation con-
cerning Clytemnestra’s motherhood, wifehood and female power, the language
of the chorus neither comments on the staged events as an idealized spectator
(according to German Idealism, notably Schlegel), nor it represents a frightened
spectator, somehow aware of the opaque nature of language and of its dangers
(according to Vernant).¹³ Rather, the chorus is involved in the narrative construc-
tion of the play, along with the characters. Its language, like that of the charac-
ters, thereby forces us as readers to take a failing position within the text. It is in
the performance of this dramatic exchange between characters, chorus and read-
er that the language of the play writes and re-writes its own narrative. Thus, I
would expand upon Goldhill’s idea that we cannot understand the play if we
do not understand the narrative of the chorus, suggesting that we cannot under-
stand the play if we do not understand the verbal exchange in the play perform-
ing both the characters’ and the chorus’ failure to make a decision, and the read-
er’s failure to take a position within the text itself.¹⁴
In relation to the play’s discourse on motherhood, wifehood and power re-
lations in the family and society, my analysis of Orestes’ story of violence follows
the chronological order of the trilogy. I have accordingly divided this book into
three chapters. In the chapter on Agamemnon (1), I look at the characters’ rhet-
oric of motherhood and wifehood, focusing on the narrative of Iphigeneia’s sac-
rifice and on Clytemnestra’s characterisation as a queen. In the chapter on Choe-
phoroi (2), I investigate the play’s discourse on motherhood, wifehood, power
imite non pas les hommes mais une action et la vie … et la fin de la vie est une certaine manière
d’agir, non une manière d’être (ποιότης)’ (italics are mine).
 Cf. Fetterly (1978: xxii); LSN: 4: ‘Hence both my questioning of the textual critics in their
prescriptive readings, their assumption of the corrupt and to-be-corrected text, and also my
questioning of the literary critics who “slipping the universal passkey into all lacunae of si-
gnification”, find “a critical level is established, the work is closed, the language by which the
semantic transformation is ended becomes nature, truth, the work’s secret” ’.
 Cf. Vernant (1977: 35 – 36): ‘Le chœur, le plus souvent, hésite et oscille, rejeté successivement
d’un sens vers un autre, ou parfois pressentant obscurément une signification demeurée encore
secrète, ou la formulant, sans le savoir, par un jeu de mots, une expression à double sens’.
 Prof. Simon Goldhill discussed this idea in his lecture ‘The Narrative of the Chorus’, Cam-
bridge 17. 10. 10.

8 Introduction
relations in family and society, looking at Orestes’ matricide and Clytemnestra’s

characterisation as a tyrant. In the chapter on Eumenides (3), I examine the dis-
course on motherhood, wifehood and, again, familial and societal power rela-
tions at work in Orestes’ trial.
Finally, some notes on the terminology. Speaking of Clytemnestra as ‘mother
giving life’ and as ‘mother nurturing life’, I assume that there is a difference be-
tween the sexes and that this difference consists precisely in the exclusive power
of a woman to conceive and to maintain life in utero, through her blood.¹⁵ This
does not assume an essentialist position on women, whereby a woman becomes
a woman only through pregnancy and marriage. Instead, this is to say that cul-
turally constructed gender distinctions are based on sex, and that the law of the
Father consists in, and is made possible by a) the social acceptance of marriage
and the definition of the mother as wife and female procreator for the Father, b)
the social acceptance of the sexual, reproductive and economic exploitation of
the female body.¹⁶ By maintaining that cultural womanhood cannot be separated
from biological womanhood, I differ from those scholars who, as they speak
about politics of menstruation, neglect the fact that its social meanings tend
to undermine the power of female biology.¹⁷ For this reason, I also differ from
Butler (2000, ch. 1), whose criticism of Irigaray’s concept of the maternal never
speaks of the mother, her body and its relation with maternal thinking or think-
ing through the body.¹⁸ Finally, I assume that the gender studies on the feminine
and the female character of Clytemnestra, since they neglect the maternal di-
mension of Clytemnestra as a mother giving life, cannot be regarded as feminist:
by neglecting her maternal body, they construct motherhood according to the
patriarchal view of the mother figure as a projection of male identity, i. e. as
the wife of the father for whom she has borne children. ¹⁹
Furthermore, I refer to the parental role of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon
with the following terminology: genitor and genitrix term the social role of the
father and the mother, as according to the classical definition of Barnes (1973:
 Cf. Gianini Benotti (1972); Rich (1977); Trebilcot (1983); Fouque (1994); Demichel (1994);
Heritier (1996); Irigaray (2000); Lipperini (2007).
 Cf. Skultans (1970); Brownmiller (1975); Dworkin (1981); Dally (1982); Ehrenreich (1983);
Fraser (1989); Weinbaum (1994), with further bibliography; Cheah and Grosz (1998), in their
interview with Butler; Mclanahan and Percheski (2008).
 Cf. for instance Laws (1990).
 On the mother’s body and its relation to maternal thinking or thinking through the body, cf.
Gallop (1988); Irigaray (1984); Ruddick (1989); Muraro (2006).
 On the question whether gender studies on female characters in Athenian drama are fe-
minist or not, cf. Rabinowitz (2004) and Gilhuly (2006: 5) on Rabinowitz (2004).

63); genetic father terms the carnal father, as in Barnes (1973: 63); the mother giv-
ing and nurturing life terms the biological mother.
The bibliography was updated to November 2013, as the book went to press.

Agamemnon
I Clytemnestra and Iphigeneia’s sacrifice
In this section, I explore Clytemnestra’s representation of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice,

focusing on Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and on paternal violence in
its relation to the mother-daughter bond. In order to understand the discourse
that takes place when a son kills his mother, we have to start from the narrative
of violence involved in the mother-daughter bond (Iphigeneia’s sacrifice), before
looking at the narrative of violence involved in the mother-son relationship (ma-
tricide). This particular critical perspective leads us to ask ‘not only where the
stories of women are in men’s plots, but where the stories of mothers are in
the plots of sons and daughters’.²⁰ By doing so, we will be able to point out
the differences in the play which pertain to the relationship between mother
and daughter, and between mother and son, investigating the discourse of vio-
lence at work in Aeschylus’ representation of matricide. In discussing the sacri-
fice of Iphigeneia from the narrative perspective of Clytemnestra, my analysis dif-
fers consistently from most studies in the scholarship, which insist instead upon
the relationship between a daughter (Iphigeneia) and a father (Agamemnon).²¹
In sections one to six, I explore Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and
maternal revenge according to her rhetoric of appropriation of the keywords
γυνή, ἀνήρ, πόσις and πατήρ in Ag. 316, 600, 602– 604, 606, 612, 1405, 1438,
1557, φίλος, θύειν and ὠδίς in Ag. 1417– 1418, ἔρνος in Ag. 1525, κύων in
Ag. 607 and 896, δολία in Ag. 1523, σωφρονεῖν in Ag. 1425, μήτηρ and εὐφρόνη
in Ag. 265, δίκη in Ag. 1432.²² In section seven I sum up my conclusions.
1 Clytemnestra or Iphigeneia’s mother and Agamemnon’s wife
A discussion of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, from the perspective of Clytemnestra’s

rhetoric of motherhood, inevitably leads to the question of how Clytemnestra ex-
plains the murder of Agamemnon. We detect four manners in which she refers to
the death of Agamemnon:
 Cf. Hirsch (1989: 4).

 Cf. Di Benedetto (1977: 187); Nussbaum (1986: 32– 41); Wohl (1998: 71– 82); Föllinger (2003:
85 – 86; 2007: 17). For extended bibliography, cf. below n. 37 and 57.
 I use the expression ‘rhetoric of appropriation’ as Goldhill does (1986: 46): ‘It is this sort of
one-sided laying claim to evaluative and normative words that I term “the rhetoric of appro-
priation” ’.

– as a compensation for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice (Ag. 1397 ff., 1412 ff., 1525 ff.,
1551 ff.);
– as the work of the power of the Alastor of the Atreid family (Ag. 1497– 1504);
– as a punishment for his relation with Cassandra (Ag. 1438 – 1447);
– as a revenge for his relation with Chryseis and other captive women
(Ag. 1439), and as protection of her own adulterous union with Aegisthus
(Ag. 611– 612; 1434– 1436).
These different levels of explanation conform to the status of a woman with a

child, that is to say to Clytemnestra’s position as wife and mother. Thereby,
she focalises on Agamemnon in different ways. When she refers to Cassandra,
Aegisthus and the captive women of Troy, she is talking in her role as wife, fo-
cusing upon Agamemnon as her husband. Here, she insists upon the sexual re-
lationship between Agamemnon and Cassandra (Ag. 1438: κεῖται γυναικὸς τῆσδ’
ὁ λυμαντήριος; 1442– 1443: πιστὴ ξύνευνος, ναυτίλων δὲ σελμάτων/†ἰστοτρι-
βής†; 1446: κεῖται φιλήτωρ τοῦδ’).²³ Moreover, she hints at her sexual independ-
ence from her man, as her rhetoric of appropriation of the words ἀνήρ and γυνή
in passage 611– 614 points out:
οὐδ’ οἶδα τέρψιν οὐδ’ ἐπίψογον φάτιν

ἄλλου πρὸς ἀνδρὸς μᾶλλον ἢ χαλκοῦ βαφάς.
τοιόσδ’ ὁ κόμπος, τῆς ἀληθείας γέμων,
οὐκ αἰσχρὸς ὡς γυναικὶ γενναίαι λακεῖν
Yet, when she speaks of the murder of Agamemnon as a compensation for the
sacrifice of Iphigeneia, and as the effect of the power of the Alastor of the Atreid
family, she is talking in her role of mother, focalising upon Agamemnon as the
father and the murderer of her daughter.²⁴ Accordingly, she identifies herself as
the mother of Iphigeneia and not as the wife of Agamemnon. As we infer from pas-
 In line 1438 Clytemnestra is referring to herself (cf. D-P ad loc.). What is true for Clytemnestra
(Agamemnon is her λυμαντήριος), it is not for the nurse. In Cho. 764 the nurse refers to Ae-
gisthus as λυμαντήριος of the Atreid house. For Aegisthus as lovemate of Clytemnestra, cf. also
Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word ἀνήρ as object of her philia in Ag. 1654:
μηδαμῶς, ὦ φίλτατ’ ἀνδρῶν, ἄλλα δράσωμεν κακά. At line 1443 following Fraenkel (ad loc.) and
Lloyd-Jones (1978: 58 – 59), I read, as in the MS, ἰστοτριβής. For an interesting discussion of
passage 1446 – 1447, cf. Fuqua (1972); especially for line 1443 and the erotic undertone of ἰστο-
τριβής, cf. Tyrrell (1980); Koniaris (1980); Borthwick (1981).
 On Clytemnestra’s representation of Agamemnon as father and murderer of her daughter, cf.
Loraux (1990: 77): ‘Mortelle, Clytemnestre connaît la mort en sa fille: elle a irrémédiablement
perdu Iphigénie … et elle tue le père meurtrier’.

12 Agamemnon
sages 1397– 1418, 1497– 1500 and 1551– 1557, in casting Agamemnon as the sacri-
ficer of Iphigeneia, she either refuses to identify herself in the role of wife, or she
talks about Agamemnon as the father of Iphigeneia and refers to him as ἀνήρ in
the general sense of the demonstrative pronoun ‘that one’. In passage 1397– 1418,
she mentions Agamemnon twice, in relation to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia:
Ag. 1397– 1398: τοσῶνδε κρατῆρ’ ἐν δόμοις κακῶν ὅδε

πλήσας …
Ag. 1417: ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ παῖδα …
Yet, in these same lines, she admittedly refers to him as her husband (Ag. 1405:
πόσις), with the sole purpose of denying his marital status by stating that he is
dead (Ag. 1405: πόσις, νεκρὸς δέ).²⁵ Further, she mentions Agamemnon as ‘that
one’, but not as her husband (Ag. 1414: οὐδὲν τότ’ ἀνδρὶ τῶιδ’ ἐναντίον φέρων).
Similarly, in passage 1497– 1500, she identifies herself with the wife of Agamem-
non by denying it at the same time (again, Agamemnon is dead; Ag. 1500: φαν-
ταζόμενος δὲ γυναικὶ νεκροῦ). Moreover, she denies to be Agamemnon’s wife
(Ag. 1498 – 1499: †μηδ’ ἐπιλεχθῆις†/Ἀγαμεμνονίαν εἶναί μ’ ἄλοχον).²⁶ Finally, to
the old men of Argos who reproach her for the killing of her husband
(Ag. 1544: ἄνδρα τὸν αὑτῆς), she replies that Agamemnon is the father of his
own daughter Iphigeneia (Ag. 1556– 1557: θυγάτηρ ὡς χρή/ πατέρ’ ἀντιάσασα).²⁷
Consistent with this representation of Agamemnon as the father of Iphige-
neia, Clytemnestra refers to him as her husband, and to herself as his wife,
only when she is not talking about Iphigeneia; the first time in the so called bea-
 For similar remarks on line 1405, cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983: 108 – 109): ‘The word πόσις
receives great emphasis; its juxtaposition to νεκρός suggests perhaps a causal connection be-
tween those two conditions’.
 On the Alastor and Clytemnestra’s motherhood, cf. below ch. 1, I. 6.
 I differ from Belfiore (2000: 145) who quotes lines 1555 ff. as evidence that ‘Klytaimestra says
that she killed her husband in vengeance for his sacrifice of their daughter Iphigeneia’. I also
differ from Neuburg (1991: 60). In glossing lines 1555 – 1557, Neuburg notes: ‘Clytemnestra sees
herself as having acted justly under the rubric of avenger for family-murder, while the chorus
sees her only as someone who has slain her own husband, which is obviously reprehensible’.
This is right, but not quite the point. Neuburg misses the fact that here Clytemnestra refers to
Agamemnon as pater and to Iphigeneia as thugater, thereby pointing out her position as mother
and avenger of her daughter’s death. Such omission is sadly surprising, since in his paper
Neuburg wants to look at the question of family relationships as ‘crucial to the drama as a
whole’ (p. 53). Now, how is it possible to answer this question limiting oneself to speak of
Clytemnestra as avenger, keeping silent about Clytemnestra’s position as the mother who
avenges her daughter’s sacrifice?

con-speech, then in the speech she delivers immediately after the exchange be-
tween the chorus and the herald:
Ag. 316: ἀνδρὸς παραγγείλαντος ἐκ Τροίας

Ag. 600: … ἄριστα τὸν ἐμὸν αἰδοῖον πόσιν
Ag. 602: γυναικὶ τούτου φέγγος ἥδιον δρακεῖν
Ag. 603: ἀπὸ στρατείας ἄνδρα σώσαντος θεοῦ
Ag. 604: … ταῦτ’ ἀπάγγειλον πόσει
Ag. 606: γυναῖκα πιστὴν δ’ ἐν δόμοις εὕροι μολών
Critics, however, have often dismissed the complexity of Clytemnestra’s self-rep-

resentation as mother and wife, most of the times suppressing Clytemnestra’s
self-representation as a mother. This is a common trend in the scholarship,
which reflects precisely the following prejudice: a woman with a child is not a
mother in the first place, but the wife of her husband, i. e. the object of the
male desire for sex and reproduction.²⁸ In order to pursue this critical level,
scholars in fact read the narrative of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice while bearing in
mind the discourse of Apollo, and following it as if it were indisputably right.
So they tend to define a single narrative frame for the character of Clytemnestra:
the adulterous wife of the father of the child.²⁹ Yet, to erase the complexity of Cly-
temnestra’s explanation for the murder of Agamemnon, from her narrative per-
spective as both mother and wife, amounts to erasing the complexity of the
play’s discourse on motherhood, wifehood and violence. Now, a discussion of
 Cf. for example Foley (2001), who looks at Clytemnestra’s action only as the action of a wife
against her husband (cf. ch. III. 4, Tragic wives: Clytemnestras). Foley’s omission might be
explained by the fact that she turns the parameters of her analysis of female acts in Greek
tragedy into the division of women into maternal women (mothers) and non-maternal women
(wives, concubines). Thus, on the one hand, she sees as mothers only old women, who are not at
the mercy of eros anymore (Aethra in Euripides’ Suppliants, Jocasta in Phoenissae, Hecuba in
Hecuba); on the other hand, she categorises Clytemnestra, Medea and Jocasta only as wives. On
this distinction, cf. Hirsch (1989: 1– 27), esp. on Jocasta pp. 1– 8. For further bibliography, cf. n.
75.
 Cf. e. g. Bunker (1944: 200); Earp (1950: 55); Kitto (1956: 36); Peradotto (1964: 390); Vickers
(1973: 145); Betenski (1978: 20); Kraus (1983: 195 – 196); Maitland (1992: 30); Pulleyn (1997: 567);
Käppel (1998: 194– 197); Gould (1978: 59 – 60; 2001: 165); Helm (2004: 45); McClure (2006: 81);
McHardy (2008: 103 – 104); Wolfe (2009: 698 – 703). In her discussion of the maternal authority in
the Persians and of the characterisation of Clytemnestra in the Agamemnon, McClure denies
maternal authority in the case of Clytemnestra. She observes at p. 82: ‘Clytemnestra is never
once directly alluded to as a mother by the other characters in the Agamemnon except when
Cassandra refers to her oxymoronically as the “mother of death” ’. As I will show, Cassandra’s
representation of Clytemnestra as a ‘mother of death’ aims to undermine the authority of Cly-
temnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood.

14 Agamemnon
Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and wifehood can help us in two direc-

tions. First, to differentiate the characters’ representation of Clytemnestra as
merely an adulterous woman from her self-representation as an avenging mother
and a woman refusing sexual dependence on her man.³⁰ Second, to underline
the differences between the Aeschylean and the Homeric Clytemnestra.
Homeric epos does not tell the story of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, and it is vague
about the death of Clytemnestra (the only time Clytemnestra’s death is men-
tioned (Od. 3, 309 – 310), it is not clear whether she is murdered by his son
Orestes, or she commits suicide).³¹ Moreover, Clytemnestra is only portrayed as
the adulterous wife of Agamemnon (Od. 3, 266–272; 11, 439; 24, 199), and as
the counter-example of Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus (Od. 13, 379 –
381; 20, 33 – 35; 24, 191– 202). We might say that the Homeric story of the Atreids
focuses on the horizontal relations between a wife (Clytemnestra), a husband
(Agamemnon) and a love mate (Aegisthus). Aeschylus maintains Homer’s char-
acterisation of Clytemnestra as an adulterous wife: yet, his Clytemnestra is the
mother of a matricidal son and of a sacrificed daughter in the first place. The Ore-
steia is a tragedy not because Clytemnestra betrays her man, but because she
kills the father who has killed her daughter, and will be killed in return by
her own son. The vertical relations between parents and their children become
the object of Aeschylus’ poetic interest. Moving from Clytemnestra’s depiction
as a wife to her depiction as a mother, Aeschylus is breaking a silence in
Homer and rewriting the Homeric epic tradition, a shift that posits motherhood
as a crucial issue in all three plays of the trilogy: in Agamemnon through Clytem-
nestra’s depiction as a mother and through her rhetoric of explanation of Aga-
memnon’s death as revenge for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice; in Choephoroi through
Electra’s and Orestes’ rhetoric of explanation of motherhood and matricide; in
Eumenides through the dispute between Apollo and the Furies on the role of
mother and father in reproduction.
The Aeschylean characterisation of Clytemnestra as mother allows a com-
parison with Penelope. As we will see, in Aeschylus Clytemnestra is a bad
 Cf. Loraux (1990: 76 – 77): ‘Mais il y a aussi Clytemnestre … dont on fait trop vite une adultère
meurtrière’. On Clytemnestra as an adulterous wife and the murder of Agamemnon as an excuse
for sex, cf. below Cassandra’s discourse in ch. 1, II. 1.
 On the paradigmatic function of the Atreid myth, the absence of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice and
the uncertainty about Clytemnestra’s death in the Odyssey, cf. e. g. Duering (1943: 95 – 105);
D’Arms and Hulley (1946); Lesky (1967: 10 – 18); March (1987: 84– 86); Thornton (1988); Hölscher
(1967; 1989: 297– 310); Olson (1990); Griffith (1991: 176); Sommerstein (1996: 190 – 192); Gould
(2001: 164– 165); McHardy (2008: 104– 105); Wolfe (2009: 695 – 696). The Nostoi and the Ehoiai
mention Orestes’ matricide; cf. Vogt (1994: 97 n. 1).

wife for the characters in the play, nonetheless she is and remains a philos of her
children: in tragedy, bad wife is not equivalent to bad mother. In Homer, instead,
Penelope’s role as mother is never detached from her role as wife. She is depict-
ed either as a (good) mother since she is a (good) wife (Od. 2, 113: μητέρα σὴν
ἀπόπεμψον, ἄνωχθι δέ μιν γαμέεσθαι; 11, 178: ἠὲ μένει παρὰ παιδὶ καὶ ἔμπεδα
πάντα φυλάσσει), or as a woman who might abandon, or not recognize her
man, and therefore as a mother who might not take care of her son:
Od. 16, 73 – 75: μητρὶ δ’ ἐμῇ δίχα θυμὸς ἐνὶ φρεσὶ μερμηρίζει,
ἢ αὐτοῦ παρ’ ἐμοί τε μένῃ καὶ δῶμα κομίζῃ
εὐνήν τ’ αἰδομένη πόσιος …
Od. 19, 524– 525: ὣς καὶ ἐμοὶ δίχα θυμὸς ὀρώρεται ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα,
ἠὲ μένω παρὰ παιδὶ καὶ ἔμπεδα πάντα φυλάσσω
Od. 23, 97– 99: μῆτερ ἐμή, δύσμητερ, ἀπηνέα θυμὸν ἔχουσα
τίφθ’ οὕτω πατρὸς νοσφίζεαι, οὐδὲ παρ’ αὐτόν
ἑζομένη μύθοισιν ἀνείρεαι οὐδὲ μεταλλᾷς;
The expression ‘μῆτερ ἐμή, δύσμητερ’ is particularly important in regard to my

discussion of the Aeschylean discourse on motherhood. It is precisely this Ho-
meric characterisation of the mother as a bad mother that is destabilized by
the narrative and the language of the Oresteia, as a central step for the represen-
tation of matricide as a problematic act of violence.
In what follows, I turn to a discussion of Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of mother-
hood in relation to the sacrifice of her daughter and to Agamemnon’s paternal
violence. My discussion takes the chorus’ representation of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice
in the parodos as a starting point.
2 Mother, daughter and sacrifice
The sacrifice of Iphigeneia is narrated at length in the parodos (Ag. 205 – 227). As
has often been observed, in the chorus’ report Iphigeneia’s sacrifice represents
the tragic version of the wedding ritual, in which a virgin passes from her kurios
into the hands of Hades (her spouse). Several elements in the text support this
position. Iphigeneia is a virgin (Ag. 215: παρθενίου θ’ αἵματος, 229: αἰῶνα παρ-
θένειόν, 245: ἀταύρωτος); she seems to wear the saffron bridal veil (Ag. 239: κρό-
κου βαφὰς); the erotic undertone of verses 240–241 evokes hymeneal images
(ἔβαλλ’ ἕκαστον θυτή-/ρων ἀπ’ ὄμματος βέλει φιλοίκτωι); the image of the
force of the gag in line 238 (βίαι χαλινῶν) suggests the trope of the bride

16 Agamemnon
tamed like an animal in her first sexual encounter.³² However, there is even more
in this analogy. The sacrifice of Iphigeneia can be seen as some kind of funeral
nuptial with Hades, precisely because her death represents a precondition for
war: as the expression ‘προτέλεια ναῶν’ (Ag. 227) shows, in the case of Iphige-
neia the preliminary sacrifice to marriage (προτέλεια) is her own sacrifice and
prelude to war.³³
Yet, Iphigeneia is not just a virgin. Following Clytemnestra’s and the chorus’
discourse, when Agamemnon kills Iphigeneia in sacrifice as expedient (Ag. 199:
μῆχαρ) and conditio sine qua non for winning the favourable winds for the expe-
dition to Troy and starting the war against Troy, as a matter of fact he kills his
own daughter:
chorus – Ag. 224– 227: ἔτλα δ’ οὖν θυτὴρ γενέ-

σθαι θυγατρός, γυναικοποί-
νων πολέμων ἀρωγὰν
καὶ προτέλεια ναῶν
Clytemnestra – Ag. 1417– 1418: ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ παῖδα, φιλτάτην ἐμοί
ὠδῖν’, ἐπωιδὸν Θρηικίων ἀημάτων
This clash of civic and paternal duties constitutes the core of Agamemnon’s di-
lemma, and leads to the irremediable conflict between Agamemnon and Clytem-
nestra:³⁴
Ag. 206 – 208: βαρεῖα μὲν κὴρ τὸ μὴ πιθέσθαι,

βαρεῖα δ’, εἰ
τέκνον δαΐξω …
 Cf. e. g. Goldman (1910: 117); Peradotto (1969: 245); Cunningham (1984); Armstrong and
Ratchford (1985); Armstrong and Hanson (1986); Seaford (1987: 124– 125); Griffith (1988: 553 –
554); Lynn-George (1993: 7 n. 23); Bowie (1993: 20); Wohl (1998: 72, 78); Fletcher (1999: 16); Heath
(1999: 28 – 29); Delneri (2001: 60 – 61).
 On the virgin’s sacrifice as funeral wedding with Hades, cf. Loraux (1985: 68 – 75). On the
expression ‘προτέλεια ναῶν’, cf. Zeitlin (1965: 466): ‘In this context, proteleia is used with greater
effect than before. Iphigenia was literally the preliminary sacrifice before the departure of the
fleet’. As Zeitlin, cf. also Dumortier (1975a: 190 – 191); Petrounias (1976: 210); Lebeck (1983: 81).
On the death of a virgin as condicio sine qua non for the beginning of war, cf. Burkert (1972: 77):
‘Das vorbereitende Jungfrauenopfer prägt bei den Griechen vor allem die Einleitung des Krieges’,
with full evidences at n. 30, p. 77– 78. On this topic, cf. also Loraux (1985: 61– 65). For προτέλεια
as preliminary sacrifice to marriage, cf. Burkert (1972: 74– 75 with n. 20).
 This clash returns in the opposition between the stated necessity of the war against Troy in
Ag. 224– 227 and Agamemnon’s description as Iphigeneia’s father in Ag. 228, 231, 244, 245. On
this topic, cf. LSN: 30 – 31. On Agamemnon’s dilemma and his position as father, cf. ch. 1, I. 4.

Ag. 211– 213: … τί τῶνδ’ ἄνευ κακῶν;

πῶς λιπόναυς γένωμαι
ξυμμαχίας ἁμαρτών;
In Ag. 1417– 1418, Clytemnestra enlightens us on the mechanisms of this conflict

between sexes. Clytemnestra speaks this passage after the murder of Agamem-
non, when she claims, in front of the chorus, the rightneousness of her violent
deed. In this line, according to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the
word ὠδίς, a mother, through her ὠδῖνες, guarantees the continuity of life in
the family. Quite the contrary, according to Clytemnestra’s appropriation of the
word θύειν, the father and warrior kills his own daughter for the sake of war,
breaking up the continuity of life in the family, which he, as kurios, is supposed
to safeguard through the virgin’s marriage.³⁵ In translation, we should try to
maintain this opposition. So, for example, Smyth (Loeb 1936) aptly translates
‘he sacrificed his own child, even her I bore with dearest travail’; Collard
(2002) ‘he sacrificed his own daughter, the darling of my womb’; Centanni
(2003) ‘ha sacrificato sua figlia. Mia figlia! Che io ho partorito’; Carson (2009)
‘this man sacrificed his own child, my most beloved, my birthpang, my own’.
The Greek supports this reading. Indeed, the substantive ὠδίς properly indicates
the female child in relation to its mother at the moment of giving birth and, read
with θύειν, it stresses the insoluble clash between the one who gives birth (the
mother’s figure) and the one who kills for the sake of war (the father’s figure).³⁶
Following this line of interpretation, we can make the following observations:
 On Agamemnon’s position as kurios of Iphigeneia, cf. Föllinger (2007: 21), with extended
bibliography at n. 39. Furthermore, it is certainly true that sons guarantee the continuity of the
oikos in Athens, and daughters can do it only if there are no sons. Agamemnon’s tragic action,
then, might reflect the Athenian idea that the death of a son, and not the death of a daughter,
threatens the continuity of the oikos. Yet, it is also equally true that without regeneration of life,
an oikos becomes extinct: sons are born only from mothers. Now, with Iphigeneia’s death, there
will be no sons born from her who will be the heads of new households, and no daughters who
will bear sons. It is notable that in the Atreid house Electra is still capable of bearing children.
Yet, this objection does not affect the matter in a substantial way: Agamemnon, in sacrificing
Iphigeneia, still violates his role as kurios, and the fact that he could be the kurios of Electra does
not efface the tragic dimension of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice.
 Cf. Loraux (1990: 79 – 80): ‘la fille, on s’en souvient, pouvait être désignée comme ōdis, d’un
nom qui renvoie au vécu même de l’accouchement, dans sa durée et sa douleur, mais avant que
la séparation de la mère et de l’enfant ne soit accomplie’. Thus, as Loraux (1990: 137 n. 93)
observes, ὠδίς properly designates the female child in relation of her mother, and not just the
child in relation to the female. For this meaning of ὠδίς, cf. Dumortier (1975: 28) who notes that
‘En Agam., 1417– 1418, ὠδίς, signifie le fruit de la douleur, l’enfant … ὠδίς sera l’enfant, par
rapport à la femme’. On ὠδίς, cf. as well Winnington-Ingram (1983: 110) who notes that this

18 Agamemnon
1) when Clytemnestra speaks about her relationship with Iphigeneia, she fore-
grounds the biological tie between mother and daughter. By referring to the
relation with her daughter as a biological tie, Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of
motherhood lies in sharp opposition to that of all the other characters in
the play, except for the Furies. Cassandra and the chorus in Agamemnon,
Electra, Orestes, the nurse and the captive women in Choephoroi, Apollo
and Athena in Eumenides, all share an interpretation of motherhood, accord-
ing to which a mother is solely the wife of the husband for and from whom
she has borne children – not a woman who, through the experiences of preg-
nancy and labour, gives birth to her child;
2) from Clytemnestra’s maternal perspective, the murder of Agamemnon repre-
sents the punishment for his warlike violence against the inviolable bond of
life between a mother and the creature of her womb.³⁷
Two further considerations can be fairly put forward. First, Clytemnestra is clear-
ly concerned with the public scope of her daughter’s death (she talks about Iphi-
geneia’s sacrifice as the condition for the Trojan War).³⁸ Second, in contrast to
what Hall (2006: 67) has observed, Clytemnestra does not seem to be giving
voice to the pain of the ‘disturbed tragic woman’. Rather, she appears to be lu-
cidly criticising, from a maternal point of view, the violence of the father who
kills his own daughter in order to sail to Troy.
In referring to Iphigeneia as the exclusive fruit of her womb, Clytemnestra
does not use only the expression ‘φιλτάτην ἐμοὶ ὠδῖν’ in Ag. 1417– 1418. In
Ag. 1525 she also describes her child as her own shoot:
ἀλλ’ ἐμὸν ἐκ τοῦδ’ ἔρνος ἀερθὲν
word, as ἔρνος in line 1525, designates ‘the intimate physical connection between mother and
child’.
 On Agamemnon’s warlike violence and Iphigeneia’s death, cf. Hammond (1965: 42– 47);
Peradotto (1969: 255 – 257); Dodds (1973: 57); Petrounias (1976: 151– 152); Vellacott (1977: 115);
Gantz (1982: 11– 13; 1983: 75 – 77); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 83) and Seidensticker (2009: 242–
243), according to whom Agamemnon kills Iphigeneia because of his military ambitions: the
sacrifice of Iphigeneia allows him to attack Troy and to prove his value in war. These sholars,
however, refer to the chorus’ description of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice and not to Clytemnestra’s
representation of Iphigeneia’s death. On Agamemnon’s military ambitions, cf. now the
thoughtful discussion of Lawrence (2013: 76 – 77).
 Accordingly, I differ from Foley (2001: 213) who argues that in these lines Clytemnestra is not
concerned with the public aspect of Agamemnon’s choice.

Clytemnestra speaks this line in her last confrontation with the chorus, when she
justifies the death of Agamemnon as a revenge for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice
(Ag. 1527– 1529). We must look at this line carefully. It might seem prima facie
that for Clytemnestra the conception of her daughter is the result of a sexual en-
counter with her husband. However, one could ask whether or not she is actually
claiming that the male, in the process of reproduction, is just a donor of sperm,
and the woman, instead, the unique genetic parent of the child. The text seems
to support this question. In line 1525, the Greek, as Fraenkel argues (ad loc.),
reads: ‘my shoot that I conceived by him’.³⁹ Now, when Clytemnestra affirms
that she conceived her child ‘from this man here’ (ἐκ τοῦδ’ … ἀερθὲν), she is
clearly representing Iphigeneia as her daughter (ἐμὸν … ἔρνος) and not as
their common child.⁴⁰ We find an echo of Clytemnestra’s representation of the
child as fruit of the maternal body also at line 898, in Clytemnestra’s welcome
speech to Agamemnon. Here, Clytemnestra describes the Atreid as the only
child of the father:
… μονογενὲς τέκνον πατρί
We might detect a sarcastic tone in this phrase. The Greek reads a dative: πατρί
(i. e., for the father). As a dative possessive, πατρί expresses the idea that Aga-
memnon is the only son of his father (μονογενές; cf. LSJ) and the guarantor of
the continuity of the genealogical line of the Atreids (cf. Fraenkel ad loc.). Yet,
read as a dative of reference, it also seems to imply that children are born of
their fathers according to the fathers’ point of view. ⁴¹
There is more to be said about the expression ‘ἐμὸν ἐκ τοῦδ’ ἔρνος ἀερθὲν’,
and about the implied idea of the autonomy of the maternal body in generating
life. The assimilation of the embryo to a shoot (ἔρνος) seems to suggest the no-
 Cf. e. g. Mazon in Vidal-Naquet (1982): ‘Au beau fruit que j’avais de lui’; Medda in Di
Benedetto (1999): ‘Ma al mio germoglio, che da lui avevo concepito’; Sommerstein (2008): ‘the
offspring that I conceived by him’.
 Accordingly, I differ from Winnington-Ingram (1983: 110) who argues that in Ag. 1417 and 1525
Clytemnestra describes Iphigeneia as her and Agamemnon’s child.
 For a different reading of this line, cf. Sommerstein (2008: 103 n. 185): ‘Agamemnon is not, of
course, an only son; this phrase, like the previous three, metaphorically describes him as one on
whom depends the whole safety of the house and/or the city’. Of course, Agamemnon is not the
only child of Atreus (Menelaus is his brother). Thus, it could be argued that the phrase ‘a father’s
only son’ implies a reference to Orestes (who is the only son of Agamemnon) and that it
expresses a presentiment of Orestes’ revenge. However, referred to τέκνον, the adjective μονο-
γενές means ‘the only member of a kin or kind, hence, generally, only, single’ (LSJ), ‘unicus’
(Italie). Moreover, one has to bear in mind that here Clytemnestra is talking about Agamemnon.

20 Agamemnon
tion of a biological continuity between a mother and the baby in her womb: as a
shoot grows up from a branch, so a baby does from the maternal body. It is not
by chance, then, that Apollo, in his speech in defence of Orestes, will use the
word ἔρνος to name the embryo:
Eum. 660 – 661: τίκτει δ’ ὁ θρώισκων, ἡ δ’ ἅπερ ξένωι ξένη

ἔσωσεν ἔρνος …
Eum. 665 – 666: οὐκ ἐν σκότοισι νηδύος τεθραμμένη,
ἀλλ’ οἷον ἔρνος οὔτις ἂν τέκοι θεά
Apollo’s re-appropriation of the word ἔρνος indicates how much the god’s and
Clytemnestra’s discourses on motherhood differ from one another. For Clytem-
nestra, the child is the offspring of the maternal womb: the maternal body is
the condition of life; the baby is the fruit of the mother’s body. For Apollo, in-
stead, the child is the offspring of his father (Eum. 660: τίκτει δ’ ὁ θρώισκων);
the mother does not give life to her baby, i. e. the mother’s body does not nurture
the life of the baby in her womb (Eum. 665: οὐ κἐν σκότοισι νηδύος τεθραμμένη).
Whereas Clytemnestra describes the mother-child bond as an intimate physical
relation (the mother’s womb is the origin of life), Apollo reduces the mother-
child dyad to a merely physical relation: the mother’s body – as Apollo properly
says – is by definition a foreign host to a foreign guest, i. e. a stranger to a strang-
er (Eum. 660 – 661: ἡ δ’ ἅπερ ξένωι ξένη/ ἔσωσεν ἔρνος). In this interpretation,
within the course of the dramatic events from Agamemnon to Eumenides, we
seem entitled to talk about the Oresteia as a tragedy in which the characters
try to justify inter-familial violence by withdrawing the authority of Clytemnes-
tra’s maternal claim to the reproductive power of her maternal body.
In the following section, I address the topic of the silence of Iphigeneia on
the altar, exploring further Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and maternal
revenge in relation to Agamemnon’s use of paternal violence.
3 Iphigeneia’s silence and paternal violence
Before being led to the altar, Iphigeneia has been gagged. The brute force of the
gag (Ag. 238: βίαι χαλινῶν), a violent ‘bit’ which imposes a forced silence on Iphi-
geneia, assimilates the young girl to an animal (Ag. 232: δίκαν χιμαίρας).⁴² The
 On the corrupted sacrifice of Iphigeneia, cf. the seminal article of Zeitlin (1965: 466–467). On
Aeschylean silence, cf. Taplin (1972); Thalmann (1985); Montiglio (2000: 192, 216 – 219, 246– 247).
On the motif of the gag, cf. Petrounias (1976: 158), with further bibliography at n. 611.

animal violence of Iphigeneia’s silence is contagious. As Iphigeneia cannot

speak while being sacrificed, also the chorus can only keep silent (Ag. 247: τὰ
δ’ ἔνθεν οὔτ’ εἶδον οὔτ’ ἐννέπω) about the moment the father plunges the sac-
rificial knife into his daughter’s throat (Ag. 208: τέκνον δαΐξω; 209 – 210: μιαίνων
παρθενοσφάγοισιν/ῥείθροις πατρώιους χέρας). Now, if we listen to the chorus’
silence and try to give it a voice, the most obvious explanation (i. e., the ritual
convention according to which the sphage cannot be described) does not seem
conclusive. Further remarks are necessary. In what follows, I introduce two sug-
gestions.
My first remark is essentially epistemological. The silence of the chorus, by
mirroring the silence of Iphigeneia, expands and reverses it. Iphigeneia does not
say what she knows and would like to tell to her father and her household
(Ag. 228: λιτὰς δὲ καὶ κληδόνας πατρώιους; 237: φθόγγον ἀραῖον οἴκοις); the cho-
rus does not say what it has not seen and does not know (Ag. 247: τὰ δ’ ἔνθεν
οὔτ’ εἶδον οὔτ’ ἐννέπω). Thus, the silence of the chorus says something about
how difficult it is to use language in order to describe the horror of violence,
and reminds, in this sense, of the silence of the watchman, the first moment
of silence in the play (Ag. 36: τὰ δ’ ἄλλα σιγῶ). On this topic, as Wohl (1998:
79) has similarly observed, it should be pointed out that the chorus might simply
not talk about something that it thinks actually happened, but in the end did
not. Nonetheless, as I see it, this does not affect the issue in a significant way.
Whether we argue that the chorus is keeping silent about something that really
happened but it has not seen and does not know, or if, on the contrary, we main-
tain that it is keeping silent about something it thinks really happened, but it has
not seen and it does not know, the silence of the chorus still faces us with the
difficult task of putting violence into words.
My second suggestion concerns the aetiology of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice. The
absence in the Aeschylean version of the caput aquae for Artemis’ wrath grounds
the chain of inter-familial murders in the Atreid family in a causal suspension:
we do not know why Iphigeneia has to die.⁴³ Yet, the chorus does not keep silent
 On Artemis’ wrath, cf. e. g. LSN: 20 – 25; Daube (1938: 144– 150); Whallon (1961); Lloyd-Jones
(1962: 189 – 191; 1983); Hammond (1965: 46); Dawe (1966); Peradotto (1969); Fontenrose (1971:
79 – 81); Lebeck (1971: 29 – 36); Langwitz-Smith (1973: 4– 6); Freyman (1976: 67– 68); Lawrence
(1976; 2013: 71–73); Neitzel (1979); Sommerstein (1980); Bergson (1982); Winnington-Ingram
(1983: 85 – 86); Elata-Alster (1985); Furley (1986); Clinton (1988); Thiel (1993: 47– 87); Käppel
(1998: 110 ff.); Heath (2001); Helm (2004: 41– 42); Grethlein (2013: 81– 83). For a recent discussion
of some of these positions, cf. Geisser (2002: 260 – 262); Föllinger (2003: 67– 71). For a detailed
discussion of the Aeschylean language in lines 122– 130, cf. Edwards (1939). On the animal
imagery in the portent of the eagle and the hare, I shall mention West (1979), according to whom

22 Agamemnon
only about the origin of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice. In its report of the events in Aulis,
it does not even mention the most important aspects of this sacrifice. At the be-
ginning, it does not tell the reasons for Artemis’ demand; at the end, as we have
seen, the old men do not speak about the young girl’s throat being cut. Indeed,
the chorus talks about Iphigeneia as she is being sacrificed only through allu-
sions: the comparison of the girl with a goat (Ag. 232: δίκαν χιμαίρας), her assim-
ilation to a beautiful painting (Ag. 242: πρέπουσά θ’ ὡς ἐν γραφαῖς).⁴⁴ We could
say with Derrida that ‘there are’ in the tale of the chorus ‘only, everywhere, dif-
ferences and traces of traces’.⁴⁵
Traces of traces, then. As Rehm (1994: 51) has observed, the traces of Iphige-
neia’s blood on the altar can be read as a morbid substitution of her menstrual
blood: ‘The “bear” Iphigenia shows her readiness for the onset of menstruation,
which will take the ironic, and fatal, form of her own blood being shed’. Relying
on Rehm, I make the contention that the traces of Iphigeneia’s blood on the altar
are themselves traces of the biological symbiosis between mother and daughter.
There is indeed a symbiotic relation between the mother and the daughter’s
blood: by virtue of the same menstrual blood only the daughter, through preg-
nancy and labour, can become – as her mother did – a mother herself.⁴⁶ As Lor-
aux (1981: 49 n. 67) has pointed out, Clytemnestra uses the word ὠδίς to indicate
this symbiotic identity between mother and daughter (Ag. 1417– 1418: ἔθυ-
σεν…φιλτάτην ἐμοί/ὠδῖν’): ‘ôdis, par un redoublement du féminin, caractérise
la fille’.⁴⁷ Following this line of interpretation, we may explain the daughter’s
this imagery parallels the Archilochean fable of the eagle and the fox. On West’s article, cf. the
note of Arnott (1979); Davies (1981) and, more recently, Heath (1999a).
 Cf. Gurd (2005: 20), who claims that Iphigeneia’ sacrifice is alluded to only through ‘de-
formed refractions’, and on line 242 Fletcher (1999: 16 – 19). On the impossibility of the chorus to
speak directly about the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, cf. also Delneri (2001: 58). The simile ‘δίκαν
χιμαίρας’ recalls the mythical version according to which Iphigeneia was not sacrificed, but was
instead replaced by a stag.
 Derrida in Positions, quoted after Culler (1983: 99).
 With ‘mother’s blood’ I mean the mother’s menstrual blood. This equivalence is well attested
in the Corpus Hippocraticum. The Hippocratics thought the uterus to be a container full of blood
from the body; in case of a pregnancy, this blood served as nourishment for the fetus; otherwise
it flowed out from the vagina through menstruation (Hipp., Mul. 1. 1, L 8. 12, 1. 24– 25, L 8. 62–
68; Nat. Puer. 14– 15, L 7. 492– 497). Cf. Hanson (1992: 39); Dean-Jones (1989: 182– 186; 1994: 171,
200); King (1998: 76, 90); Cole (2004: 164).
 On the maternal continuum in feminist debate, cf. e. g. Chodorow (1974: 47– 48) who dis-
cusses at great length the consequences that the intimate physical relationship between mother
and daughter has on the psychological development of the daughter (esp. pp. 58 – 66); Kristeva
(1977: 420); Irigaray (1984: 100 – 103). Relying on Loraux on the meaning of the term ὠδίς, I have
found sadly surprising Foley’s silence on the symbiotic relation between Iphigeneia and Cly-

sacrifice by her father and its horror as a break-up of the blood connection be-
tween mother and daughter. Moreover, we can conclude that in the Oresteia vio-
lence against female characters (father kills daughter; and as we will see, son
kills mother) goes along with a discourse on the maternal body.⁴⁸
Against this background, when Clytemnestra uses the word φίλος in relation
to her child as the fruit of her womb (φιλτάτην ὠδῖν’), she conceives the mother-
daughter dyad as a bond of philia that links people related by maternal blood.
This generates an overvaluation of kinship relations through maternal consan-
guinity and a related undervaluation of social kinship ties through marriage.
As Zeitlin (1978: 158) has similarly pointed out, seeing herself as a mother, Cly-
temnestra does not see herself as a wife: ‘If the female overvalues the mother-
child bond, her own unique relationship, she will, in turn, undervalue the mar-
riage bond’. Following Zeitlin, I argue that Clytemnestra’s overvaluation of kin-
dred ties prevents her from facing a dilemma before killing Agamemnon. In fact,
she does not have to struggle between the choice of avenging a philos (Iphige-
neia) or killing one (Agamemnon): she does not see her husband as her philos,
only Iphigeneia.⁴⁹
Clytemnestra’s separation of her role as mother from her role as wife leads to
a tragic conflict. Explaining the murder of Agamemnon as a mother’s revenge for
the death of her daughter and philos, Clytemnestra suppresses the fact that as a
mother, who acts for her daughter and therefore against the father of her daugh-
ter, she is also, inevitably, acting as a wife against her husband. Clytemnestra’s
rhetoric of appropriation of the word φίλος at lines 1372– 1376 points in this di-
rection:
πολλῶν πάροιθεν καιρίως εἰρημένων

τἀναντί’ εἰπεῖν οὐκ ἐπαισχυνθήσομαι·
πῶς γάρ τις ἐχθροῖς ἐχθρὰ πορσύνων, φίλοις
temnestra. Foley (2003: 120 – 121) only takes into account the symbiotic relationship between
Hecuba and Polyxena. I also do not understand why here Foley borrows a notion from the
feminist theory on the mother’s body (i. e. the notion of symbiotic relation between daughter and
mother), but without explaining how the bodies of Hecuba and Polyxena are connected through
the symbiotic relation between bodies with the power of giving life.
 Cf. Goldhill (1991: 26): ‘there is … no notion of violence without … a discourse of the body’.
 I differ from Foley (2001: 205), who takes Agamemnon’s dilemma as a proof that moral
choices are a prerogative of men. Yet, Clytemnestra’s and Agamemnon’s positions can hardly be
compared. Clytemnestra, as I argue, does not have to choose between two philoi (for her,
Agamemnon is her enemy). Cf. Zeitlin (1978: 157): ‘There the two traits of mother love and
conjugal chastity diverge, are, in fact, antithetical to each other’. For Clytemnestra, then, the
premises of a moral dilemma are not given. Agamemnon, instead, has to struggle between
killing his daughter and philos and betraying his army.

24 Agamemnon
δοκοῦσιν εἶναι, πημονῆς ἀρκύστατ’ ἂν

φάρξειεν ὕψος κρεῖσσον ἐκπηδήματος;
Clytemnestra speaks this passage immediately after the murder of Agamemnon,

trying to provide an explanation, perhaps a justification, for her behaviour be-
fore the killing: she says that she has fought against the one who she treated
as her philos, i. e. Agamemnon as her husband (in reference to her definition
of Agamemnon as αἰδοῖον πόσιν in Ag. 600), but who in fact was not. Clearly,
according to Clytemnestra, the bond of philia seems even to exclude any expres-
sion of social kinship through marriage.
At lines 606 – 608, in the speech she delivers after the chorus’ exchange with
the herald, Clytemnestra views philia in the very same way. In this passage, she
talks to the messenger and depicts herself as a watchdog faithful to Agamemnon
and hateful of his enemies:
γυναῖκα πιστὴν δ’ ἐν δόμοις εὕροι μολών

οἵανπερ οὖν ἔλειπε, δωμάτων κύνα
ἐσθλὴν ἐκείνωι, πολεμίαν τοῖς δύσφροσιν
This self-representation as a faithful dog provides a good example of Clytemnes-

tra’s ability to manipulate language: as a woman who chooses a love-mate, she
certainly cannot be a faithful dog (κύνα ἐσθλήν), i. e. a faithful wife (γυναῖκα πισ-
τήν) to her husband (ἐκείνωι). In this sense, the image of the dog alludes, as in
the Homeric tradition, to female sexual impudence.⁵⁰ However, beyond this de-
ceptive self-depiction, we can still detect in these words an emphasis on the fi-
delity of a mother to her own daughter. As Betenski (1978: 15) and Loraux (1990:
142 n. 123) have noticed, it can be fairly argued that the loyalty of the dog Clytem-
nestra is obviously in favour of her daughter, and that her hostility is meant
against Agamemnon, her δύσφωρν, i. e. the father who bereft her of her daugh-
ter. So Clytemnestra manipulates the meaning of the pronoun ἐκείνωι. The mes-
senger interprets the pronoun as referring to the absent Agamemnon; she hints
at the sacrifice of her child. Again, in this interpretation, Clytemnestra portrays
her marital relationship with Agamemnon as a bond between enemies (πολε-
μίαν, δύσφροσιν).
Clytemnestra’s discourse on philia as a bond between mother and child im-
plies the authorisation of the mother as subject of power in the Atreid house-
hold. In this regard, Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word κύων
 Cf. Redfield (1975: 194– 195). As Redfield, cf. also Harriott (1982: 17); Mainoldi (1984: 108);
Goldhill (1988: 15).

is again very telling. In line 896, in the context of the long speech she delivers to
the chorus shortly before Agamemnon’s entry on stage, Clytemnestra talks about
Agamemnon as the watchdog of the house:
λέγοιμ’ ἂν ἄνδρα τόνδε τῶν σταθμῶν κύνα
As has been observed, she seems to transfer her sovereign authority from herself
to Agamemnon, who is finally back home as her husband and king of Argos
(ἄνδρα).⁵¹ If this remark is correct, an opposite statement seems legitimate as
well. Using the words κύων and ἀνήρ to point out Agamemnon’s position as
the kurios of the Atreid house, Clytemnestra may also claim the role of mistress
of the Atreid household for herself.⁵² In fact, as Petrounias has similarly ob-
served (1976: 141– 142), she seems to suggest that Agamemnon is not in the posi-
tion to be the watchdog protecting his house, i. e. the lord and the head of his
family: as the chorus asserts, he killed his own daughter, delight of the house
(Ag. 208: δόμων ἄγαλμα). According to this interpretation, Clytemnestra might
assert the legitimacy of her female authority in the house because she does
not violate, through an act of violence, the parental relationship with her
child. She does not violate the bond between parent and child; Agamemnon
does, and by doing so, he repeats the crime of his father Atreus.⁵³
In passage 606 – 608, again, Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the
word κύων can be read as a textual evidence of her self-representation as mis-
tress of the Atreid household. As Fraenkel (ad loc.) has pointed out, here the ad-
jective ἐσθλήν is used in the same meaning of εὔφρων. Thus, as εὔφρων con-
 Cf. Sevieri (1991: 21). In Homer the dog is already thought of as a violent protector of family’s
life (Od. 20, 14– 16). On this topic, cf. Harriott (1982: 15 – 16); Mainoldi (1984: 166); Goldhill (1988:
16). In regard to Clytemnestra as the mistress of the Atreid house, we shall notice that Aga-
memnon refers to Clytemnestra precisely in her function of guardian of the house in Ag. 914:
Λήδας γένεθλον, δωμάτων ἐμῶν φύλαξ. Cf. Mainoldi (1984: 166): ‘Agamemnon appellera Cly-
temnestre ‘guardienne de ma maison’ (Ag. 914), en montrant ainsi la confiance qu’il a en elle’. On
this line, cf. also Kraus (1978: 45).
 In opposition to Clytemnestra, who claims the power of the mother in the family system for
herself, Athena ascribes to the father’s figure the role of the head of the family (Eum. 739 – 740).
On this issue, cf. pp. 165 – 166.
 Cf. Freyman (1976: 70) who observes that Agamemnon’ decision not to sacrifice Iphigeneia
‘would have affirmed the bond of parent and child and would have broken the curse and the
circle of pathos’ and Walsh (1984: 71) who comments on Agamemnon as the sacrificer of his
daughter: ‘The figure thutēr thugatros, then, indicates … the natural fact of kinship, violated by
Agamemnon’s choice’. On the cena thyestea, cf. below ch. 1, I. 6. On Agamemnon repeating
Atreus’ crime, cf. Sewell-Rutter (2007: 22).

26 Agamemnon
tains a reference to the loyalty of the chorus towards the king (Ag. 806), so
ἐσθλήν hints at Clytemnestra’s loyalty towards Agamemnon in his public role
as king. Read this way, the expression ‘κύνα ἐσθλήν’ produces an eloquent
clue of the complexity of Clytemnestra’s deceptive language. We can infer from
the expression ‘κύνα ἐσθλήν’ two levels of communication. On the first one,
the faithful dog, which Agamemnon will find at home, is in fact his adulterous
woman; on the second one, the faithful dog, which Agamemnon will find at
home, is in fact the woman who is not loyal to her king (and husband).
The idea, according to which Clytemnestra in lines 606 – 608 is claiming the
authority of her power in the Atreid house, is supported in the text at the lines
609 – 610:
… σημαντήριον
οὐδὲν διαφθείρασαν ἐν μήκει χρόνου
As Fraenkel argued (ad loc.), the expression ‘σημαντήριον οὐδὲν διαφθείρασαν’

does not contain a reference to Clytemnestra’s chastity: the word σημαντήριον
is not a term for the seal of chastity; it designates instead the seal that kept
safe the properties of the master of the house during his absence. Thus, with
this phrase, Clytemnestra mentions her position as the oikophulax and oikono-
mos in the Atreid household. Quoting Fraenkel: ‘She is only concerned with stat-
ing that she has left everything of value undisturbed’.⁵⁴
Keeping with this discussion of Clytemnestra’s discourse on philia and the
mother-daughter bond, we are in the position to say that the violation of phi-
lia-relations in Agamemnon does not threaten social bonds only (such as the
ones established by marriage and xenia), but also kindred ties based on maternal
consanguinity.⁵⁵ Clytemnestra’s defence of blood ties might be understood as the
defence of the authority of the bond of maternal philia, which runs through
blood and not through marriage, and, accordingly, as the defence of the author-
ity of maternal genealogy and the related maternal power in the social system of
the family and of the community. Thus, the Aeschylean tragic discourse on blood
and social kinship does not simply ascribe blood kinship to the mother and so-
cial kinship to the father: the maternal kinship is determined by both blood ties
 On the expression ‘σημαντήριον οὐδὲν διαφθείρασαν’ as not referring to Clytemnestra’s

chastity, cf. also Pelling (2005: 97). Following Fraenkel, I differ from Fowler (1967: 30), who reads
lines 609 – 610 as referring to Clytemnestra’s sexuality.
 On Greek tragedy and the transgression of the reciprocal relations of philia, cf. Belfiore. In
her treatment of Agamemnon Belfiore discusses only the violation of the marriage’s relationship.
This is not surprising, since she looks at the character of Clytemnestra merely in her role as wife
(2000: 144): ‘In the main pathos, wife deliberately kills husband’.

and the bond of philia. In Saxonhouse’s words (2009: 51), the bond of philia de-
riving from the maternal kinship and the biological consanguinity with the
mother can be understood in terms of ‘the ties of family arising from the proc-
esses of birth from the female’s womb’.
However, Clytemnestra’s discourse on maternal blood ties and maternal
power is potentially vulnerable. As I will argue in my discussion of the charac-
terisation of Clytemnestra as a bad mother and an adulterous wife in Cassandra’s
speech and in Choephoroi, the play constantly performs the attempt to suppress
the blood connection between mother and child, in order to instantiate the Fa-
ther as the only genetic parent of the children and as the only subject of power. ⁵⁶
At the same time, this attempt fails: there is no way to deny the primary kin re-
lation with the mother and to figure bloodlines and power relations as merely
male and paternal. Accordingly, as we shall see, the play destabilises its own dis-
course on matricide as a necessary act of dike.
In what follows, I dwell on Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood in relation
to paternal violence further. In sections 2 and 3, I focused on Clytemnestra’s rhet-
oric of representation of her maternal bond with her female child, i. e. on the re-
lation between Clytemnestra and Iphigeneia. In sections 4 and 5, I shift my focus
to the relation between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon in connection to their
child Iphigeneia, exploring the particular way Clytemnestra talks about Aga-
memnon’s decision to sacrifice Iphigeneia.
4 Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s dilemma and paternal treachery
In her last dramatic exchange with the chorus, shortly before Aegisthus’ appear-
ance on stage, Clytemnestra asserts that Agamemnon turned himself into the
sacrificer of Iphigeneia with deception:
 I differ from Butler (2000: 11– 12) who writes on Antigone: ‘Not only does the state pre-
suppose kinship and kinship presuppose the state but “acts” that are performed in the name of
the one principle take place in the idiom of the other, confounding the distinction between the
two at a rhetorical level and thus bringing into crisis the stability of the conceptual distinction
between them’. If I am not wrong, Butler is missing a crucial point: paternal kinship is both
biological and social insofar as it is grounded in the suppression of the primary blood relation
with the mother. Therefore, the state presupposes kinship only insofar as it is linked to the father
and not to the mother. However, I agree with Butler that the discourse of the tragic text on
kinship tends to destabilize the category of blood and social kinship. On this topic in relation to
the Oresteia, cf. pp. 102– 107, 162– 170, with n. 265. On the dichotomy of social and blood kinship
in Greek tragedy, cf. e. g. Vernant (1996: 342– 343); Goldhill (2004: 38). For more recent con-
tributions on this topic, cf. n. 166 and n. 167.

28 Agamemnon
Ag. 1521– 1524: οὔτ’ ἀνελεύθερον οἶμαι θάνατον

τῶιδε γενέσθαι· < >
<>
οὐδὲ γὰρ οὗτος δολίαν ἄτην
οἴκοισιν ἔθηκ’;
Fraenkel (ad loc.) does not consider this passage a question, and objects that it
contains an explicit reference to Agamemnon’s dolos, namely to the episode of
Achilles’ marriage with Iphigeneia. He comes to the conclusion that ‘Clytemnes-
tra denies δόλος on Agamemnon’s part. Here, as elsewhere, she insists on retal-
iation in its most precise form (cf. especially 1527– 9)’. However, if we interpret
line 1524 as ending with a question mark (cf. the OCT text by D-P), the Greek,
with a rhetorical question, seems to imply that Agamemnon has been using de-
ceit (cf. Sommerstein 2008: ‘for did he not also cause a calamity for this house
through treachery?’). Why does Clytemnestra speak of dolos in connection to
Agamemnon’s violence against Iphigeneia? Agamemnon does not answer this
question directly, as it eludes every possible allusion to the episode of Achilles’
wedding with Iphigeneia. It seems necessary, then, as it is often the case with
Aeschylus, to place ourselves on the margins of the text and, inevitably, to
risk an interpretative drift. My contention is that the dolos of Agamemnon may
be equivalent to the solution of his dilemma. When the old men recall Agamem-
non’s tragic impasse, they also report, in the form of direct speech, his belief that
shedding virginal blood is an act of themis according to Artemis:⁵⁷
Ag. 214– 217: παυσανέμου γὰρ θυσίας

παρθενίου θ’ αἵματος ὀρ-
γᾶι περιόργωι σ<φ’> ἐπιθυ-
μεῖν θέμις· εὖ γὰρ εἴη
 On Agamemnon’s tragic impasse and his sacrifice of Iphigeneia, cf. e. g. the influential
contributions of Daube (1938: 170 – 178); D-P (1957: xxiii – xxix); Reeves (1960: 168 – 171); Whallon
(1961); Lloyd-Jones (1962); Dawe (1963: 47); Fraenkel (1964: 334– 335); Lesky (1966); Bergson
(1967); Revier (1968: 11– 24); Peradotto (1969: 249 – 261); Dodds (1973: 57– 58); Dover (1973);
Tyrrell (1976); Bollack (1981: 276 – 284); Nussbaum (1986: 34– 36); Sevieri (1992); Basta Donzelli
(1997). For a review of the secondary literature on Agamemnon’s decision, cf. Käppel (1998: 98 –
109); Geisser (2002: 263 – 267); Föllinger (2003: 54– 57). For most recent contributions, cf. e. g.
Rechenauer (2001: 72– 73); Föllinger (2003: 85; 2007: 17); Willink (2004: 49 – 54); Sewell-Rutter
(2007: 153– 166); Gruber (2009: 300 – 310); Lawrence (2013: 74–83). In verses 215 – 217 there are
many philological difficulties. Following Ewans (1975: 26 – 28), I read the expression ‘σ<φ’> …
θέμις’ as ‘it is allowed for Artemis’. As Ewans, cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983: 85 n. 16).

Now, Agamemnon’s dolos might consist in mistaking Iphigeneia for a virgin:

when he sheds her blood, he is not shedding virginal blood, but the blood of
his daughter.⁵⁸ In the frame of such a representation of the sacrifice of a daughter
as the sacrifice of a virgin, Agamemnon’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word
αἷμα is silent on the blood connection between mother and daughter, in sharp
opposition to the Furies’ use of the same word in Eumenides (cf. p. 168). Further-
more, Agamemnon’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word θυσία (παυσανέμου
γὰρ θυσίας) consistently differs from Clytemnestra’s use of the related verb
θύειν. In the first case, we have a representation of the killing of Iphigeneia as
a ritual death (σφ’… θέμις), which is also an anticipation of the corresponding
discourse on Iphigeneia’s sacrifice in Choephoroi (cf. pp. 96–97, 102). In the sec-
ond case, as we have seen, we have a condemnation of the use of paternal vio-
lence against a daughter’s life.
Further remarks on the blood shed by Iphigeneia are possible. As has been
observed, in some medical and philosophical literature (Hipp., Mul. 1. 6, L 8. 30;
1. 72, L 8. 152; 2. 113, L 8. 242; Aristot., HA 581b1– 2), the body of a bleeding
woman is associated with the bleeding body of a sacrificial animal.⁵⁹ The sacri-
ficial analogy used by physicians and philosophers appears again in the lan-
guage of the Oresteia in relation to Iphigeneia’s sacrifice:
Ag. 231– 234: φράσεν δ’ ἀόζοις πατὴρ μετ’ εὐχὰν

δίκαν χιμαίρας ὕπερθε βωμοῦ
πέπλοισι περιπετῆ παντὶ θυμῶι
προνωπῆ λαβεῖν …
The comparison of the chorus between Iphigeneia and a goat helps us under-
stand something about this corrupted sacrifice which remains untold by the
old men: at the moment of her sacrifice, Iphigeneia is not like a goat on the
point of being slaughtered on the altar; she has replaced the animal in a substi-
 This reading of verses 1523 – 1524 seems to work even if we assume that by the words ‘δολίαν
ἄτην’ Clytemnestra is referring to the false wedding of Iphigeneia and Achilles. In this case
Agamemnon would clearly be a father who does not do what a father is supposed to for his
daughter: instead of giving Iphigeneia to her future husband, Agamemnon separates his
daughter from her mother through an act of violence and destroys her. Nonetheless, given the
Aeschylean silence about the wedding of Iphigeneia and Achilles, I would not push this idea too
far.
 Cf. King (1986: 117– 118; 1998: 88 – 98); Dean-Jones (1994: 101– 103). On women, menstrual
blood and sacrifice, cf. also Osborne (1993).

30 Agamemnon
tution as perverse as if it was real.⁶⁰ Thus, when the chorus uses the word πατήρ
in reference to Agamemnon’s position as sacrificer of his own daughter, violence
against female characters (father kills daughter) is embedded in a discourse on
the female body. In order to be killed by her father, Iphigeneia has to abandon
what she is (a daughter and a virgin ready for marriage), and become something
she is not (an animal ready for sacrifice). Yet, obviously, Iphigeneia cannot shed
blood as an animal on the altar. As a virgin she has to shed blood by herself, with
her first menstruation and/or by her first sexual encounter; she is not supposed
to shed her blood by the knife of her father and sacrificer.
In the next section, I dwell on Agamemnon’s dilemma further, and discuss
his abuse of his own deliberative faculties in relation to Clytemnestra’s charac-
terisation of maternal mind.
5 Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s dilemma and maternal sophronein
In the parodos, the chorus’ report of Agamemnon’s dilemma and of his decision
to sacrifice Iphigeneia insists on his abuse of deliberative faculties (Ag. 206 –
225). At first, according to the chorus, Agamemnon decides to kill Iphigeneia
(Ag. 215 – 217: παρθενίου θ’ αἵματος…/ σφ’ ἐπιθυ-/ μεῖν θέμις. εὖ γὰρ εἴη);
then, from that moment on (τόθεν), he changes his mind, in consequence of a
wretched madness which gives foul advice, and finally dares to be the sacrificer
of his own daughter:⁶¹
 For the comparison of Iphigeneia with a sacrificial animal, cf. also lines 1415 – 1416 (ὃς οὐ
προτιμῶν, ὡσπερεὶ βοτοῦ μόρον/μήλων φλεόντων εὐπόκοις νομεύμασιν). Clytemnestra’s assi-
milation of Iphigeneia to a grazing beast (ὡσπερεὶ βοτοῦ μόρον) seems to point to her impos-
sibility to speak of Agamemnon as a father who kills his daughter. On this topic, cf. Hoffman
(1992: 110). Cf. also p. 85.
 Cf. Dawe (1966: 9 – 11); Dodds (1973: 57– 58); Gantz (1982: 11); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 83);
Helm (2004: 43). On Agamemnon’s decision and his mind getting lost, cf. also Lloyd-Jones (1962:
191– 192); Lesky (1966: 82); Langwitz-Smith (1973: 6 – 8); Edwards (1978); Williams (1993: 134–
135). Considering Agamemnon’ decision and his mind getting lost, the following observation of
Knox (1966: 215) is hard to follow: ‘In Aeschylus and Sophocles, then, a change of mind is a rare
phenomenon; when it does occur, it is either attributed to a secondary character or affects a
secondary issue’. I also differ from Pucci (1992: 520 – 521). In his extremely detailed and chal-
lenging analysis, Pucci (if I am not wrong) argues that Agamemnon’s parakopa is an aspect of
peitho and therefore that the Aeschylean text of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia makes the distinction
between her sacrifice as the work of madness and her sacrifice as a legitimate act collapse.
Surely, parakopa is an aspect of peitho (as Pucci argues at length, pp. 526 – 527, Agamemnon is
persuaded that it is right to sacrifice Iphigeneia). Yet, there is a distinction between peitho as a
destructive and as a positive force. On this issue, cf. pp. 171–172, 178. Finally, note that the

Ag. 215 – 225: παρθενίου θ’ αἵματος ὀρ-

γᾶι περιόργωι σ<φ’> ἐπιθυ-
μεῖν θέμις· εὖ γὰρ εἴη.
ἐπεὶ δ’ ἀνάγκας ἔδυ λέπαδνον
φρενὸς πνέων δυσσεβῆ τροπαίαν
ἄναγνον, ἀνίερον, τόθεν
τὸ παντότολμον φρονεῖν μετέγνω·
βροτοὺς θρασύνει γὰρ αἰσχρόμητις
τάλαινα παρακοπὰ πρωτοπήμων·
ἔτλα δ’ οὖν θυτὴρ γενέ-
σθαι θυγατρός …
According to the chorus, Agamemnon’s bond of fatherhood with Iphigeneia af-

fects his reason: the decision to sacrifice his own daughter drives him out of
his mind. However, the bond of fatherhood does not prevent him from choosing
the death of Iphigeneia, as he has to decide if his daughter should live or not.
Indeed, the dilemma of Agamemnon and his decision to sacrifice Iphigeneia
come first (Ag. 206–217); then his madness unfolds, and finally the killing of
Iphigeneia (Ag. 218–225). Yet, whereas Agamemnon can rationally choose to
kill his own daughter, Clytemnestra is not able to accept the violent death of
Iphigeneia. Lines 1417– 1425 point in this direction. Clytemnestra speaks this pas-
sage during her dramatic confrontation with the chorus after the murder of Aga-
memnon, when she defends the righteousness of her revenge:
ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ παῖδα, φιλτάτην ἐμοί

ὠδῖν’, ἐπωιδὸν Θρηικίων ἀημάτων·
οὐ τοῦτον ἐκ γῆς τῆσδε χρῆν σ’ ἀνδρηλατεῖν
μιασμάτων ἄποιν’; ἐπήκοος δ’ ἐμῶν
ἔργων δικαστὴς τραχὺς εἶ. λέγω δέ σοι
τοιαῦτ’ ἀπειλεῖν, ὡς παρεσκευασμένης
ἐκ τῶν ὁμοίων, χειρὶ νικήσαντ’ ἐμοῦ
ἄρχειν· ἐὰν δὲ τοὔμπαλιν κραίνηι θεός,
γνώσηι διδαχθεὶς ὀψὲ γοῦν τὸ σωφρονεῖν
Two points are worth attention here. First, Clytemnestra rebukes the chorus for
intending to punish her for the murder of Agamemnon, whereas it should in fact
punish Agamemnon for the killing of Iphigeneia. Second, Clytemnestra ends her
speech by saying to the chorus that it will learn from her to act and talk in the
chorus’ description of Agamemnon as a man at the mercy of his mind differs consistently from
Agamemnon’s self-representation as a reasonable person in his welcome speech to the city of
Argos (Ag. 849 – 850: ἤτοι κέαντες ἢ τεμόντες εὐφρόνως/πειρασόμεσθα πῆμ’ ἀποστρέψαι
νόσου).

32 Agamemnon
right way (γνώσηι διδαχθεὶς ὀψὲ γοῦν τὸ σωφρονεῖν), once she will rule in Argos
(χειρὶ νικήσαντ’ ἐμοῦ/ ἄρχειν/ἐὰν δὲ τοὔμπαλιν κραίνηι θεός). In other words,
Clytemnestra is telling the chorus that a behaviour which conforms to sophronein
requires the man who deprives the mother of her daughter to be punished, and
that this lesson is something the chorus has to learn from her, once she has the
power in Argos. Thus, according to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of
the words γιγνώσκειν and σωφρονεῖν, knowledge (Ag. 1425: γνώσηι), understood
precisely as knowing how to speak and how to act in the right way (Ag. 1425: τὸ
σωφρονεῖν), presumes, on the one hand, the inviolability of the mother-child
bond (Ag. 1417– 1418: φιλτάτην ἐμοὶ ὠδῖν’) and, on the other hand, the condem-
nation of the violence against this bond (Ag. 1417: ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ παῖδα).⁶² In other
words, according to Clytemnestra, the chorus shall learn from her maternal mind
that a father cannot kill his own daughter. As we shall see (cf. ch. 3. 1), the Furies’
rhetoric of appropriation of the verb σωφρονεῖν also establishes the possibility of
acquiring sophrosune from the mother.
Against this reading of lines 1417– 1425, it can be objected that Clytemnestra,
at the end of the passage, is not speaking as a mother, but as a queen. As Win-
nington-Ingram has pointed out (1983: 109), ‘at the end of her speech the queen
has spoken not as mother’. The political meaning of the verbs νικήσαντ’ and
ἄρχειν in lines 1423 – 1424 is undoubtedly in support of this critical position. Ac-
cordingly, by using the verbs γιγνώσκειν and σωφρονεῖν, Clytemnestra is telling
the chorus that it will have to obey her, once she will have prevailed on it and
seized the power in Argos.⁶³ Read this way, passage 1421– 1425 picks up a well–-
known theme in the gnomic tradition.⁶⁴ Moreover, it gives us good evidence of
Clytemnestra’s transgressive way of speaking, as underlined by the chorus’ reac-
tion in Ag. 1426 – 1427:
μεγαλόμητις εἶ,
περίφρονα δ’ ἔλακες …
 For the verb σωφρονεῖν as referring to the sphere of knowledge, cf. Italie who quotes Ag. 1425
as an occurrence of σωφρονεῖν in the meaning of ‘prudentem esse, sapere’. On the chorus and
Clytemnestra on the female mind, cf. pp 63, 70 – 72, 78 – 79. On the female mind in its relation to
female reproductive agency, cf. Diogenianus gramm., Paroemiae, 4, 2– 3, 1. On female mind,
womb and female reproductive agency, cf. Sissa (1987), esp. ch. 1.
 Cf. the same rhetoric of appropriation of σωφρονεῖν by Aegisthus in Ag. 1619 – 1620: γνώσηι
γέρων ὢν ὡς διδάσκεσθαι βαρὺ/τῶι τηλικούτωι, σωφρονεῖν εἰρημένον.
 On σωφρονεῖν in Ag. 1425, cf. North (1966: 46): ‘When this appears in the Agamemnon – in
the threats of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus to the Chorus (1425, 1620) – it contains no deeper
significance than is customary in the gnomic tradition’. Cf. also Rademaker (2005: 100, 118).

However, if this is right, we shall as well consider the possibility that in lines
1424– 1425 Clytemnestra might be speaking both as queen and as mother: a
few lines above (in Ag. 1417– 1418), she explicitly refers to the sacrifice of Iphige-
neia. In this case, the phrase ‘ἐὰν δὲ τοὔμπαλιν κραίνηι θεός/γνώσηι διδαχθεὶς
ὀψὲ γοῦν τὸ σωφρονεῖν’ in Ag. 1424– 1425 would refer to Clytemnestra’s whole
speech in passage 1417– 1425, and not just to lines 1421– 1425. In other words,
as a queen, she is saying to the chorus: if I will rule the power in Argos, you
will learn to act and talk rightly, i. e. you will learn political obedience. As a
queen and as a mother, she is saying to the old Argives: if I will rule the
power in Argos (queen’s voice), you will have to learn that acting and talking
rightly implies the inviolability of the mother-daughter dyad and, therefore,
the punishment of the paternal violence against the mother’s daughter (mother’s
voice). I suspect that the only reason for dismissing this explanation is to be
found in the scholars’ common trend of suppressing Clytemnestra’s motherhood.
The meaning of the verb σωφρονεῖν supports this line of interpretation. As
Rademaker (2005: 120) has pointed out, in Aeschylus σωφρονεῖν indicates ‘ab-
stention from unjustified violence, especially that against one’s city or one’s fam-
ily’. Obviously, from the maternal point of view of Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s
violence against Iphigeneia is unjustifiable – and has to be punished. As a moth-
er, then, Clytemnestra is telling the chorus that it shall learn that the paternal
violence against the mother-child bond cannot be justified.
It seems important to consider that in lines 1424– 1425 Clytemnestra is speak-
ing both as queen and as mother. Thus, this may affect the way we interpret the
narrative of the chorus in Agamemnon. Clearly enough, the chorus does not share
Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and her discourse on σωφρονεῖν and the
inviolability of the mother-child dyad. Indeed, as we have seen, by its reply in
Ag. 1426 – 1427 the chorus defines Clytemnestra as μεγαλόμητις and terrible,
naughty, arrogant (περίφρονα δ’ ἔλακες). Clearly, this description of Clytemnes-
tra represents the paradigmatic counter-example of the περίφρων Penelope. Yet,
this situation will change towards the end of the play. When Clytemnestra recalls
Iphigeneia’s death for the last time (Ag. 1555 – 1559), the chorus will finally admit
that it is hard to judge Clytemnestra’s and Agamemnon’s murderous acts:⁶⁵
Ag. 1560 – 1561: ὄνειδος ἥκει τόδ’ ἀντ’ὀνείδους,

δύσμαχα δ’ ἐστὶ κρῖναι
 Cf. Fraenkel (1964: 350): ‘Sie hält in dieser Szene dem Chor entgegen, was Agamemnon ihr
mit der Opferung Iphigeniens angetan hat, und hier ist der Chor nicht mehr in der Lage gegen sie
Partei zu ergreifen, sondern muss bekennen, dass er, jedes helfenden Gedankens beraubt,
keines Ausweg sieht’.

34 Agamemnon
We see how the chorus might move from a moment of acceptance (only a foolish
woman can kill Agamemnon and claim the righteousness of this murder) to a
moment of doubt and hesitation (can we really condemn so easily a mother
who defends her daughter against paternal violence?).
As in line 1425, with her rhetoric of appropriation of the verbs γιγνώσκειν
and σωφρονεῖν, so in her first speech, at line 265, with her usage of the words
μήτηρ and εὐφρόνη, Clytemnestra seems to establish a link between the moth-
er’s mind and the mother-child dyad:
ἕως γένοιτο μητρὸς εὐφρόνης πάρα
Two remarks support this conjecture. First, as Winnington-Ingram (1983: 103)

has pointed out, with the phrase ‘μητρὸς εὐφρόνης’ we see a hint of the biolog-
ical experience of motherhood: ‘For instance, when the queen speaks of the
night as of a mother that has given birth to the day (265, 279), it is to remind
us of her own motherhood, of Iphigenia’.⁶⁶ Second, according to Goldhill
(LSN: 35), the expression ‘μητρὸς εὐφρόνης’ seems to imply the expression ‘μητ-
ρὸς εὔφρονος’: ‘Her pun εὔφρων/εὐφρόνης is important because “in a play on
words … the word is … only a sound image, to which one meaning or another
is attached”’.
Against this reading of line 265, it can be said that in Greek εὔφρων means
‘cheerful, kindly’ and not ‘reasonable, sensible, of sound mind’. Of course, the
adjective εὔφρων in Agamemnon denotes the quality of cheerfulness and polit-
ical kindness or loyalty (Ag. 140, 263, 797, 806). However, the adjective εὔφρων
in the meaning of ‘reasonable, sensible, of sound mind’ is well attested in Ae-
schylus (cf. Pers. 768 – 772; Supp. 376 – 378, 640; Eum. 992– 995).⁶⁷ Moreover,
the related adverb εὐφρόνως denotes clearly in Agamemnon the capability of
speaking and acting as a sound-minded, intelligent, prudent person of good
sense (Ag. 351, 849 – 850).
I shall turn to a discussion of Clytemnestra’s mind in the chapter on Choephor-
oi, as I examine Electra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words εὔφρων and
σώφρων in lines 88 and 140 (cf. pp. 110 – 111, 122– 125), and in the chapter on Eu-
menides, as I look at the Erinyes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the verb σωφρονεῖν
(cf. ch. 3. 1– 2). In the next section I analyse Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explana-
 Similarly cf. Goheen (1955: 133), and, most recently, Vogel-Ehrensperger (2012: 68 – 69).
 Cf. Yarkho (1972: 171 with n. 11, 193, 196); LSN: 277– 278. For εὔφρων as ‘sound-minded,
intelligent, prudent’, cf. also Alcman (1PMG=3 Calame, 37) with Calame (1983: 323): ‘εὔφρων: à
prendre ici au sens propre de “qui a des φρένες, un esprit sain, bien portant”, “qui comprend” ’.

tion of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice in relation to her representation as a vengeful agent

of supernatural forces.
6 Clytemnestra’s motherhood, the Alastor and the Erinys
During her last confrontation with the chorus, Clytemnestra identifies herself
with the Alastor of the Atreid family, and represents the murder of Agamemnon
as the effect of its curse, i. e. as the punishment of the cena thyestea:⁶⁸
Ag. 1497– 1504: αὐχεῖς εἶναι τόδε τοὖργον ἐμόν

†μηδ’ ἐπιλεχθῆις†
Ἀγαμεμνονίαν εἶναί μ’ ἄλοχον·
φανταζόμενος δὲ γυναικὶ νεκροῦ
τοῦδ’ ὁ παλαιὸς δριμὺς ἀλάστωρ
Ἀτρέως χαλεποῦ θοινατῆρος
τόνδ’ ἀπέτεισεν
τέλεον νεαροῖς ἐπιθύσας
Critics have often interpreted Clytemnestra’s appeal to the Alastor as a proof of

the entanglement of her murderous deed with the avenging plans of Aegisthus.
In other words, Aegisthus murders Agamemnon as a compensation for the cena
thyestea (Ag. 1587– 1604) and Clytemnestra is nothing but the handmaiden of her
lover.⁶⁹
This reading, however, raises some difficulties. First of all, the text of Aga-
memnon mentions Aegisthus’ help only once, and without any reference to the
fact that Clytemnestra wanted to carry out the murderous intent of her lover
(Ag. 1654– 1656). On the contrary, it repeatedly refers to Clytemnestra as murder-
ess of Agamemnon (Ag. 1379, 1405 – 1406, 1420 – 1421, 1552– 1553) and it depicts
 The Greek of this passage is full of uncertainties; for a discussion of the textual problems, cf.
Oliver (1960: 312– 313); Neuburg (1991: 62 n. 31). Notably, Clytemnestra refers to the Alastor also
in the exodos: in passage 1475 – 1480 (see above p. 38) and in passage 1567– 1576. In passage
1567– 1576, however, she does not link the power of the Alastor to the cena thyestea, but to the
wealth of the Atreid house. She wishes that the Alastor will leave the Atreid house, in case they
are content with a small fortune. Thus, according to the apopempe, Clytemnestra is expressing
the belief that the curse of the Atreid family depends on the accomulation of a vast wealth (cf.
similarly the chorus in Sept. 766 – 771). As Di Benedetto (1984: 392) has observed, Clytemnestra’s
renunciation of a portion of the Atreid wealth ‘si pone dunque su una linea di moderazione e di
saggezza’. On Clytemnestra’s renunciation of a portion of the Atreid wealth, cf. now the
thoughtful suggestion of Raeburn and Thomas (2011: xxxii). On Clytemnestra’s and Aga-
memnon’s different view of the role of wealth in the Atreid family, ch. 1, III. 4.
 Cf. e. g. Conacher (1987: 50 – 51); Käppel (1998: 171); Foley (2001: 220 – 224).

36 Agamemnon
Clytemnestra as a strong and autonomous woman (she organizes the magnifi-

cent return of Agamemnon to Argos all by herself (Ag. 280 – 316); in the carpet
scene, she provides the conditions for Agamemnon’s entry into the Atreid palace
without anyone helping her).⁷⁰ Moreover, Aegisthus’ final revelation that he had
planned the murder of Agamemnon as a revenge for the cena thyestea (Ag. 1604,
1636 – 1637) does not confirm the idea that Clytemnestra is the passive executor
of the plans of her lover, and buckles under the dynamics of the curse the Atreid
family. Of course, for Aegisthus, the murder of Agamemnon means the fulfilment
of his own revenge. However, this does not seem to imply that the murder of Aga-
memnon, from Clytemnestra’s perspective as well, takes revenge for the cena
thyestea: a common goal does not necessarily mean a common cause. As Romilly
(1967: 98) has pointed out: ‘Clytemnestre parle des fautes d’Agamemnon, et
avant tout du meurtre d’Iphigénie (1415sqq., 1524sqq.; 1551sqq.); et Egisthe
parle du meurtre des enfants de Thyeste, lui qui est le fils de Thyeste’.⁷¹ In
this sense, as Peradotto (1969: 249), following Fraenkel, has noticed, it is appro-
priate to speak about the sacrifice of Iphigeneia as ‘the first sufficient cause’
(Ag. 223: πρωτοπήμων) for Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon.
In defense of a reading of Clytemnestra’s violent deed as the compensation
of the cena thyestea, we could be tempted to argue that Clytemnestra, by appeal-
ing to the Alastor and linking the murder of Agamemnon to the cena thyestea,
finally reveals the real dynamics of her murderous action, i. e. the punishment
of Atreus’ crime. This, however, appears misleading. When Clytemnestra claims
that the Alastor, as avenger of the cena thyestea, is the author of the murder of
Agamemnon, the chorus does not believe her. As has been observed, with the
word συλλήπτωρ (Ag. 1507) the chorus even speculates that Clytemnestra has
taken an active part in the murder of Agamemnon (she is not ἀναίτιος) and
that therefore she has not submitted to the power of the Alastor:⁷²
Ag. 1505 – 1508: ὡς μὲν ἀναίτιος εἶ

τοῦδε φόνου τίς ὁ μαρτυρήσων;
πῶ πῶ; πατρόθεν δὲ συλλή-
πτωρ γένοιτ’ ἂν ἀλάστωρ
Following the chorus here, by explaining her murderous action as a punishment

of the cena thyestea, Clytemnestra might in fact be trying to avoid responsibility
 Cf. similarly Euben (1982: 26); Sevieri (1991: 17); Scott-Morrell (1997: 147).
 Cf. similarly Romilly (1977: 36).
 Cf. e. g. Gantz (1982: 13); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 80); Seidensticker (2009: 244); Raeburn
and Thomas (2011: xxxvii).

for her deeds.⁷³ It is not by chance that the chorus defines the Alastor as the col-
laborator (Ag. 1507: συλλήπτωρ) of Clytemnestra. Indeed, the chorus does not es-
tablish a direct link between the avenging power of the Alastor, the crime of
Atreus and Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon. First of all, in its last refer-
ence to the curse (Ag. 1565 – 1566: τίς ἂν γονὰν ἀραῖον ἐκβάλοι δόμων/κεκόλλη-
ται γένος πρὸς ἄται), the chorus names the curse in the context of its answer to
Clytemnestra, who is explaining the murder of Agamemnon as a compensation
for Iphigeneia’s death (Ag. 1551– 1559). Yet, it does not mention the crime of
Atreus. Moreover, in the lines which follow (Ag. 1560 – 1561), the old men of
Argos agree, at least in part, with Clytemnestra about the murder of Agamemnon
being a legitimate act of revenge for the death of Iphigeneia. Accordingly, their
stance indicates that they link the death of Agamemnon and the power of the
curse to Clytemnestra’s revenge for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice rather than to her re-
venge for the cena thyestea. As Winnington-Ingram (1983: 112) has aptly ob-
served, Clytemnestra ‘is actuated by motives extraneous to the bloody history
of the house of Atreus’.
More than that, not only is the chorus silent about the connection between
the crime of Atreus, the power of the Alastor and Clytemnestra’s murder; it also
puts the power of the curse (Ag. 1565 – 1566: τίς ἂν γονὰν ἀραῖον ἐκβάλοι δόμων;/
κεκόλληται γένος πρὸς ἄται) in close relation to Zeus’ lex talionis (Ag. 1563 – 1564:
μίμνει δὲ μίμνοντος ἐν θρόνωι Διὸς/ παθεῖν τὸν ἔρξαντα· θέσμιον γάρ). The folly
of mutual killings in the Atreid family seems, then, to be an effect of Zeus’ divine
law. In other words, for the chorus Zeus enacts the law according to which the
one who kills has to be killed, and this divine law of Zeus, not the cena thyestea,
is hunting the Atreid family with the violence of the chain of inter-familial mur-
ders (Iphigeneia→Agamemnon →Clytemnestra).
Similar remarks can be put forward in relation to passage 1460 – 1487, in the
long lyrical-epirrhematic exchange of the chorus with Clytemnestra in the exo-
dos. Here, the chorus mentions the curse of the Atreid house three times
(Ag. 1460 – 1461: ἦ τις ἦν τότ’ ἐν δόμοις/ Ἔρις; 1468: δαῖμον, ὃς ἐμπίτνεις δώμασι;
1481– 1482: ἦ μέγαν †οἴκοις τοῖσδε†/ δαίμονα), attributing it to the avenging craft
of Zeus (Ag. 1486 – 1487: παναιτίου πανεργέτα/τί γὰρ βροτοῖς ἄνευ Διὸς τελεῖται;).
Again, however, the chorus does not mention the cena thyestea. It positions the
ruin of the Atreid house in relation to Helen’s adultery, and it links the power of
the Alastor to the actions of women:
 Cf. e. g. Daube (1938: 190); Vickers (1973: 385); Dover (1973: 61); Conacher (1974: 329); Ro-
senmeyer (1982: 240); Di Benedetto (1984: 391); O’Daly (1985: 19); Konishi (1990: 130); Thiel (1993:
393); Lawrence (2013: 35, 99).

38 Agamemnon
Ag. 1455 – 1461: ἰώ· παράνους Ἑλένα,

μία τὰς πολλάς, τὰς πάνυ πολλὰς
ψυχὰς ὀλέσασ’ ὑπὸ Τροίαι,
νῦν †δὲ τελείαν† πολύμναστον ἐπηνθίσω
δι’ αἷμ’ ἄνιπτον· ἦ τις ἦν τότ’ ἐν δόμοις
Ἔρις ἐρίδματος ἀνδρὸς οἰζύς
Ag. 1468 – 1471: δαῖμον, ὃς ἐμπίτνεις δώμασι καὶ διφυί-
οισι Τανταλίδαισιν,
κράτος <τ’> ἰσόψυχον ἐκ γυναικῶν
καρδιόδηκτον ἐμοὶ κρατύνεις
In the lines that immediately follow passage 1468 – 1471, Clytemnestra agrees
with the chorus that the Atreid house is haunted by the curse of the Alastor.
However, just like the chorus, she does not connect the power of the Alastor
with the cena thyestea:
Ag. 1475 – 1480: νῦν δ’ ὤρθωσας στόματος γνώμην,

τὸν τριπάχυντον
δαίμονα γέννης τῆσδε κικλήσκων·
ἐκ τοῦ γὰρ ἔρως αἱματολοιχὸς
νείραι τρέφεται· πρὶν καταλῆξαι
τὸ παλαιὸν ἄχος, νέος ἰχώρ
There is more to say about the chorus’ representation of Clytemnestra as the col-
laborator of the Alastor. Such a characterisation seems to be coherent with Cly-
temnestra’s denial of her marital relationship with Agamemnon:
Ag. 1498 – 1499: †μηδ’ ἐπιλεχθῆις†

Ἀγαμεμνονίαν εἶναί μ’ ἄλοχον
We have two issues to consider here. First, if we grant that Clytemnestra explains
the dynamics of her revenge on Agamemnon by her assimilation to the Alastor,
and that she refuses to be seen as his wife, we can argue that the action of the
Alastor embodies for Clytemnestra her maternal vengeful power: even if she is
not Agamemnon’s wife, she is still Iphigeneia’s avenging mother.⁷⁴ Second, we
 I differ from Winnington-Ingram (1983: 112), according to whom Clytemnestra, in appealing

to the Alastor, links her murderous action, as mother of Iphigeneia, to her marital status as wife
of Agamemnon, since in lines 1521 ff. she is referring to Iphigeneia as hers and Agamemnon’s
child. First, as we have seen (cf. pp. 18–20), in passage 1521– 1525, Clytemnestra talks about
Iphigeneia as exclusively her daughter. Second, the idea according to which in her appeal to the
Alastor Clytemnestra is relating her position as avenging mother to her status as wife, looks
problematic: Clytemnestra expressis verbis denies that she is Agamemnon’s wife.

are in the position to detect a striking similarity between the chorus’ and Clytem-
nestra’s representation of the murder of Agamemnon. For the chorus, Agamem-
non has been killed by the Alastor and Clytemnestra, his collaborator. Quite the
same, for Clytemnestra, Agamemnon has been murdered by the mother of Iphi-
geneia acting in cooperation with a supernatural being. Yet, following this inter-
pretation, it can be argued that Clytemnestra, in contrast to the chorus in
Ag. 1507– 1508 (πατρόθεν δὲ συλλή-/πτωρ), sees the action of the Alastor as
closely connected to the female history of the genealogical line of the Atreid fam-
ily. If, according to Clytemnestra’s explanation of Agamemnon’s murder, the
avenging mother is the collaborator of the Alastor, the Alastor is taking punish-
ment, together with Clytemnestra in her role as mother, also for the violence
done to the mother-daughter bond, i. e. to the female line of the Atreid family.
Further remarks on Clytemnestra’s denial of her marital status with Aga-
memnon are possible. Clytemnestra’s refusal is coherent with her discourse in
Ag. 1401– 1406. Here as well, she explains her killing of Agamemnon as a com-
pensation for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, refusing to identify herself as his wife (cf. p.
12). To sum up, we can assume that Clytemnestra, when she appeals to the Alas-
tor and uses the word ἄλοχος (Ag. 1499) to deny her marital relation with Aga-
memnon, is claiming in fact the autonomy of her acts and her position as mother
in regard to her female status and actions as wife.⁷⁵ In this interpretation, Cly-
temnestra’s denial of her marital bond with Agamemnon does not display her
revenge for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice as a mere excuse for sex. When she denies
being Agamemnon’s wife, she is not arguing that her explanation of his mur-
der – as a compensation for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice – is a cover up of her murder-
ous action in order to protect her adulterous relationship with Aegisthus. Clytem-
nestra’s self-representation as mother (and, accordingly, her refusal to be
Agamemnon’s wife) and Clytemnestra’s representation as wife of Agamemnon
do not overlap.
Further comments are possible about Clytemnestra’s appeal to the Alastor
and about the cena thyestea. Cassandra’s representation of the murder of the
king as the result of the power of the curse, and the revenge upon Atreus’
crime (Ag. 1095 – 1097, 1188 – 1193, 1219 – 1226) is not a proof that Clytemnestra
is acting as an instrument of Aegisthus’ revenge, and, therefore, as the violent
agent of the Alastor of the Atreids.⁷⁶ Indeed, this representation of the murder
of Agamemnon is coherent with Cassandra’s representation of Clytemnestra as
 I disagree, then, with those critics who see a problem in Clytemnestra’s denial of her marital
status and her self-representation as mother. Cf. e. g. Fraenkel (ad loc.); Podlecki (1983: 33);
Geisser (2002: 314).
 Similarly, cf. Hammond (1965: 42– 43), especially on lines 1188 – 1193.

40 Agamemnon
a bad mother and an adulterous wife (cf. ch. 1, II. 1): as an instrument of Aegis-
thus’ murderous plan, Clytemnestra surely does not act as an avenging mother,
but as a polyandrous and murderous woman. Yet, Clytemnestra is not Cassandra.
Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explanation of Agamemnon’s murder does not have to
coincide with Cassandra’s. Clytemnestra, as a mother avenging the death of her
daughter, and Cassandra, as a concubine speaking about the death of her mas-
ter, focus on Agamemnon’s death in a quite different way from one another: a
consequence of the power of the Alastor in the case of Cassandra; a consequence
of the power of the avenging mother who acts with the help of the Alastor of the
Atreid family in the case of Clytemnestra.
Coherent with this self-representation as an avenging mother who acts with
the help of supernatural forces, Cytemnestra does not just depict herself as the
personification of the Alastor of the Atreids. In the exodos, in the front of the
chorus, as she claims the righteousness of her violent deed, Clytemnestra
talks about the murder of Agamemnon as the fulfilment of justice operated by
an avenging mother (τέλειον τῆς ἐμῆς παιδὸς Δίκην) who acts as an agent of
the Erinys (Ἐρινύν):
Ag. 1432– 1433: μὰ τὴν τέλειον τῆς ἐμῆς παιδὸς Δίκην,

Ἄτην Ἐρινύν θ’, αἷσι τόνδ’ ἔσφαξ’ ἐγώ
As Seaford has similarly pointed out (2003: 160), towards the end of the play, Ae-
gisthus’ description of the garments used by Clytemnestra in order to kill Aga-
memnon is consistent with such a representation of the murder of the king as
an action of an Erinys. In his speech, Aegisthus describes Clytemnestra’s murder-
ous garments as ‘carpet of the Furies’ (Ag. 1580: πέπλοις Ἐρινύων).
Further remarks on Clytemnestra as an avenging mother and a mater mon-
struosa are possible. In the long lyrical-epirrhematic exchange with the chorus,
in the context of the defence of her violent deed, Clytemnestra describes the mur-
der of Agamemnon as plotted a long time before (Ag. 1377– 1378: ἐμοὶ δ’ ἀγὼν ὅδ’
οὐκ ἀφρόντιστος πάλαι/νείκης παλαιᾶς ἦλθε) and affirms that her revenge is the
work of her right hand, artificer of justice (Ag. 1405 – 1406: τῆσδε δεξιᾶς χερός/
ἔργον, δικαίας τέκτονος). Here, she seems to balance her maternal revenge
and the supernatural force of the wrath of the house equally. Indeed, the phrases
‘δικαίας τέκτονος’ and ‘νείκης παλαιᾶς ἦλθε’ pick up closely Chalchas’ descrip-
tion of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia as the maker of discord rooted in the family
(Ag. 151: νεικέων τέκτονα σύμφυτον).
Now, Chalchas’ description of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice aligns the wrath of the
house to the avenging power of Clytemnestra. As we infer from passage 150 –
155, for Calchas, Iphigeneia’s death is nothing but the cause of the strife between

Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, and the trigger of Clytemnestra’s revenge. We

have to consider two points here. First, the seer calls the discord aroused by Iphi-
geneia’s sacrifice ‘οὐ δεισήνορα’, i. e. a discord ‘that does not fear the husband’.
Second, he links (γὰρ) this discord to Clytemnestra’s avenging power (μίμνει …
μνάμων Μῆνις τεκνόποινος):⁷⁷
Ag. 150 – 155: … σπευδομένα θυσίαν ἑτέραν ἄνομόν τιν’ ἄδαιτον,

νεικέων τέκτονα σύμφυτον, οὐ δει-
σήνορα·μίμνει γὰρ φοβερὰ παλίνορτος
οἰκονόμος δολία, μνάμων Μῆνις τεκνόποινος
For several reasons, the phrase ‘μίμνει … Μῆνις τεκνόποινος’ might be read in
reference to the murder of Agamemnon as the result of the co-operation between
Clytemnestra’s maternal vengeful power and supernatural forces. If we read the
word μῆνις with a capital letter, we have to assume that an avenging deity is at
work in the Atreid family. Yet, since classical Greek does not distinguish between
capital and small letters, it is also possible to read μῆνις as an allusion both to
 I differ from Furley (1986: 117) who refers οὐ δεισήνορα to θυσίαν, renders it with ‘fearless of
men’ and argues that lines 154– 155 are to be read as an allusion not to Clytemnestra’s mur-
derous action, but to the cena thyestea and the avenging action of the Alastor of the Atreid
house. However, οὐ δεισήνορα can hardly be referred to θυσίαν: δεισήνορα specifically refers to
an attack against a man (cf. D-P and Fraenkel ad loc.) and has therefore to be linked with
νεικέων. I also differ from Käppel (1998: 87– 93). Käppel refers δεισήνορα, through enallage, to
νεικέων and translates it as ‘der vor dem (Ehe)Mann nicht Halt macht’. Nonetheless, he argues
that lines 154– 155 allude to the cena thyestea and to the curse of the Atreid family. He translates
νεικέων τέκτονα σύμφυτον as ‘Streitursache, die mit dem Haus mitgewachesen ist (d. h. mit ihm
seit jeher verwachsen)’, refers it to θυσίαν and comes to the conclusion that: ‘Wenn nun das
Opfer als eine Ursache von Streit charakterisiert wird, die mit dem Haus verwachsen ist, dann hat
sie auch schon zu dem Zeitpunkt existiert, zu dem das Opfer vollzogen wird’. This means that
the cause of dispute (νεικέων τέκτονα) is not the sacrifice of Iphigeneia: the cause of dispute
exists already before Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, as his cause is said to be σύμφυτον. Therefore, the
cause of dispute has to be the cena thyestea, and lines 154– 155 do not refer to Clytemnestra. This
interpretation is hard to follow. By θυσίαν is certainly meant the sacrifice which Artemis de-
mands, i. e. the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. Given that the sacrifice of Iphigeneia (θυσίαν) is said to be
‘innate maker of strife’ (D-P ad loc.) (νεικέων τέκτονα σύμφυτον), νεικέων can only mean the
strife between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon (for obvious reasons, the sacrifice of Iphigeneia
cannot be the cause the cena thyestea!). Accordingly, lines 154– 155 are to be read as referring to
Clytemnestra. On this matter, cf. most recently Sommerstein (2008: 19 n. 33): ‘In Chalchas’
oracular words … the coming sacrifice of Iphigeneia is half-identified with the wrath it will
generate, which in turn is half identified with the person … in whom that wrath will reside’. On
the fight between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, cf. notably the carpet scene: Ag. 940 (μάχης),
941 (τὸ νικᾶσθαι), 942 (νίκην τήνδε δήριος).

42 Agamemnon
divine wrath and to Clytemnestra’s maternal vengeful anger.⁷⁸ As Hoffmann has

pointed out (1992: 129), the pun τεκνόποινος (avenger of children, or avenged by
children) with τεκνοποιός (children-making) supports this reading: the expres-
sion ‘μῆνις τεκνοποιός’ seems to work as a hint to Clytemnestra’s motherhood,
and to her violent action as a mother. Moreover, the anger of the Erinyes in Eu-
menides and their characterisation as ‘κακῶν μνήμονες’ (Eum. 382– 383) both
suggest that the expression ‘μνάμων Μῆνις’ might imply a reference to Clytem-
nestra.⁷⁹ Finally, Clytemnestra’s self-representation as οἰκονόμος of the Atreid
household (Ag. 609 – 610) seems to suggest the idea that Calchas may refer to
her, as he describes the wrath of the house as οἰκονόμος, i. e. as manager of
the household.
Against the background of a process of assimilation of Clytemnestra to su-
pernatural beings (the Alastor, the Menis, the Erinyes), her act of vengeance
for the death of Iphigeneia consigns her, as a mother, to a position of dreadful
longing. Unable to accept or even to control the grief she feels being separated
from the creature she has given birth to, the pain of Clytemnestra, like the
pain of Hecuba or Demeter, makes her a dangerous, uncontrollable, dreadful
and furious being, devoted to pain and wrath.⁸⁰ Thus, an experience of insoluble
pain is at the base of Clytemnestra’s turn to violence, transforming her from a
mater dolorosa into a mater monstruosa. We have a vivid portrayal of Clytemnes-
tra as a mater monstruosa at line 1388 – 1392, in the context of the speech she
delivers immediately after the murder of Agamemnon and Cassandra:
οὕτω τὸν αὑτοῦ θυμὸν †ὁρμαίνει† πεσών,

κἀκφυσιῶν ὀξεῖαν αἵματος σφαγήν
βάλλει μ’ ἐρεμνῆι ψακάδι φοινίας δρόσου,
χαίρουσαν οὐδὲν ἧσσον ἢ διοσδότωι
γάνει σπορητὸς κάλυκος ἐν λοχεύμασιν
Here, the language of Clytemnestra displays a strong evocative power. It may sug-
gest the idea of impregnation by the male. Just as the ground needs the rain in
 Cf. Hammond (2009: 46), pace Fraenkel (ad loc.). On Clytemnestra as personification of
menis, cf. also Neustadt (1929: 243); Lesky (1966a: 98); Loraux (1990: 76 – 77); Rademaker (2005:
105).
 On the expression ‘κακῶν μνήμονες’ recalling ‘μνάμων Μῆνις’, cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983:
171 n. 59); LSN: 228, 232. I therefore disagree with Lebeck (1971: 34). According to Lebeck, the
expression ‘μνάμων Μῆνις’ refers to the cena thyestea and the curse of the Atreids, the ex-
pression ‘οἰκονόμος δολία’ to Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon. For a very detailed criticism
of Lebeck’s critical position, cf. Erp Taalman Kip (1990: 53 – 60).
 On maternal pain, wrath and revenge we should recall Loraux (1990).

order to produce crops (Ag. 1391– 1392), the female needs the male semen in
order to give life to the embryo. However, in the case of Clytemnestra, this ex-
change is sterile. More than that, the image of Clytemnestra as a woman soaked
in male blood suggests perverse sexual intercourse, and an upset in the natural
order of fecundity. Why such perversion? One possible explanation is that Cly-
temnestra’s pleasure reflects the perverse nature of a woman enjoying a horrible
act of killing and an irreparable crime, which makes the chorus fear for the fu-
ture:⁸¹
Ag. 1533 – 1534: δέδοικα δ’ ὄμβρου κτύπον δομοσφαλῆ

τὸν αἱματηρόν …
This is a plausible reading, but it simplifies the complexity of the passage, since
it tends to suppress Clytemnestra’s motherhood in favour of her sexuality, align-
ing her role as mother to that of wife and object of her husband’s desire. I sug-
gest that the perversion of Clytemnestra might be read also as the perversion of a
mother who, avenging the death of her daughter, acts as an agent of the deadly
Erinyes. The text supports this line of interpretation. Lines 1390 – 1391 suggest the
association of Clytemnestra with the figure of the Erinyes (βάλλει μ’ ἐρεμνῆι
ψακάδι φοινίας δρόσου/ χαίρουσαν οὐδὲν ἧσσον). As the Erinyes suck and
drink human blood (Ag. 1189; Cho. 577– 578; Eum. 184, 253), so Clytemnestra is
delighted at the sight of Agamemnon’s blood. Furthermore, as Heath has noticed
(1999: 20 n. 9), the expression ‘ἐν λοχεύμασιν’ (Ag. 1392) shifts the attention to
Clytemnestra’s role as mother: in Greek the plural λοχεύματα designates child-
birth (cf. LSJ).
In what follows, after a summary of sections one to six, I explore further the
play’s representation of Clytemnestra as a hellish mother, looking at Cassandra’s
rhetoric of motherhood.
7 Conclusions
Looking at Clytemnestra’s revenge for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice in sections one to

six, we have seen that:
1. critics have often simplified the complexity of Clytemnestra’s discourse on
the murder of Agamemnon, reducing her role as mother and wife to her
 Cf. similarly Goheen (1955: 134); Seidensticker (1995: 160); Sommerstein (1996: 246); Wohl
(1998: 107– 108); Foley (2001: 211); Ypsilanti (2003: 368); Porter (2005a: 3); Pelling (2005: 98);
Vogel-Ehrensperger (2012: 203).

44 Agamemnon
role as wife. Yet, on a closer reading of Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explana-

tion, her reasons for killing are polyvalent:
– as a mother, she explains the murder of Agamemnon as the revenge for
the sacrifice of Iphigeneia and not as the violent act of a wife against her
husband;
– as a wife, she explains the murder of Agamemnon as a means to protect
her adulterous relationship with Aegisthus, and to take revenge for Aga-
memnon’s union with Cassandra and other captive women;
2. according to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and maternal revenge:
– Iphigeneia is the fruit of her womb. Therefore mother and daughter are
tied together by an inviolable bond of maternal consanguinity and phi-
lia;
– Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter because this sacrifice will allow him
to fulfill his identity as a warrior;
– Iphigeneia’s sacrifice breaks the biological continuum of daughter and
mother through an act of paternal warlike violence;
– to Clytemnestra the murder of Agamemnon represents a fulfillment of
the justice of her maternal philia against paternal violence of war; it ex-
presses and upholds the inviolable character of the biological bond of
philia between mother and daughter;
– the mother is a philos of her daughter (relative by maternal blood) but
not of her husband (relative by social ties through marriage);
– the mother, being the origin of life, is also the mistress and the guardian
of the household;
– Agamemnon kills by using dolos;
– female mind is bound together with female reproductive power;
3. in respect to Clytemnestra’s revenge for Iphigeneia, and to her killing of Aga-
memnon, her attempt to separate her role as mother from her role as wife
and, accordingly, her overvaluation of maternal consanguinity and maternal
power are exposed to the danger of failing. Clytemnestra pretends to be the
only genetic parent of her child, and thus claims the right to kill the father of
her daughter. Accordingly, she is transformed from a mater dolorosa into a
mater monstruosa who acts as a personification of the Alastor, an Erinys
and the treacherous wrath of the Atreid family.
II Cassandra, the chorus and Iphigeneia’s sacrifice
As I suggested in the previous pages, if we read Agamemnon from the narrative

perspective of Clytemnestra as an avenging mother and a wife, we are entitled to

recognize a certain legitimacy in her revenge. As Foley (2001: 233) argued, we

might ask (quote):⁸²
1) ‘Why should a mother tolerate what the chorus itself describes as the horrif-
ic, perverted, and unwilling sacrifice of her daughter?’
2) ‘Why should Clytemnestra accept a marriage made by others in which her
husband has become an enemy to herself, when she can choose a spouse
who protects her interests and pleases her?’
At the same time, as we have seen, Clytemnestra’s separation between her role as
mother and her role as wife inevitably undercuts the legitimacy of her rhetoric of
explanation for the murder of Agamemnon as a compensation for Iphigeneia’s
sacrifice. In what follows, I discuss the play’s problematisation of Clytemnestra’s
rhetoric of motherhood and maternal revenge further, focusing on the chorus’
and Cassandra’s rhetoric of motherhood.
1 Clytemnestra as an adulterous wife and a bad mother
In the course of her long dramatic exchange with the chorus (Ag. 1072– 1330),
Cassandra talks twice about Orestes’ coming matricide as an act of retribution
for Agamemnon’s and her own death:
Ag. 1279 – 1280: οὐ μὴν ἄτιμοί γ’ ἐκ θεῶν τεθνήξομεν·

ἥξει γὰρ ἡμῶν ἄλλος αὖ τιμάορος
Ag. 1318 – 1320: ὅταν γυνὴ γυναικὸς ἀντ’ ἐμοῦ θάνηι
ἀνήρ τε δυσδάμαρτος ἀντ’ ἀνδρὸς πέσηι·
ἐπιξενοῦμαι ταῦτα δ’ ὡς θανουμένη
This stated necessity of Orestes’ revenge is grounded in an interpretation of the

killing of Agamemnon, which consistently differs from Clytemnestra’s explana-
tion of her murderous action. Following Cassandra’s discourse at lines 1318 –
1320, Clytemnestra is a polyandrous woman/wife (γυνή; δυσδάμαρτος) who
dared to kill her man (ἀνδρός).⁸³
 Cf. similarly Euben (1982: 26): ‘Moreover, as I have suggested, what she does is importantly a
response to what Agamemnon has done to her. His choice for glory at the expense of house and
family is an assault on the wife-mother-woman whose dignity resides there’.
 On Cassandra and her depiction of Clytemnestra as a female killer of the male, cf. also
Ag. 1109 – 1111; 1125 – 1126; 1231. On Cassandra and Clytemnestra’s adultery, cf. also Ag. 1258 –
1259. On the word γυνή in line 1318, cf. p. 50.

46 Agamemnon
This depiction of Clytemnestra affects the way in which she is represented as

mother. Being a woman who betrays and murders her husband amounts to being
a mother necis auctor who acts against her philoi and therefore deserves to die:
Ag. 1102– 1103: μέγ’ ἐν δόμοισι τοῖσδε μήδεται κακὸν

ἄφερτον φίλοισιν …
Ag. 1235 – 1236: θύουσαν Ἅιδου μητέρ’ ἄσπονδόν τ’ Ἄρη
φίλοις πνέουσαν …
Ag. 1283: κάτεισιν, ἄτας τάσδε θριγκώσων φίλοις
Lines 1235 – 1236 are particularly interesting and deserve further comment. The
occurrence of the word μητέρα has puzzled the sensibilities of critics for a
long time, and several emendations have been suggested (cf. Fraenkel ad loc.).
Essentially, scholars considered the allusion to Clytemnestra’s motherhood to
be misleading: at this point of the plot, shortly before Agamemnon’s killing,
one would rather expect an allusion to the role of Clytemnestra as the (bad)
wife of her husband. Fraenkel, however, defends the transmitted text, suggesting
an obvious (and, because of the τε, quite natural) reading which phrases ‘θύου-
σαν Ἅιδου μητέρ’’ in strict relation to the phrase ‘Ἄρη φίλοις πνέουσαν’. Accord-
ing to him, the representation of Clytemnestra as a ‘sacrificing mother of Hades’
(θύουσαν Ἅιδου μητέρ’) and ‘breathing Ares against her philoi’ (Ἄρη φίλοις
πνέουσαν) highlights a dramatic continuity between Agamemnon and Choephor-
oi. In Agamemnon, Clytemnestra is depicted as a mother acting against her chil-
dren (she, ‘mother of the realm of destruction, destroying mother’, murders Aga-
memnon, the father of Orestes and Electra); in Choephoroi, Clytemnestra’s hellish
dogs (Cho. 924: μητρὸς ἐγκότους κύνας, 1054: μητρὸς ἔγκοτοι κύνες) are the
monstrous creatures which pursue the matricidal son Orestes.⁸⁴
To Fraenkel’s remarks we can add further reasons why μητέρα should be
maintained. When Cassandra uses the words θύουσαν and φίλοις in relation
to μητέρα, she is repeating two words (θύειν, φίλος) of primary importance in
Clytemnestra’s discourse on motherhood and maternal revenge (Ag. 1417– 1418:
ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ παῖδα, φιλτάτην ἐμοὶ ὠδῖν’). This repetition reveals some impor-
tant differences in the presentation of the dramatic events. According to Clytem-
nestra’s rhetoric of motherhood, the murder of Agamemnon is a legitimate retri-
bution for the warlike violence of a father against the exclusive fruit of her womb
(cf. above I. 2– 3). Read with Cassandra, Agamemnon’s death represents, in-
stead, the action of a bad mother or a mother-echthros who kills her husband,
bereaves her children of their dear father, and acts against her philoi.
 On these lines as looking ahead to Choephoroi, cf. also Zeitlin (1966: 649 – 651 with n. 15).

Following this line of argumentation, Cassandra’s discourse confronts the

reader with a definition of the term φίλος that plays a crucial role in the Choe-
phoroi’s discourse on motherhood and wifehood. In depicting Clytemnestra as a
mother-echthros who kills the children’s father, Cassandra, like the nurse, Elec-
tra, and Orestes, represents the bond of philia as inclusive of the father-child
bond, and as exclusive of the mother-child bond. Moreover, talking about Cly-
temnestra as an adulterous wife, Cassandra includes in the philia-relationship
the marital bond between wife and husband that Clytemnestra clearly violates:
being an adulterous woman, Clytemnestra is an enemy of her husband. Thus,
Cassandra’s emphasis on Clytemnestra as a promiscuous wife and as a bad
mother introduces a shift both in the representation of motherhood and in the
representation of blood ties and power relations:
– for Clytemnestra: mother = woman giving life => adulterous wife ≠ bad
mother; philia is between mother and child, not between wife and husband
– for Cassandra: mother = wife of the husband and the children’s father =>
adulterous wife = bad mother; philia is between wife and husband as be-
tween father and children
↓
– according to Clytemnestra’s discourse: mother = origin of life and power
– according to Cassandra’s discourse: father = origin of life and power
As we will see, this is precisely the shift that contextualises Orestes’, Electra’s
and Apollo’s representation of Agamemnon as the only genetic parent and as
the subject of power in the family and in society (husband, genitor, head of
the family, warrior and king).
Now, since Cassandra always tells the truth (Ag. 1241: ἀληθόμαντιν), her dis-
course on Clytemnestra in her role as mother and wife cannot simply be disre-
garded as false. However, at the same time, Cassandra is never believed by any-
one (Ag. 1212: ἔπειθον οὐδέν’ οὐδέν). Accordingly, her discourse might not be
fully persuasive. It might raise a doubt: how possibly might a mother be just
the wife of the father? In fact, we notice how the prophetic authority of Cassand-
ra’s discourse anticipates the dissent of half the Athenian jury from Apollo’s bias
and Orestes’ acquittal in dubio pro reo. It does not matter if the repudiation of
Clytemnestra’s motherhood is coming from Apollo or from his prophetess;
human beings in Aeschylus (can) resist the divine force of speech.
Just as Clytemnestra is a mother necis auctor, Orestes is a μητροκτόνον
φίτυμα (Ag. 1281). The choice of this image is hardly accidental, and it seems im-

48 Agamemnon
portant to me to maintain this metaphor in the translated text.⁸⁵ As we have

seen, when Clytemnestra speaks of motherhood and uses the words φίλος and
ἔρνος (Ag. 1417– 1418: φιλτάτην ἐμοὶ ὠδῖν’; 1525: ἐμὸν ἐκ τοῦδ’ ἔρνος), she rep-
resents her daughter as her philos and as the fruit of her maternal womb. By con-
trast, when Cassandra speaks of the mother-son relation, relying on imagery
quite similar to that used by Clytemnestra (ἔρνος → φίτυμα), mother and child
are tied together by a bond of death. As we will see (cf. pp. 136 – 138), this oppo-
sition (motherhood as a relation of life/death between mother and child) can
also be traced through Clytemnestra’s and Orestes’ discourse on motherhood.
Cassandra does not appropriate in a different way from Clytemnestra only
the words φίλος, θύειν and μήτηρ. She does the same for the word κύων. The
dog, that in the words of Clytemnestra is the mother-philos of her daughter
and the mistress of the Atreid household (cf. pp. 24– 26), in the words of Cassan-
dra becomes a hateful dog (μισητῆς κυνός) that kills, by means of deceptive
speech, the king who was victorious at Troy:⁸⁶
Ag. 1227– 1230: νεῶν δ’ ἄπαρχος Ἰλίου τ’ ἀναστάτης

οὐκ οἶδεν οἵα γλῶσσα μισητῆς κυνός,
λέξασα κἀκτείνασα φαιδρόνους δίκην,
ἄτης λαθραίου τεύξεται κακῆι τύχηι
Cassandra’s image of Clytemnestra as a treacherous dog defines a negative dis-

course on Clytemnestra’s mind. As Fraenkel (ad loc.) observes, Cassandra’s hint
to Clytemnestra’s φαιδρότης of mind is clearly ironic, an element which looks
forward to Clytemnestra’s depiction in Eumenides as a mother κελαινόφρων
(Eum. 459): the black-minded mother (cf. pp. 181–182).
Now, using deception and cunning intelligence in the act of killing, Clytem-
nestra does not distinguish herself much from Agamemnon. With Goldhill (LSN:
87): ‘She is also called παντότολμος (1237) which refers back to the description of
Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigenia τὸ παντότολμον φρονεῖν μετέγνω (221) and
this emphasises the parallelism between their actions’. It is not a minor detail.
The assimilation of Clytemnestra’s and Agamemnon’s mind underscores the le-
 For a different position, cf. Dumortier (1975a: 130). One might note that the depiction of
Orestes as a tree marks a continuity with Agamemnon’s representation by Clytemnestra as a tree
casting shade (Ag. 966 – 967: ῥίζης γὰρ οὔσης φυλλὰς ἵκετ’ ἐς δόμους/σκιὰν ὑπερτείνασα σειρίου
κυνός): like father, like son.
 The murder of Agamemnon is described as Clytemnestra’s treacherous action also in Ag. 1129
by Cassandra, in Ag. 1495, 1519 by the chorus and finally in Ag. 1636 by Aegisthus. Note that
Thomson (1934: 75 – 76) takes μισητῆς as being an ‘intrusive gloss’. However, cf. Fraenkel (ad
loc.).

gitimacy of Clytemnestra’s opposition between mother and father that we have

seen at work in her speech at lines 1417– 1425 (cf. above, I. 5). Moreover, Cassand-
ra’s use of the adjective παντότολμος looks forward to Electra’s criticism of Cly-
temnestra’s mind (cf. pp. 86, 122– 124).
The chorus shares with Cassandra her views on Clytemnestra. For the old
men of Argos as well, Agamemnon’s death represents the murderous action of
a wife and a woman against her husband and against the man with power:⁸⁷
Ag. 1454: πρὸς γυναικὸς δ’ ἀπέφθισεν βίον

Ag. 1461: Ἔρις ἐρίδματος ἀνδρὸς οἰζύς
Ag. 1543 – 1544: … κτείνασ’
ἄνδρα τὸν αὑτῆς ἀποκωκῦσαι
Ag. 1643 – 1646: τί δὴ τὸν ἄνδρα τόνδ’ ἀπὸ ψυχῆς κακῆς
οὐκ αὐτὸς ἠνάριζες, ἀλλὰ σὺν γυνή,
χώρας μίασμα καὶ θεῶν ἐγχωρίων,
ἔκτειν’;
Specifically, the chorus represents the killing of Agamemnon as the deed of a

lazy and adulterous wife against her husband and victorious leader of the Greeks
in Troy:
Ag. 1625 – 1627: γύναι, σὺ τοὺς ἥκοντας ἐκ μάχης μένων

οἰκουρὸς εὐνὴν ἀνδρὸς αἰσχύνων ἅμα
ἀνδρὶ στρατηγῶι τόνδ’ ἐβούλευσας μόρον;
Here, the chorus’ rhetoric of appropriation of the word ἀνήρ as maritus (εὐνὴν
ἀνδρός) and vir fortis (ἀνδρὶ στρατηγῶι) implies an appropriation of the word
γυνή as indicating the female who is both sexually and economically dependent
on her husband (εὐνὴν ἀνδρὸς αἰσχύνων; μένων οἰκουρὸς). As we shall see, this
discourse on Clytemnestra’s wifehood will return in Choephoroi with Orestes and
Electra’s representation of Clytemnestra as a mother non-giving and non-nurtur-
ing life, and as a female usurper of Agamemnon’s power. Now, as a betrayer and
as a killer of her husband and king, Clytemnestra is for the chorus, as well as for
Cassandra, an enemy of the Atreid family whose murderous action has to be
punished:⁸⁸
 The chorus also refers to Clytemnestra’s position as Agamemnon’s wife in Ag. 260. On this
line, cf. p. 68. Like the chorus, the watchman too, in speaking of Clytemnestra, points to her
marital status (Ag. 26 – 27: Ἀγαμέμνονος γυναικὶ σημαίνω τορῶς/εὐνῆς ἐπαντείλασαν ὡς τάχος
δόμοις).
 The chorus claims the necessity of Orestes’ revenge also in Ag. 1535 – 1536, 1646 – 1648, 1667.

50 Agamemnon
Ag. 1429 – 1430: ἄντιτον ἔτι σε χρὴ στερομέναν φίλων

τύμμα τύμμα<τι> τεῖσαι
In these lines, using the word φίλος after the killing of Agamemnon, the chorus
seems to claim a relationship of philia between Agamemnon as man and Clytem-
nestra as wife, ascribing the horror of Clytemnestra’s murderous action to the
transgression of the social bond of marriage. However, the chorus’ attempt to
separate her role as mother from her role as wife, which is at work in this char-
acterisation of Clytemnestra simply as a bad wife, is fraught with the risk to fail.
Once again, this separation pushes us to ask whether a) the repudiation of the
blood connection between mother and child, and b) the definition of the mother
as merely the wife of the husband, justify matricide and the legitimacy of Aga-
memnon’s power as father. I turn to this vulnerability of the discourse of Cassan-
dra and the chorus in the next section.
2 Problematising Clytemnestra’s representation as a bad mother and

a bad wife
Cassandra’s use of the word γυνή in line 1318 problematises the normalisation of
women into wives (ὅταν γυνὴ γυναικὸς ἀντ’ ἐμοῦ θάνηι): if Clytemnestra is a
woman and the wife of Agamemnon, Cassandra, on the contrary, is a woman
but not Agamemnon’s wife. On the ekkuklema, the destabilisation of Cassandra’s
self-representation as gune of Agamemnon is revealed by the parallelism be-
tween her lying corpse on the side of Agamemnon (Ag. 1372 ff.) and the lying
corpse of Clytemnestra on the side of Aegisthus (Cho. 973 ff.).⁸⁹ Moreover,
when Cassandra prophesizes Orestes’ revenge for her death and for the murder
of Agamemnon in terms of the end of violence in the Atreid family (Ag. 1279 –
1280), she also describes her death as a sacrifice:
 I differ therefore from Foley (2001: 92) who notes that Cassandra ‘gradually fills the struc-
tural role of “proper” wife abandoned by Clytemnestra’. As Foley, cf. Doyle (2008: 87– 89); Vogel-
Ehrensperger (2012: 194). On the depiction of Cassandra as the wife of Agamemnon, cf. the
seminal paper of Seaford on tragic weddings (1987: 127– 128), McNeil (2005) and now Debnar
(2010: 133 – 136). In her article, McNeil discusses at length the reason why the fabric of the carpet
scene visually reminds us of bridal cloths and, therefore, why the whole scene alludes to the
erotic triangle ‘Agamemnon-Cassandra-Clytemnestra’. On Cassandra as concubine of Aga-
memnon and the ambiguity of this status, cf. also the thoughtful suggestions of Wohl (1998: 113 –
116) and Roisman (2004: 103 – 104). On Cassandra’s self-representation as wife and its pro-
blematic aspects, cf. also Ag. 1179, with Morgan (1994: 127– 128) and Lavery (2004: 16 – 19) on this
line.

Ag. 1277– 1278: βωμοῦ πατρώιου δ’ ἀντ’ ἐπίξηνον μένει,

θερμῶι κοπείσης φοίνιον προσφάγματι
In the words of the prophetess – just like in the reply of the chorus (Ag. 1297–
1298) – a reminiscence of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia seems to be at work. The sac-
rifice is preliminary (Ag. 1278: προσφάγματι, cf. parodos: 227: προτέλεια ναῶν);
the altar is the one of the father (Ag. 1277: βωμοῦ πατρώιου, cf. parodos: 210 –
211: ῥείθροις πατρώιους χέρας πέλας βω-/μοῦ, 231– 234: φράσεν … πατὴρ … ὕπ-
ερθε βωμοῦ … λαβεῖν); a stream of blood flows over the altar (Ag. 1278: θερμῶι …
προσφάγματι, cf. parodos: 209 – 210: παρθενοσφάγοισιν/ῥείθροις); Cassandra
heads for the sacrifice as a beast would (Ag. 1298: βοὸς δίκην, cf. parodos:
232: δίκαν χιμαίρας).⁹⁰ The assimilation of the death of Cassandra to that of Iphi-
geneia recalls to mind Agamemnon’s violence against his daughter, and Clytem-
nestra’s vendetta for her daughter. Thus, it questions the very suppression of Cly-
temnestra’s motherhood, which we have seen at work in Cassandra’s
representation of Clytemnestra as a hellish mother and an enemy of her children.
At the same time, it challenges the bond of philia between father and children.
A similar, significant proliferation of meaning in Cassandra’s language re-
turns in the image of Clytemnestra as a sacrificing mother of Hades (Ag. 1235:
θύουσαν Ἅιδου μητέρ’). Mazon posited this image to be a reference to Clytemnes-
tra’s position as a mother avenging the sacrifice of her daughter (cf. Fraenkel ad
loc.). By this interpretation, the veiled allusion to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia
seems to problematise Clytemnestra’s representation merely as a hellish mother
and the echthros of her children.
As in lines 1235 and 1277– 1278, a reminiscence of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia
seems to be implied in verses 1117– 1118 as well:
… στάσις δ’ ἀκόρετος γένει

κατολολυξάτω θύματος λευσίμου
I am not certain – as claimed by D-P (ad loc.) – that θύματος ‘on Cassandra’s lips
… is pure metaphor’. The image of a sacrifice that needs to be punished through
stoning (λευσίμου) foretells the possible wrath of people against Clytemnestra
 For the expression ‘βωμοῦ πατρώιου’ as recalling the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, cf. Zeitlin (1965:
471): ‘The father’s altar, however, is a still richer allusion, referring to another death at a father’s
altar (Iphigenia)’. Note that the chorus’ language, in Cassandra’s scene, hints at Iphigeneia’s
sacrifice also in passage 1121– 1122 where the expression ‘κροκοβαφὴς σταγών’ echoes the ex-
pression ‘κρόκου βαφάς’ in Ag. 239. On this parallelism, cf. Lebeck (1964: 40 – 41); Zeitlin (1965:
472 n. 21; 1966: 649 n. 12); Lynn-George (1993: 7 n. 23); Delneri (2001: 62); Mitchell-Boyask (2006:
283); Debnar (2010: 135).

52 Agamemnon
and Aegisthus (cf. Ag. 1615 – 1616: οὔ φημ’ ἀλύξειν ἐν δίκηι τὸ σὸν κάρα/δημορ-
ριφεῖς, σάφ’ ἴσθι, λευσίμους ἀράς), as well as the necessity of Orestes’ revenge. At
the same time, as Zeitlin has aptly observed (1965: 472 n. 21), the image of sac-
rifice seems to look back at the revenge of Clytemnestra, who punishes the sac-
rifice of her daughter.
An allusion to Iphigeneia’s sacrifice seems to be at work also in passage
1167– 1169. Here, Cassandra laments the total destruction of Troy and the sacri-
fices made by her father:
ἰὼ πόνοι πόνοι πόλεος ὀλομένας τὸ πᾶν·

ἰὼ πρόπυργοι θυσίαι πατρὸς
πολυκανεῖς βοτῶν ποιονόμων …
The expression ‘θυσίαι πατρός’ sounds like a reminder of the sacrifice of Iphige-
neia on behalf of her father. Seen this way, in lines 1117– 1118, 1167– 1169, 1235
and 1277– 1278, the semantic overuse of words related to the figure of the father
and to the sphere of sacrifice calls to mind the action of Clytemnestra in her role
as mother avenging the death of her daughter. Thus, it forces us to ask whether
Clytemnestra’s deed really represents just the action of a hellish mother and an
adulterous wife against her husband and the beloved father of his children.
Also the chorus’ expression ‘στερομέναν φίλων’ (Ag. 1429), in the last con-
frontation with Clytemnestra, can be read as textual evidence of how difficult
it is to suppress Clytemnestra’s maternal role and to stress the justice of Orestes’
revenge by using language. It is not easy at all – paraphrasing a verse of Cassan-
dra (Ag. 1272: φίλων ὑπ’ ἐχθρῶν οὐ διχορρόπως †μάτην†) – to distinguish friends
from enemies in this play. Does the chorus just say that Clytemnestra has lost her
philoi since she killed her husband, and bereaved, as a mother-echthros, her chil-
dren of their beloved father? It seems plausible to assume as well that these
words are looking forward to Clytemnestra’s expression of pain for Orestes’
death, and to her claim of having been bereft of her son and philos in
Cho. 694 – 695 (cf. ch. 2, III. 5):⁹¹
τόξοις πρόσωθεν εὐσκόποις χειρουμένη

φίλων ἀποψιλοῖς με τὴν παναθλίαν
 We can conclude with Goldhill (1984a: 173) that ‘the boundaries we attempted to draw are
transgressed by the constituting relations of difference (and deferral) between terms inscribed in
a series each occurrence (repetition) of which is set in the extending and shifting series of the
sentence(s), speech(es), scene(s) of which it is a constituent part’.

This ambiguity in the chorus’ rhetoric of appropriation of the word φίλος be-
comes even more evident if we consider that the chorus, foreseeing Orestes’ re-
venge upon his mother, cannot deny the blood connection between Clytemnestra
and Orestes:
Ag. 1509 – 1511: βιάζεται δ’ ὁμοσπόροις

ἐπιρροαῖσιν αἱμάτων
μέλας Ἄρης …
It is exactly through this difficulty to represent blood ties (the word αἷμα links the
father and the mother figure; the word ὁμόσπορος refers only to the former) that
the play opens up a space for questioning the chorus’ and Cassandra’s attempts
to repudiate Clytemnestra’s motherhood, and to portray Agamemnon as the only
genetic parent and the subject of power in the family (genitor, husband) and in
society (head of the family, king, warrior).
By reading a text that constantly re-writes its own terms, what entitles me as
a reader to interpret the speeches of Clytemnestra about motherhood and mater-
nal revenge without also re-reading them in the light of Cassandra’s and the cho-
rus’ discourse, and vice versa? Some remarks on the word κύων pertain to these
questions. The first time we find this word is in the prologue (Ag. 3: κυνὸς δίκην).
The watchman is talking about his year-long guard as he slept on the roof of the
house like a watchdog:
Ag. 2– 3: φρουρᾶς ἐτείας μῆκος, ἣν κοιμώμενος

στέγαις Ἀτρειδῶν ἄγκαθεν, κυνὸς δίκην
Later on, he mourns the fate of the house, which is no longer stable as in the
past:
Ag. 18 – 19: κλαίω τότ’ οἴκου τοῦδε συμφορὰν στένων

οὐχ ὡς τὰ πρόσθ’ ἄριστα διαπονουμένου
Now, what does the watchman actually mean as he says that he was waiting on
the roof like a watchdog? Different answers can be suggested. The more obvious
one refers to the Homeric tradition and the figure of Argos (Od. 17, 300 – 327). In
this case, the image of the watchman awaiting his master like a dog becomes a
symbol of unyielding fidelity. Yet, in Greek, the expression ‘κυνὸς δίκην’ has an
additional meaning: as Loraux has noticed (1990a: 259 – 263), the adverbial
usage of δίκην implies the idea of order, justice, rule. Bearing in mind the mean-
ing of ‘justice of the dog’, it seems plausible to read the watchman’s self-repre-
sentation as a watchdog in terms of an allusion to the revenge of Clytemnestra,

54 Agamemnon
the mother-watchdog against Agamemnon, her enemy (Ag. 607– 608: δωμάτων
κύνα/ἐσθλὴν ἐκείνωι, πολεμίαν τοῖς δύσφροσιν). In this case, the Atreid house
is not in order, since Agamemnon kills Iphigeneia. Similarly, the words of the
watchman may echo Clytemnestra’s portrayal of Agamemnon as watchdog of
the Atreid house (Ag. 896: ἄνδρα τόνδε τῶν σταθμῶν κύνα). Yet, in echoing
line 896, the watchman’s words ‘κυνὸς δίκην’ may as well allude to the son’s re-
venge for the death of his watchdog father – with the expression ‘κυνὸς δίκην’ as
‘the justice due to the father’.⁹²
There is more. We can observe that the expression ‘κυνὸς δίκην’ echoes as
well Cassandra’s words ‘μισητῆς κυνός’ in Ag. 1228. In this case, the justice of
the dog is to be understood as the intolerable revenge of Clytemnestra, the
evil mother and adulterous wife, against Agamemnon. Nonetheless, the expres-
sion ‘κυνὸς δίκην’ can also be a reminder of the image of the ‘winged dogs of
Zeus’ in the parodos (Ag. 135: πτανοῖσιν κυσὶ πατρὸς). With this image, Calchas
refers to the two eagles (Ag. 114) which, in the portent sent to the Atreids, will
devour a pregnant hare (Ag. 119). As has been argued, the eagles, which become
dogs, stand for Agamemnon and Menelaos, and the hare for Iphigeneia and/or
Troy.⁹³ Again, in this case, the Atreid house is not in order, since Agamemnon
has sacrificed his own daughter for the purpose of sailing to Troy.
Now, how can we read the watchman’s phrase ‘κυνὸς δίκην’, and make
sense of the narrated events? In other words, which position within the text
can I take as a reader? As we cannot set an unambiguous meaning for the ex-
pression ‘κυνὸς δίκην’, we can hardly say whether it refers to the legitimacy of
Clytemnestra’s vengeance of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, to the killing of Agamemnon
as the intolerable action of a wife against the children’s father and the victorious
king in Troy, or to the legitimacy of Orestes’ vengeance. Accordingly, we can
hardly opt for a reading of the play that justifies inter-familial violence as a cen-
tral step towards the authorisation of the Father as the origin of life and power
(matricide as according to the chorus and Cassandra), or as a step towards the
defence of both maternal consanguinity and authority (murder of Agamemnon
as according to Clytemnestra). Looking back at the second stasimon and at
the parable of the lion cub, then, we might question what the justice of the
son (Ag. 724: τέκνου δίκαν) is like: destabilising its discourse on blood ties
 For a reading of ‘κυνὸς δίκην’ as ‘the justice of the dog’, cf. also Wilson (2006: 190 – 194).
Metzger (2005: 39 – 41), in discussing ‘κυνὸς δίκην’, only interprets the δίκην-phrase as ex-
pressing qualities, i. e. ‘like a dog’. On the adverbial use of δίκην, cf. also Lavery (2004: 6 – 9).
 On the image of the eagles, cf. Zeitlin (1965: 481– 483). For a review of the scholarly inter-
pretations of the portent of the eagles, cf. Lawrence (1976); Conacher (1987: 76 – 83); Käppel
(1998: 105 – 100). On Artemis’ wrath, cf. pp. 21– 22.

and power relations, the play puts into crisis the very notion of the justice of the
mother and the father. This impasse in defining a fulfilment of justice in relation
to the search for an authoritative discourse on blood and power relations is also
at the basis of the tragic discourse of Choephoroi and Eumenides, as I argue in ch.
two and three.
3 Conclusions
In sections one and two, we have seen that:

1. according to Cassandra, Clytemnestra is an adulterous wife and the treach-
erous killer of her husband, and, therefore, a bad mother, and an enemy to
her children. Matricide is a necessary act;
2. according to the chorus, Clytemnestra is an adulterous wife, a squanderer of
Agamemnon’s wealth, the killer of her husband and vir fortis, and therefore
an enemy to her husband and children. Orestes’ revenge is a necessary act;
3. Cassandra always tells the truth, but is never believed. Yet, in the case of her
discourse on Clytemnestra as mother and wife, she may not tell the whole
truth, and for this reason she might not be believed by the reader of the
play. Her characterisation of Clytemnestra as an adulterous wife and a bad
mother or a mother non-mother faces us with the attempt to separate her
role as mother from her role as wife, in order to justify matricide. However,
this attempt is fraught with the risk of failing. Indeed, Cassandra’s language
does not have the power to represent matricide as an act of dike;
4. the play’s discourse on inter-familial violence functions as an open question.
In the case of Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explanation for the murder of Aga-
memnon as a defence of maternal consanguinity and maternal rights against
paternal violence, the play’s discourse does not turn the murder of Agamem-
non into a legitimate act of violence; in the case of Cassandra’s and the cho-
rus’ explanation of Clytemnestra’s murderous deed as the act of a bad wife
against her husband, the play’s discourse does not represent Orestes’ matri-
cide as a legitimate act of violence. The play is so open to different interpre-
tations, that the very definition of a critical level for its language and narra-
tive is called into question by the reader.
III Clytemnestra and the war against Troy
In the first part of this chapter, I focus on the character of Clytemnestra as queen
(Ag. 84: βασίλεια Κλυταιμήστρα, 914: Λήδας γένεθλον). Following her rhetoric of

56 Agamemnon
explanation, the killing of Agamemnon is a revenge for the excesses of the Trojan
War. If we maintain that, according to Clytemnestra’s discourse, the death of
Agamemnon avenges not only a wrong action against the members of the Atreid
family (Iphigeneia’s sacrifice), but also an action against the members of the
community of Argos and Troy (violence of the Trojan War), we have to agree
that the murder of Agamemnon represents also a political act.⁹⁴ So I assume
that what is political in the Oresteia, as Macleod (1982: 132; cf. LSN: 253) has writ-
ten, is fundamentally ‘a concern with human beings as part of a community’.⁹⁵
Accordingly, I see the Trojan War as a political issue and the revenge for it (which
amounts to Agamemnon’s death) as a political action, specifically the murder of
a king.
In sections one and two, I explore Clytemnestra’s and the chorus’ represen-
tation of the Trojan War; in section three, I argue that Clytemnestra’s criticism of
the Greek expedition against Troy has a certain legitimacy for the chorus; in sec-
tion four, I look at Agamemnon’s discourse on his past in Troy; in section five, I
discuss Clytemnestra’s misuse of power; in section six I summarize my conclu-
sions.
 For similar positions, cf. Kitto (1956: 9): ‘What Clytemnestra will do is no mere domestic
murder’; Harris (1973: 146 – 147): ‘Aeschylus makes use of the interweaving of familial statues
with political ones’; MacEwen (1990: 30): ‘she not only defends her family, she believes she is
saving the state by killing Agamemnon’. On the overlapping of public and domestic issues in the
Oresteia more generally, cf. Freyman (1976: 66); Foley (1981: 148 – 163); Fartzoff (1984); Patterson
(1998: 147). On the collision of public and domestic issues in the case of Agamemnon and the
Trojan War, cf. the chorus in the parodos at line 157: μόρσιμ’ ἀπ’ ὀρνίθων ὁδίων οἴκοις βασιλείοις.
Further, on the Trojan War as a business of the communities of Argos and Troy, cf. Winnington-
Ingram (1983: 79): ‘The war has a wide perspective: it affects communities’.
 The question of politics in Greek tragedy is obviously wide and has been approached in
different ways. Fundamentally, we can distinguish four main trends in criticism: the historicist
approach, which reads the extant plays as historical texts providing insight into the political
events and issues of the democratic Athens (e. g. Podlecki 1966); the so called democratic
reading of Goldhill (1987) according to which the content of tragic dramas and the public context
of their performances both mirror the democratic ideology of the classical polis (cf. also e. g. the
influential papers by Connor, Raaflaub and Strauss 1990; Longo and Ober and Strauss in Zeitlin
and Winkler 1990; Cartledge and Goldhill in Easterling 1997; Goldhill 2000a); Griffith’s reading
(1995), according to which tragedy reinforces the identity of the political elite of the democratic
Athens; the ‘new ritualism’ of Seaford (1994), according to which the self-destruction of a
tyrant’s household and the consequent foundation of a polis-cult narrated in the dramas reflect
the tragic concern with affirming the benefit and the survival of the city’s community. For a
review of these influential interpretations, cf. Carter (2007: 21– 64). For criticism of Goldhill’s
position, cf. Friedrich (1996); Griffin (1998), and on this criticism Gilbert 2009 (443), with further
bibliography. But see Goldhill 2000. For further bibliography on Greek tragedy and politics, cf.
Debnar (2005: 21– 22) and Croally (2005: 70).

1 The chorus on the war against Troy
To the chorus, the Trojan War represents the just punishment for the crime of
Paris: it was Zeus who sent Agamemnon and Menelaos to Troy in order to
take revenge for Helen’s abduction (Ag. 40 – 62, 355 – 366, 699 – 716, 735 – 749).⁹⁶
Nonetheless, the chorus strongly undermines the significance of their expedi-
tion, and, as has often been observed, it seems to represent the murder of Aga-
memnon as a compensation for the excesses of the Trojan War.⁹⁷ In this regard,
passages 461– 471 in the first stasimon, and the chorus’ passage 1331– 1342 are
particularly telling.
In the first place, the chorus criticises Agamemnon’s military conduct be-
cause of the large amount of lives that have been lost:⁹⁸
Ag. 461– 462: τῶν πολυκτόνων γὰρ οὐκ

ἄσκοποι θεοί …
In connection to the condemnation for the death of so many people, the chorus
repeatedly mentions the danger of the wealth that Agamemnon and his army
have gathered by the use of violence.⁹⁹ In the lines that immediately follow
 On lines 735 – 737, cf. Grethlein (2013: 83 – 84); on line 749 and Helen’s representation as a
Fury, cf. Blondell (2013: 135).
 Cf. e. g. Earp (1948: 163; 1950: 50); Lesky (1966a: 98 – 99); Lebeck (1971: 37– 46); Leahy (1974:
20); Freyman (1976: 67); Romilly (1977: 35); Neitzel (1978: 421); Higgins (1978: 26); West (1979: 4);
Gantz (1983: 69 – 71); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 79 – 80); Euben (1990: 72); Rosenbloom (1995:
114); Griffith (1995: 83); Sommerstein (1996: 173); Käppel (1998: 137– 140); Yarkho (1997: 192– 193);
Helm (2004: 44); Himmelhoch (2005: 276); Raeburn and Thomas (2011: xxix; xxxvi); Lawrence
(2013: 81). I differ from Reeves (1960: 165 – 166) who observes that ‘There is, however, not the
slightest indication, in my opinion, that the chorus disapproves of the war or that Aeschylus
condemns it or intends us to do so’ and from Meier (1988: 143) who claims that ‘Agamemnon
büßt für Iphigenie, zugleich für den Kindermord des Atreus; aber wohl auch für das Unrecht an
Troja, obwohl davon keine Rede ist’.
 For a reading of lines 461– 462 in connection to Agamemnon’s hybristic conduct in Troy, cf.
e. g. Langwitz-Smith (1973: 9); Scott (1978: 263 – 264); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 98). According to
these scholars, the chorus’ wish that Troy might not have been taken by the Greeks (Ag. 475 –
487) implies that with the adjective πολυκτόνος the old men of Argos might refer to Aga-
memnon. Cf. also Knox (1952: 21). According to Knox, as the image of the πολυκτόνος lion links
to Agamemnon (Ag. 734), so here πολυκτόνος might refer to him. On the excessive killing during
the Trojan War, cf. also Bollack (1981: 449); Rehm (1992: 81).
 The chorus problematises the significance of the punitive action of the Atreids against Paris
in relation to their accumulation of an excessive wealth also in Ag. 381– 384 and 773 – 781. On
passage 381– 384 as referring to Agamemnon, see n. 102 below; on passage 773 – 781, cf. e. g.
Kitto (1956: 11– 12); Podlecki (1966: 67); Lloyd-Jones (1970: 11); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 99);

58 Agamemnon
this passage, the chorus refers to Zeus’ wrath in relation to the goods which have
been gained wrongly:
Ag. 469 – 471: … βάλλεται γὰρ †ὄσ-

σοις† Διόθεν κεραυνός.
κρίνω δ’ ἄφθονον ὄλβον
Similarly, in Ag. 1331– 1334, the chorus seems to imply that excessive wealth
causes violation of dike:
τὸ μὲν εὖ πράσσειν ἀκόρεστον ἔφυ

πᾶσι βροτοῖσιν· δακτυλοδείκτων δ’
οὔτις ἀπειπὼν εἴργει μελάθρων,
μηκέτ’ ἐσέλθηις τάδε φωνῶν
Further, in lines 1338 – 1342, the chorus claims that the bloodshed in Troy will not
remain unpunished:
νῦν δ’ εἰ προτέρων αἷμ’ ἀποτείσηι

καὶ τοῖσι θανοῦσι θανὼν ἄλλων
ποινὰς θανάτων ἐπικράνηι,
τίς κἂν ἐξεύξαιτο βροτῶν ἀσινεῖ
δαίμονι φῦναι τάδ’ ἀκούων;
According to Broadhead (1959: 311), the bloodshed mentioned here refers to the
cena thyestea. However, this remark seems misleading. The flow of the lines
above seems rather to suggest a reference to Agamemnon and the Greek expedi-
tion against Troy. As Gantz has similarly observed (1982: 13 – 14), in lines 1335 –
1336, the chorus explicitly mentions Agamemnon as the conqueror of Troy (καὶ
τῶιδε πόλιν μὲν ἑλεῖν ἔδοσαν/ μάκαρες Πριάμου).
In the words of the chorus, the capture of Troy represents an experience of
death and destruction not just for the conquered city but for Argos as well. The
Argive families of the departed warriors endure suffering (Ag. 429 – 431); warriors
come back cremated to their households (Ag. 433 – 436); the foreign land covers
the bodies of its conquerors (Ag. 452– 455).¹⁰⁰ As a result, the people of Argos,
Gantz (1983: 80 – 81); Seidensticker (2009: 231– 232); Raeburn and Thomas (2011: xxxix). On the
mechanism koros-olbos-hybris justice, cf. Sol. Fr. 6, 3 – 4 W; Pind. Ol. I 56–57; XIII 10, P. II 25 – 29;
Thgn. 153 – 158; cf. Doyle (1970); Helm (2004: 25 – 29).
 For the chorus’ representation of the Trojan War as a business of the Argive families, cf.
Fraenkel (1964: 337); LSN: 46. On passage 433 – 436, cf. Ouellette (1971: 307– 311); Rutherford
(2010: 448 – 450).

who have lost their relatives in war, smoulder with hatred for the Atreids
(Ag. 449 – 451, 456 – 457). The chorus insists on the pain of the people of Argos.
In lines 427– 431, the old Argives compare the pain of the people who have
lost their relatives with the pain of Menelaus for the abduction of Helen, and
come to the conclusion that the former sorrow is far greater than the second.
In this context, the chorus problematises the judicial status of the Atreids as
the righteous avengers of Paris. In lines 448 – 449, the old men of Argos speak of
Helen as casus belli (ἀλλοτρίας διαὶ γυναι/κός), projecting upon her the image of
the female as an object of exchange between men. Yet, at the same time, they
also question the position of men as arbiters of female sexual behaviour: the Tro-
jan War, with all its violence, takes place just for a woman (διαὶ γυναικός), i. e.
just for the sake of winning Helen back to Greece.¹⁰¹
The futility of the Trojan expedition as a war fought for a woman emerges in
the lines that immediately follow passage 448 – 449. In line 451 the chorus de-
scribes the Atreids with the adjective πρόδικος. As Fraenkel and D-P observe
(ad loc.), the adjective πρόδικος calls to mind the adjective ἀντίδικος in Ag. 41.
Yet, the chorus is appropriating words related to the sphere of dike in different
ways. The adjective ἀντίδικος indicates Agamemnon and Menelaus going to
Troy ‘to reclaim the stolen property and to exact the penalty awarded by the
court’ (D-P ad loc.). The adjective πρόδικος, instead, points out that ‘Agamemnon
et Ménélas se retrouvent en position de coupables’ (Bollack ad loc.): in sending
their people to a war which will turn into a massacre perpetrated for a futile rea-
son, they surely do not defend the rights of people, and surely they do not do any
justice to their own duties as kings. This criticism of the Atreids as avengers of
Paris’ crime returns in passage 461– 464, where the chorus, as we have seen, ac-
cuses Agamemnon of being responsible for the deaths of many and refers to the
Greek leader as a fortunate man acting without justice (Ag. 464: τυχηρὸν ὄντ’
ἄνευ δίκας).¹⁰²
 Cf. the thoughtful remarks of Blondell (2013: 133 – 134): ‘It is this desire for Helen’s presence
that drives the Trojan War … The Greek kings’ quest is thus motivated not only by justice but by
uncontrolled passion’. For the chorus’ representation of Helen as a woman and an object of
exchange between men, cf. Ag. 62, 225 – 226, 402. On line 62, cf. Lebeck (1971: 9). Notably, in
Homer Helen is already represented as an object of exchange between men (Od. 11, 435 – 439). On
Helen in the Odyssey, cf. Blondell (2013: 73 – 95).
 I disagree with Fontenrose (1971: 75 – 78) who refers line 464, as well as line 468, to Paris,
arguing that both passage 461– 464 and passage 381– 386 refer to Paris. However, cf. the dis-
cussions of Knox (1952: 18); Zeitlin (1965: 503); Romilly (1967: 97); Lebeck (1971: 37– 46); Scott
(1978: 266); Kraus (1978: 65 – 66); Euben (1982: 25); Buxton (1982: 105 – 106); Winnington-Ingram
(1983: 98 – 99); Fisher (1992: 274); Rosenbloom (1995: 108); Grethlein (2013: 85 – 87).

60 Agamemnon
Further remarks on the dike of the Atreids seem possible. The expression
‘φιλόμαχοι βραβῆς’ in Ag. 230 points to the question of the legitimacy of the pu-
nitive expedition against Troy. As Roux (1974: 39) has illustrated, ‘φιλόμαχοι
βραβῆς’ properly means ‘war–loving justiciers’ (i. e. ‘executioner’) and in this
sense it sheds a problematic light on the Atreids’ retributive justice. Similarly,
the comparison of the Atreids to a furious bird outlines the dangerous violence
of their punitive justice:
Ag. 111– 112: πέμπει ξὺν δορὶ καὶ χερὶ πράκτορι

θούριος ὄρνις Τευκρίδ’ ἐπ’ αἶαν
On a closer reading, Menelaus’ and Agamemnon’s justice turns out to be the vi-
olent deed of a bird whose disgusting act of devouring a pregnant hare is narrat-
ed at some length by Calchas in the parodos. Now, as violent executioners of
Paris, the Atreids embody the avenging Erinys which has been sent to Troy
(Ag. 59: πέμπει παραβᾶσιν Ἐρινύν).
In the next section, I dwell further on the play’s discourse on the Trojan War,
exploring Clytemnestra’s representation of the Greek punitive expedition against
Troy.
2 Clytemnestra on the war against Troy
We can detect a parallelism between the chorus’ discourse on the significance of

the Trojan War and Clytemnestra’s representation of the Greek victory in Troy.
Like the chorus, Clytemnestra too defines the capture of Troy fundamentally
as an experience of death and suffering. Clytemnestra’s first speech to the city
of Argos (Ag. 320 – 350) and passages 861– 876, 887– 894, in her second speech
to the men of Argos, are particularly telling. In lines 320 – 350, she focuses on
the pain of the Trojan women and orphans (Ag. 326 – 329), on the suffering of
Greek warriors (now the victors) (Ag. 330 – 333), and on the countless dead
under the walls of Troy (Ag. 346: τὸ πῆμα τῶν ὀλωλότων). In her second speech
to Argos, she talks of the Trojan War as of a situation of emotional struggle for
women. Lines 861– 862 are particularly interesting:
τὸ μὲν γυναῖκα πρῶτον ἄρσενος δίχα

ἧσθαι δόμοις ἐρῆμον ἔκπαγλον κακόν
Clytemnestra’s self-representation as a woman who has to endure being aban-

doned by her husband insists upon the difficulties that the female sex has to
deal with, because of its dependence on the male. Now, when Clytemnestra

speaks about her position in war as a woman (γυναῖκα), the word γυνή does not
only name, as in the chorus’ case, the female as an object of exchange between
men (Ag. 448 – 449: ἀλλοτρίας διαὶ γυναι/κός). It also names the female as the
subject of suffering. This difference in the rhetoric of appropriation of the
word γυνή in the context of a discourse on war makes us aware of the complex
way in which Agamemnon engages with reflections on war and womanhood, and
should prevent us from considering the pain of Clytemnestra as mere hypoc-
risy.¹⁰³
Other observations are possible. Like the chorus, Clytemnestra does not
spare her criticism of a wealth that has been won regardless of the divine
laws. In this respect, the first speech she delivers to Argos is again very striking.
Here, she warns the Greek army that it would never come back home, in case it
destroys and sacks the temples of Troy:
Ag. 338 – 344: εἰ δ’ εὐσεβοῦσι τοὺς πολισσούχους θεούς

τοὺς τῆς ἁλούσης γῆς θ’ ἱδρύματα,
οὔ τἂν ἑλόντες αὖθις ἀνθαλοῖεν ἄν·
ἔρως δὲ μή τις πρότερον ἐμπίπτηι στρατῶι
πορθεῖν ἃ μὴ χρή κέρδεσιν νικωμένους·
δεῖ γὰρ πρὸς οἴκους νοστίμου σωτηρίας,
κάμψαι διαύλου θάτερον κῶλον πάλιν
Here, according to Kitto and Porter, Clytemnestra portrays the death of Agamem-
non as a consequence of the wrongs committed at Troy.¹⁰⁴ Critics, however, have
 On passages 861– 876 (and 887– 894) as deceptive speeches, cf. e. g. Konishi (1990: 93 – 94);
Käppel (1998: 150 n. 252); Foley (2001: 209). On Clytemnestra and her rhetoric of appropriation of
the word γυνή as a female subject of suffering and the object of her man, cf. Cho. 920: ἄλγος
γυναιξὶν ἀνδρὸς εἴργεσθαι, τέκνον. On war and female pain, cf. notably the simile in Od. 8, 521–
531.
 Cf. Kitto (1956: 5) : ‘Here we have the explanation of what is always implied later in the
play, that Clytemnestra avenges on Agamemnon not only the outrage that he has done on her,
but also the wrong that he has done to Greece and to Troy, in slaughtering so many of their sons’;
Porter (1971: 468): ‘not only is she bringing private justice to Agamemnon for the sacrifice of
Iphigenia, but also she is working with the gods to bring public justice to him for his other acts
of arrogance and impiety – for destroying countless Greeks and Trojans for the sake of a pro-
miscuous woman, for sacking the altars and temples of the gods in Troy’. Similarly Rehm (1992:
81): ‘With these two extraordinary speeches, Clytemnestra forces us to see that the fate of Troy
and that of Argos are bound inextricably together’. Therefore, I differ from Fontenrose (1971: 79):
‘And finally we must observe that Agamemnon’s martial deeds, however appraised, are neither
Clytemnestra’s nor Aegisthus’ reason for killing him’ and Benardete (2000: 69): ‘She punished
Agamemnon for the sacrifice of her daughter, but she never connected that crime with the

62 Agamemnon
not taken these lines seriously, and they disregarded them as ‘naive Dramatur-
gie’ (Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1914: 168), as ‘a mouthpiece for Aeschylean iam-
bics’ (Dawe 1963: 50), as ‘the vivid portrayal of inverted power relations’, inap-
propriate for a woman (McClure 1997: 116), or as a masterpiece of female
hypocrisy (D-P on line 338; Griffith 2001: 124). In particular, according to D-P
and Griffith, Clytemnestra’s hope that the Greek army will not indulge in hybris
conceals her wish that the Greeks will actually commit outrages against the gods
at Troy.¹⁰⁵ In what follows, I defend Kitto’s and Porter’s reading of this passage,
trying to explain, in more detail, why it seems plausible to assume that Clytem-
nestra is drawing up a balance-sheet of the war, and why her analysis of the
war’s excesses cannot be simply disregarded as a fulsome and transgressive
speech.¹⁰⁶
First of all, the idea of Clytemnestra’s hypocrisy seems to rely on the schol-
ars’ resistance to acknowledging that female characters may possess any ability
for political analysis. For example, in the case of Heracles in Philoctetes
(Ph. 1440 – 1441), his warning to the Greek army has never raised a discussion
about sincerity or hypocrisy. Against this view, it can be said that Heracles is
well disposed to the Greeks, whereas Clytemnestra is clearly in contrast with
Agamemnon. Yet, her hostility to him does not necessarily imply her enmity to-
wards the Greek army as well. We may argue that Clytemnestra’s language is not
deceptive at all; rather, as Ouellette (1994: 189) suggested, it seems constantly to
evoke what is absent.¹⁰⁷ Indeed, in these lines, she is speaking about something
that exists (the Greek army) and something that has actually happened (the sack
of Troy), but also, at the same time, about something that may happen but has
not yet: when she speaks in Argos about the sack of Troy, she cannot be aware
that her suspicions have already come true. Her evocation of what might have
happened underpins her ability to put into words, in an objective manner, an ac-
tually true event that has already happened in Troy as she speaks.
injustice of the Trojan war’. On Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon as punishment for the
wrong committed at Troy, cf. also Seidensticker (2009: 244).
 For a similar view, cf. Lloyd-Jones (1962: 193); Fontenrose (1971: 78); Euben (1982: 25; 1990:
71).
 Cf. Betenski (1978: 12): ‘Every reader recognizes that the linguistic splendor of the choral
odes in Agamemnon is open to many levels of interpretation … ; but this is also true of Cly-
temnestra’s speeches. And yet her speeches tend to be labeled “hypocritical” or even “fulsome”
and left at that, a clear intrusion of readers’ moral judgments where literary judgement should
be operating’.
 On the power of imagination of Clytemnestra’s speech about the Trojan War, cf. also Earp
(1950: 57); Fraenkel (1964: 336); Sevieri (1991: 27).

Even the chorus’ reply to Clytemnestra seems to question an interpretation

of her criticism of the war as mere hypocrisy. As has been observed, when the
chorus claims that Clytemnestra has spoken sensible words like a wise man, it
valorises her speech:¹⁰⁸
Ag. 351: γύναι, κατ’ ἄνδρα σώφρον’ εὐφρόνως λέγεις
Now, if Clytemnestra’s speech is concealing the wish that the Greek soldiers
would never come home, I do not understand why the chorus should praise
her words. The old men, like the warriors, are members of the community of
Argos; so how could they praise Clytemnestra’s words, knowing she is lying?
We can suppose that the chorus is charmed by her manner of speaking, and
that it has been persuaded by her deceptive language. Yet, although deception
might indeed be at work, dismissing Clytemnestra’s words as merely deceitful
appears misleading.¹⁰⁹ We actually have good reasons for taking the chorus’ val-
orisation of her words seriously: Clytemnestra’s and the chorus’ positions on the
issue of war do not differ very much; both of them condemn the violence of war.
As Higgins has aptly observed (1978: 26 – 27), ‘Klytaimnestra, always clever,
knows better than Agamemnon the perils of war’.
Criticizing the excesses of the Trojan War, Clytemnestra claims that dike will
punish Agamemnon for his conduct at Troy:
Ag. 910 – 911: εὐθὺς γενέσθω πορφυρόστρωτος πόρος,

ἐς δῶμ’ ἄελπτον ὡς ἂν ἡγῆται Δίκη
She speaks these lines at the beginning of the carpet scene. As has been pointed
out, the image of the red carpet might be read as a symbol of the bloodshed in
war.¹¹⁰ It seems possible, then, to assume that with the word Δίκη Clytemnestra
is referring to the impending death of Agamemnon as a compensation for the
countless deaths which occurred during the war against Troy.
 Cf. Katz (1994: 89): ‘Once again, the chorus valorizes Clytemnestra’s appropriation of the
male sphere’. On the chorus’ valorisation of Clytemnestra’s manner of speech in line 351, cf. also
Winnington-Ingram (1983: 103).
 Cf. Rademaker (2005: 111) who observes that the words σώφρον’ and εὐφρόνως (Ag. 351)
shall be read as a reference to her adultery with Aegisthus.
 On the carpet as a symbol of the death of Agamemnon and/or of the dead in Troy, cf.
Goheen (1955: 115 – 126); Alexanderson (1969: 17– 18); Lebeck (1971: 86); Lanahan (1974: 25); West
(1979: 4); Albini (1993: 178); Zierl (1994: 172); Macintosh (1994: 82); Rosenbloom (1995: 109); Zak
(1995: 62– 63); Scott Morrell (1997: 161– 162); McClure (1997b: 128); Foley (2001: 210); Gould (2001:
184); Helm (2004: 44); Seidensticker (2009: 255); Lawrence (2013: 84).

64 Agamemnon
Towards the end of the play, the last line of passage 1521– 1529, where Cly-
temnestra explains to the chorus that the murder of Agamemnon is a compensa-
tion for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, points in this direction too:
θανάτωι τείσας ἅπερ ἦρξεν
D-P (ad loc.) start from the assumption that Clytemnestra establishes the blood-
shed started off by Agamemnon as a central theme: ‘Agamemnon was the ag-
gressor; it is an essential part of Clytemnestra’s defence that he began the shed-
ding of blood’. Yet, D-P do not specify whose blood was shed. Taking for granted
that Agamemnon has led an army to Troy and sacrificed his daughter for the sake
of war, it seems plausible that the bloodshed mentioned here might refer to the
deaths of war and to the death of Iphigeneia. In this sense, Clytemnestra is stat-
ing the righteousness of her vendetta: Agamemnon, as leader of the Greek expe-
dition, is responsible for the loss of many human lives, and has to be punished
after coming back home.
Taking into consideration Clytemnestra’s discourse on the excesses of the
Greek expedition against Troy, it should not appear surprising how repeatedly
she puts into question the legitimacy of Agamemnon’s power as the victor in
Troy. In this regard, the speech delivered by Clytemnestra shortly before the ar-
rival of Agamemnon in Argos, immediately before the carpet scene, is particular-
ly interesting. Here, Clytemnestra is full of sweet praises for Agamemnon. She
describes him with phrases such as ‘ἄνακτος αὐτοῦ’ (Ag. 599), ‘ἀπὸ στρατείας
ἄνδρα σώσαντος θεοῦ’ (Ag. 603), ‘ἐράσμιον πόλει’ (Ag. 605). Yet, in these lines,
we can detect a rhetoric of appropriation of the words ἄναξ and ἀνήρ, which
questions Agamemnon’s male authority as warrior and king. Thus, Agamemnon
is not entirely Clytemnestra’s anax, since she is a queen; he is not really safe with
the help of the gods, since he will stay alive only for a short while; Agamemnon
is not beloved by his city, since the people harbor hatred against their king
(Ag. 449 – 451, 456 – 457).
Interestingly enough, as the dramatic action progresses, in contrast to Cly-
temnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words ἄναξ and ἀνήρ, and to her at-
tempt to tackle the authoritative position of Agamemnon as the subject of power,
we are faced with Agamemnon’s normative use of the word ἀνήρ and γυνή in the
carpet scene:
Ag. 918 – 919: … μὴ γυναικὸς ἐν τρόποις ἐμέ

ἅβρυνε …
Ag. 925: λέγω κατ’ ἄνδρα, μὴ θεόν, σέβειν ἐμέ
Ag. 940: οὔτοι γυναικός ἐστιν ἱμείρειν μάχης

Clytemnestra resists this appropriation of the words ἀνήρ and γυνή. When, a few
lines later, in the same scene (Ag. 972), she addresses Agamemnon with the ex-
pression ‘ἀνδρὸς τελείου’, she does not seem to use the word ἀνήρ in the mean-
ing of vir fortis and rex. In the first place, Agamemnon is portrayed as an object
(τελείου: perfect victim ready for sacrifice), and not as a subject of power.¹¹¹
Therefore, we can hardly maintain that Clytemnestra’s appropriation of the
word ἀνήρ allows a reading of this expression as a normalisation of asymmetric
gender distinctions. Moreover, it is hard to explain why Clytemnestra, who
strongly criticises the violence of the Trojan War, should seriously depict Aga-
memnon as a perfect warrior and a king ‘without spot or blemish’ (cf. LSJ).
Yet, as D-P (ad loc.) and McClure (1997b: 135 – 137) argued, from her perspective,
what is not true for Agamemnon is obviously true for Zeus: the god is τελείος
(Ag. 973: Ζεῦ Ζεῦ τέλειε, τὰς ἐμὰς εὐχὰς τέλει).
There is more to say about the carpet scene and Clytemnestra’s criticism of
Agamemnon’s position as the victorious king at Troy. In lines 904– 905, Clytem-
nestra expresses the desire that the phthonos would stay away, since many suf-
ferings have already been endured:
φθόνος δ’ ἀπέστω·πολλὰ γὰρ τὰ πρὶν κακά

ἠνειχόμεσθα …
Of course, the opposite is true: the phthonos should not stay away; it must strike
Agamemnon, granting success to the murder plot against him. It seems plausible
at this point to link the phthonos mentioned by Clytemnestra with the suffering
and the king’s conduct in Troy. Indeed, in the lines that immediately follow, Cly-
temnestra calls the Atreid the destroyer of Troy, and asks him not to put his feet
on the ground:
Ag. 906 – 907: … μὴ χαμαὶ τιθείς

τὸν σὸν πόδ’, ὦναξ, Ἰλίου πορθήτορα
As Lebeck (1971: 75) has observed, Clytemnestra’s use of the word πόδα, in rela-
tion to Agamemnon’s description as the destroyer of Troy (πορθήτορα), estab-
lishes a relation between the fall of Troy and the image, in the first stasimon,
of a foot that treads on grounds where it is not supposed to.Probably, then,
she is not praising Agamemnon’s military successes at all, but criticising his
heroic deeds instead.
 Cf. Neustadt (1929: 261); Zeitlin (1965: 480); LSN: 78; McClure (1997b: 134), with extended
bibliography at n. 42.

66 Agamemnon
Line 939 of the carpet scene makes space for similar remarks. Again, Clytem-
nestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of a word related to phthonos seems like an elo-
quent echo of her criticism of Agamemnon’s role as king and as leader of the
Greek expedition against Troy:
ὁ δ’ ἀφθόνητός γ’ οὐκ ἐπίζηλος πέλει
When she asserts that the one who is not envied (ἀφθόνητός) cannot be enviable
(ἐπίζηλος), she may be ironic. Nobody in Argos really envies Agamemnon’s po-
sition – that seems certain, at least at this point in the play. Indeed, the chorus
has already taken distance from the success of the Atreids, since it may arouse
the anger of the gods (Ag. 471: κρίνω δ’ ἄφθονον ὄλβον). Moreover, it has already
mentioned the painful wrath of the people against the Atreids (Ag. 450:
φθονερὸν δ’ ὑπ’ ἄλγος), who enforced their right to avenge the abduction of
Helen (Ag. 451: προδίκοις Ἀτρείδαις).
Finally, in the exodos, the brief dramatic exchange between Clytemnestra
and the chorus about Helen (Ag. 1453 – 1467) can be read as a criticism of Aga-
memnon’s past in Troy. The chorus accuses Helen, as a woman, of being the
cause of the deaths during the Trojan War (Ag. 1453 – 1457); Clytemnestra answers
that she is not supposed to be held responsible for the deaths at Troy (Ag. 1464–
1465: μηδ’ εἰς Ἑλένην κότον ἐκτρέψηις/ὡς ἀνδρολέτειρ’). As Conacher (1974: 328)
has pointed out, Clytemnestra, in her reply to the chorus, might be criticizing
Agamemnon’s military conduct and his power as victorious king: ‘She means,
of course, to turn the blame back on Agamemnon’.¹¹² Moreover, refusing to see
Helen as a woman and destroyer of men, Clytemnestra tacitly implies that the
violence of the war against Troy has a male origin.
Following these remarks on Clytemnestra’s devastating balance sheet of the
war, and on her criticism of Agamemnon’s authority as king of Argos and victor
at Troy, I would like to stress that it is not just the character of Agamemnon that
‘exists, acts and suffers, in the context of war’.¹¹³ Like him, Clytemnestra too is a
protagonist in the Aeschylean ‘problematica polemologica’.¹¹⁴ She is not just a
 Similarly, cf. Blondell (2013: 130 – 131).

 The quotation is from Winnington-Ingram (1983: 94) who assumes that only Agammenon is
a protagonist in the story of the Trojan War.
 For the expression ‘problematica polemologica’, cf. Furiani (1990: 9). However, according to
my interpretation of Clytemnestra’s characterisation as queen, I do not share Furiani’s idea that
‘le figure femminili umane che si inseriscono nella problematica polemologica eschilea hanno
parte ovviamente ridotta rispetto a quelle maschili’. On war and female characters in Aeschylus,

wife who has been abandoned during the long years of the war (Ag. 861– 876,
887– 894; Cho. 920), or a mother who has lost her daughter because of the war
against Troy. In other words, she is not just a female victim of male warfare. Ac-
cording to her representation of Agamemnon’s death as a compensation for the
violence of the Greek victory at Troy, she undoubtedly plays an active part in the
history of the Trojan War. How does all that affect the characterisation of Clytem-
nestra as queen, and our understanding of the play? I turn to this question in the
next section.
3 The voice of the other
Rule by men or rule by women

F. I. Zeitlin, ‘The Dynamics of Misogyny’
Female submissiveness is normative in the Oresteia

P. Burian and A. Shapiro, Aeschylus: the Oresteia
It has been observed that Clytemnestra’s criticism of the Trojan War and of Aga-
memnon’s military conduct is inappropriate in regard to her female status, and
represents an unequivocal violation of correct male speech.¹¹⁵ In support of this
critical position, it could be noted that in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, as already in
Il. 6, war is not a business for women. Yet, as I argue at some length in this sec-
tion, the Agamemnon does not completely exclude the authority of Clytemnes-
tra’s female voice from its own discourse on war. First of all, Clytemnestra is de-
picted as a queen (Ag. 84: βασίλεια Κλυταιμήστρα, 914: Λήδας γένεθλον). In
compliance with her public position as queen, she is allowed to wield power
in Argos in the absence of the male ruler. As the chorus explicitly states in its
cf. as well Marinis (2012) and his detailed analysis of the chorus’ emotional re-actions in the
Seven against Thebes.
 Cf. e. g. Pomeroy (1975: 98 – 99); Bonnafé (1989: 157); Sevieri (1991: 29 – 31); McClure (1997;
1999: 73 – 80); McHardy (1997); Halliwell (1997: 130 – 134); Foley (2001: 208 – 209); Reynolds
(2005: 121). On Greek tragedy and the transgressiveness of female characters, cf. Shaw (1975),
and for an extended criticism of Shaw, cf. Foley (1982). On Greek tragedy and the trans-
gressiveness of female politics, cf. also Loraux (2002: 19 – 53). Taking the Electra of Sophocles as
a case study, Loraux argues that the main function of tragedy is the expression of grief, and that
tragedy, therefore, is eminently antipolitical: as Electra’s female act of mourning shows, ‘the
place of mourning is on stage, not in the city-stage’ (p. 53). However, on the politics of mourning
in Greek tragedy, cf. Foley (2001: 21– 55, 145 – 171), with extended bibliography, and for most
recent contributions Goldhill (2012: 109 – 133). On the representation of emotions in Greek tra-
gedy as strongly related to the political dimension of the staged plays, cf. also Goldhill (2003).

68 Agamemnon
first speech to Clytemnestra, it is legitimate to honour the power of a woman, if

her man has left the throne unoccupied during the war:
Ag. 258 – 260: ἥκω σεβίζων σόν Κλυταιμήστρα κράτος·

δίκη γάρ ἐστι φωτὸς ἀρχηγοῦ τίειν
γυναῖκ’ ἐρημωθέντος ἄρσενος θρόνου
Moreover, a comparison with Penelope makes it difficult to point out the anom-
aly of Clytemnestra’s position as a ruling woman. In fact, the Aeschylean Clytem-
nestra does not differ so much from the Homeric Penelope. In Homer as well,
news have to be reported to queen Penelope, as long as her husband king is
abroad (Od. 16, 332– 337). The anomaly of Clytemnestra in her role as queen
has, then, to be found elsewhere, namely, I would suggest, in her representation
as a woman who feels and thinks like a man (Ag. 11: γυναικὸς ἀνδρόβουλον ἐλπί-
ζον κέαρ). So we can speak, with reference to Clytemnestra, of women’s ‘ambig-
uous status between culture and nature’ (Ortner 1972: 28), i. e. of a liminal situa-
tion where a female is not excluded from the world of politics, but has actually
access to it through a process of acquisition of the dominant male habit and the
male political praxis. Seen this way, it is not by chance that Clytemnestra claims
for herself cognitive skills and public power (Ag. 277, 312, 594, 614, 912– 913, 943,
1401, 1423 – 1424; cf. as well 258, 351, 483 – 485), that she uses war vocabulary
(Ag. 350, 612, 1377– 1378; cf. as well 1235 – 1237), and ascribes to herself the qual-
ities of a warrior (Ag. 607– 608, 613 – 614).
Second, the striking similarities we have seen between Clytemnestra’s and
the chorus’ criticism of the Trojan War shall prevent us from dismissing her
voice as simply transgressive. In fact, listening to her female voice invites us
to read Agamemnon as ‘the drama of the other’, that is to say as a play in
which the ‘questioning of the authority of collective wisdom’ is carried out by out-
side characters: just as the chorus of old men is unfit to wage a war (Ag. 72– 82),
so Clytemnestra, as a female, is excluded from fighting and from the world of
war.¹¹⁶ Line 348 in Clytemnestra’s first speech to the city of Argos supports
this interpretation:
τοιαῦτά τοι γυναικὸς ἐξ ἐμοῦ κλύεις
Here, Clytemnestra’s need of justification for her female position might signal
her awareness that the powerful voice of men is precisely what cannot question
 So Goldhill (1996) on the chorus in Greek tragedy and its dramatic function; the quotations
are from pp. 253 and 255 (italics mine).

dominant male values.¹¹⁷ Following this reading, I differ from McClure (1999: 75)
who assumes that ‘Clytemnestra undercuts her mastery of masculine speech by
calling attention to her feminine gender … she portrays herself as typically fem-
inine as a means of arousing the sympathy of her listeners’. What matters here is
not the characters’ or the audience’s or the reader’s sympathy with Clytemnestra.
What really matters is the authority and power of speech: who is saying what?
Thus, I maintain that it is important to take Clytemnestra’s public manner of
speech on the war seriously, in order to explore the complex way in which the
trilogy engages with the question of gender relations and male and female atti-
tudes towards violence.
In the light of these remarks, it seems reasonable to discuss Clytemnestra’s
public manner of speech according to a bipartite conceptualization of women as
the Same and the Other: Clytemnestra is speaking from the position of the Same
and the Other, since, as a female, she is legitimately taking part in the public de-
bate on the Trojan War.¹¹⁸ Here, we touch upon a crucial point for an analysis of
the political discourse of the trilogy with the passage from Agamemnon to Choe-
phoroi and Eumenides. As I will argue, in Choephoroi and Eumenides the charac-
ters’ attempt to undermine the verbal authority of Clytemnestra’s discourse on
the Trojan War functions as an important element for projecting the image of
a female usurper of male power on the queen’s figure, and, accordingly, for jus-
tifying matricide. In the light of this dramaturgical shift, we might ask whether or
not Zeitlin’s proposal (1978: 151– 153) to read the Oresteia strictly as a matriarchal
myth (or as a myth where women rule through or after the killing of men) can be
applied without reservations to Clytemnestra. Zeitlin’s analysis is, of course, bril-
liant. It is certainly true that Clytemnestra only rules as a tyrant after the murder
of Agamemnon. Yet, it is also true that she speaks and acts as a queen before he
dies. This fact has an important consequence: Clytemnestra is not just a para-
digm of the ‘radical other’, i. e. the paradigmatic anti-model of the virtuous fe-
male gender behaviour. As a tyrant, she is clearly transgressive. However, we
can hardly say the same thing for her characterisation as queen and for her criti-
cism of the Trojan War. In other words, Clytemnestra as a female character does
not seem merely to transgress normative gender relations from the outset: she
 For similar positions, cf. Gagarin (1976: 93 – 94) and Foley (2001: 209). We shall note that,
like Clytemnestra, also Cassandra questions the legitimacy of the Trojan War. She confesses that
she feels ready to die, having seen how her city and its conquerors are destroyed with the help of
the gods (Ag. 1286 – 1288). On these lines, cf. Vogel-Ehrensperger (2012: 186).
 On this conceptualisation of women, notably in Latin literature, cf. Hallett (1989). On the
representation of the other in Greek tragedy as the self, cf. Loraux (2002: 49 – 53).

70 Agamemnon
does not act only in the role of a tyrant; she also acts in the role of a queen ca-
pable of a (at least in part) legitimate criticism of male behaviour.
There is more on Clytemnestra’s public way of speech and the supposed
transgressiveness of her female voice. When she is finished with her speech
on the Trojan War, the chorus answers her back that she has talked plausibly,
as a man would do:
Ag. 351: γύναι, κατ’ ἄνδρα σώφρον’ εὐφρόνως λέγεις
The approval of Clytemnestra’s public speech by the chorus might simply be in-
duced by her female power of persuasion and manipulation. After all, at the end
of the first stasimon (Ag. 479 – 487), the chorus dismisses the legitimacy of fe-
male power and the reliability of female intelligence.¹¹⁹ According to the old
men of Argos, the female mind is childish (Ag. 479: τίς ὧδε παιδνὸς ἢ φρενῶν
κεκομμένος); women in power are too quickly pleased with supposed successes
(Ag. 483 – 484: γυναικὸς αἰχμᾶι πρέπει/πρὸ τοῦ φανέντος χάριν ξυναινέσαι); fe-
male ordinance is too persuasive (Ag. 485: πιθανὸς ἄγαν ὁ θῆλυς ὅρος).¹²⁰ Still,
the narrative of the chorus seems to be much more complex to me. As I intend
to show, speaking about the female mind and women’s power, the chorus does
not validate a discourse of exclusion (i. e., woman: irrational, unfit to rule; man:
origin of rationality and power). Rather, it performs the limits of this gesture of
separation, leading us to ask ourselves how to deal with the female mind and
female public power.
When the chorus in Ag. 479 ff. questions the reliability of the female mind
and issues its vehement denunciation of female inability to rule, Clytemnestra
has already announced the fall of Troy and delivered her speech on the dangers
for the Greek army that might arise from the excesses of the Trojan War. After
initial scepticism about the news of victory, and doubts about Clytemnestra’s in-
telligence (Ag. 268: πῶς φήις; πέφευγε τούπος ἐξ ἀπιστίας; 274: πότερα δ’ ὀνεί-
ρων φάσματ’ εὐπιθῆ σέβεις; 276: ἀλλ’ ἦ σ’ ἐπίανέν τις ἄπτερος φάτις), the chorus,
as we have seen, acknowledges the value of Clytemnestra’s speech on the war
and praises her words, saying that she has spoken wisely, like a man (Ag. 351:
γύναι, κατ’ ἄνδρα σώφρον’ εὐφρόνως λέγεις). In the first stasimon, which fol-
lows shortly after, the old Argives talk about the hybris of the war against
Troy, express their renewed doubts about the Greek triumph (Ag. 369 – 384,
461– 474) and, in passage 483 – 487, utter their invective against female power.
In this part of the play, the unsteadiness of the chorus in its evaluation of Cly-
 On this reading, cf. e. g. Pomeroy (1975: 98 – 99); McClure (1997: 117– 119).
 On line 485, cf. O’Sullivan (1989).

temnestra’s public speaking is quite striking, and certainly cannot be accidental.

We can assume that the chorus seems to fear that the Trojan War, as Clytemnes-
tra suggested, might indeed be saturated with hybris and that the conduct of
Agamemnon and his army could arouse the anger of the gods. The reason why
they treat her words as unreliable (Ag. 479 – 482) is the fear that she might be
right about the anger of the gods awaiting the Greeks. For the same reason
they deny her female capacity to rule (Ag. 483 – 487). A manipulation of words
seems to be at stake here, and not the notion that women lack intelligence
and are unfit to rule.
The plot development supports this line of interpretation. The next episode
begins with the entry of a new character, the messenger. Since he reports further
news about the fall of Troy and the wrongs committed against the conquered city
(Ag. 522 – 532, 577– 579), the elders of Argos admit that they no longer doubt the
victory of the Greeks:
Ag. 583: νικώμενος λόγοισιν οὐκ ἀναίνομαι
Clytemnestra responds immediately, reproaching the chorus. She points out that
she was the first to announce the destruction of Troy:
Ag. 587– 589: ἀνωλόλυξα μὲν πάλαι χαρᾶς ὕπο,

ὅτ’ ἦλθ’ ὁ πρῶτος νύχιος ἄγγελος πυρός,
φράζων ἅλωσιν Ἰλίου τ’ ἀνάστασιν
Moreover, she complains to the chorus for having been accused of female vulner-
ability to deception, claiming instead her strength of mind and her female ca-
pacity of commanding:
Ag. 590 – 596: καί τίς μ’ ἐνίπτων εἶπε· ‘φρυκτωρῶν διά

πεισθεῖσα Τροίαν νῦν πεπορθῆσθαι δοκεῖς;
ἦ κάρτα πρὸς γυναικὸς αἴρεσθαι κέαρ.’
λόγοις τοιούτοις πλαγκτὸς οὖσ’ ἐφαινόμην·
ὅμως δ’ ἔθυον, καὶ γυναικείωι νόμωι
ὀλολυγμὸν ἄλλος ἄλλοθεν κατὰ πτόλιν
ἔλασκον εὐφημοῦντες …
Clearly, Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word γυνή does not con-
struct the female as an unreasonable being. In this sense, it differs consistently
from the chorus’ appropriation of the same word in lines 483 – 484 as a being
unable of right thinking (γυναικὸς αἰχμᾶι πρέπει/πρὸ τοῦ φανέντος χάριν ξυναι-
νέσαι). However, the chorus, at least to some extent, shares the discourse on fe-
male intelligence and female command issued by Clytemnestra in this passage,

72 Agamemnon
and comments by saying to the herald that she has spoken plausibly, as the her-
ald himself can judge with help from skilful interpreters:
Ag. 615 – 616: αὕτη μὲν οὕτως εἶπε μανθάνοντί σοι,

τοροῖσιν ἑρμηνεῦσιν εὐπρεπῶς λόγον
With ‘εὐπρεπῶς λόγον’ the chorus might have in mind Clytemnestra’s long praise
of Agamemnon (Ag. 600 – 614), which, as we have seen, is quite ambiguous (cf.
pp. 24– 26, 64). Taking into account that this praise of Agamemnon is, on a dif-
ferent level, a strong criticism of his authority, and that the chorus understands
its ambiguity (it claims that Clytemnestra has spoken plausibly for any skilful in-
terpreter), we can say that the chorus agrees with Clytemnestra’s words at least in
part. What is important is that these lines put an end to the long period of dis-
belief of the chorus. Now, when it recognizes that the queen has spoken plausi-
bly (εἶπε … εὐπρεπῶς λόγον), it also seems to admit implicitly that the queen’s
public way of speech asserts itself by authoritative force.¹²¹
Against this background, I find it quite hard to conceive the chorus – as
McClure suggests (1997: 115) – in terms of ‘an internal, male audience which eval-
uates and attempts to circumscribe Clytemnestra’s speech and reveals her devi-
ation from speech norms’. We rather see, in the words of Griffith on Antigone
(2001: 136), that Agamemnon as well does not display any ‘comfortable confirma-
tion of preexisting distinctions of gender, of predictable mannerisms of speech,
 I differ from Goldhill (LSN: 33 – 42, esp. 39 ff.) who in the diction of Agamemnon marks a
clear dichotomy between showing (Clytemnestra’s female language based on visual signs: her
dreams, the fire signals from Troy) and saying (the male language of the chorus, based on
reliable words and rational proofs). We might note that the chorus admits to have heard from
Clytemnestra clear evidence for the Greek victory in Troy (Ag. 352– 353: ἐγὼ δ’ ἀκούσας πιστά
σου τεκμήρια/θεοὺς προσειπεῖν εὖ παρασκευάζομαι), thereby confirming what she had claimed,
namely that her speech is based on proof (Ag. 315: τέκμαρ τοιοῦτον σύμβολόν τέ σοι λέγω), and
thus proving her defence of the rational capacities of her female mind as true (Ag. 277: παιδὸς
νέας ὣς κάρτ’ ἐμωμήσω φρένας). On this issue, cf. for similar remarks Winnington-Ingram (1954:
24); on τεκμήριον as a word meaning a ‘proof of an argumentative kind’, cf. Hesk (2000: 285 with
n. 112). On Clytemnestra’s way of speech as based on reliable words, cf. also the chorus in
Ag. 1047: σοί τοι λέγουσα παύεται σαφῆ λόγον. As Goldhill, McClure (1999: 74). I also do not
share the position expressed by Foley (2001: 210). If I understand her well, there is a con-
tradiction between the belief in dreams confessed by Clytemnestra in Ag. 891– 894 and her
previous denial of her belief in visions (Ag. 274– 275). Yet, these assertions can hardly be
compared. In line 275 Clytemnestra denies her inclination to trust dreams, since she knows that
Troy has fallen. In line 891 ff., instead, when she speaks about her fear of dreams, she is
remembering a past circumstance, when she did not know yet what was really happening in
Troy. For a further analysis of passage 891 ff., cf. McClure (1999: 79), who closely follows Foley,
and Walde (2001: 110 – 111); for lines 274– 275, cf. Rousseau (1963: 108).

or of the natural divisions between male and female’. Accordingly, the chorus
does not normalize gender relations. Rather, it constantly shifts between a mo-
ment of acceptance and a moment of doubt and hesitation on the authority of
Clytemnestra’s public way of speech, thereby putting into question the authority
of male public speech and behaviour.
There is even more to say about lines 615 – 616 and the chorus’, Clytemnes-
tra’s and the herald’s exchange on the Trojan War and on the female mind in the
second episode. In this scene, the messenger asserts the possibility of defining
reality through language. Unable to understand the fear of the chorus, the herald
asks the old men of Argos to explain it with words that have control over what is
real:
Ag. 543: πῶς δή; διδαχθεὶς τοῦδε δεσπόσω λόγου
The chorus is not able to fulfill this demand. By now, the mind of the old men is
darkened by sorrow (Ag. 546 ὡς πόλλ’ ἀμαυρᾶς ἐκ φρενός <μ’> ἀναστένειν), and
only silence can protect them against harm (Ag. 548: πάλαι τὸ σιγᾶν φάρμακον
βλάβης ἔχω). Why this refusal of the chorus to express its feelings with language?
Goldhill (LSN: 51– 52) puts forward the hypothesis that ‘under the power of Cly-
temnestra (548 – 50 make it clear that it is repression from the authorities), φρε-
νός is both “darkened” and “blind”. This leads to silence, the denial of logos’.
This suggestion raises some difficulties. Undoubtedly, this passage implies that
the chorus is tyrannised and afraid:
Ag. 548 – 550: Xo. πάλαι τὸ σιγᾶν φάρμακον βλάβης ἔχω.

Kη. καὶ πῶς; ἀπόντων κοιράνων ἔτρεις τινάς;
Xo. ὡς νῦν, τὸ σὸν δή, καὶ θανεῖν πολλὴ χάρις
Still, we can argue that the chorus is also tormented by anguish, because it sus-
pects that the excesses of the Trojan War and of Agamemnon’s military conduct
will not go unpunished. From this point of view, it is not only the power of Cly-
temnestra that frightens the chorus and darkens its mind. A tergo there is also
the perturbing dread that Agamemnon’s punitive expedition against Troy will
arouse the anger of the gods. In this sense, it is not by chance that the messen-
ger, immediately before passage 548 – 550, asks the chorus where its fear for the
Greek army came from:¹²²
Ag. 547: πόθεν τὸ δύσφρον τοῦτ’ ἐπῆν στύγος στρατοῦ;
 On the philological difficulties of line 547, cf. Dodds (1953: 11– 12).

74 Agamemnon
Following this line of argumentation, when the messenger says that the war
against Troy is successful (Ag. 551: εὖ γὰρ πέπρακται) and, later on, that the cho-
rus has heard the whole story on Troy (Ag. 582: πάντ’ ἔχεις λόγον), a tragic irony
is at work. Neither is it true that everything at Troy has gone as it should (over
the Greek victory hangs a cloud of violence and massacre), nor, as a conse-
quence, that it will in Argos (in fact, Agamemnon is going to be killed by Clytem-
nestra in the bath of their palace). Irony seems to be at work in the chorus’ reply
too:
Ag. 583 – 584: νικώμενος λόγοισιν οὐκ ἀναίνομαι·

ἀεὶ γὰρ ἡβᾶι τοῖς γέρουσιν εὐμαθεῖν
If we consider that the herald misunderstands in a glaring way the chorus’ allu-
sions to the possible dangers awaiting Agamemnon and his army, it is not easy to
grasp what the chorus should actually learn from the messenger’s words. In
short, the chorus may give a sarcastic reply to the herald’s enthusiasm about
the Greek victory at Troy and to his demand for a discourse that would have
the power to define reality (δεσπόσω λόγου). The fact that the chorus does not
believe in the Greek success, and does not even credit, as the messenger does,
the chance to control reality through language, seems to be in sharp opposition,
on the other hand, to its valorisation, in lines 615 – 616, of Clytemnestra’s public
way of speech and of her criticism of Agamemnon’s position as the victorious
king at Troy.
In the next section, I discuss Agamemnon’s representation of his past in
Troy, explaining how it differs from the chorus’ and Clytemnestra’s representa-
tion of the war.
4 Agamemnon on the war against Troy
Agamemnon talks about the Trojan War in the welcome speech he delivers to the
city of Argos. I start my discussion with a brief examination of lines 832– 833:
παύροις γὰρ ἀνδρῶν ἐστι συγγενὲς τόδε,

φίλον τὸν εὐτυχοῦντ’ ἄνευ φθόνων σέβειν
In this passage, Agamemnon praises the chorus because it does not envy a friend
blessed by fortune. Agammemnon’s self-representation as a lucky man reflects

his dangerous rhetoric of appropriation of the word φθόνος.¹²³ Probably, he is

not ἄνευ φθόνων, and, therefore, hardly a lucky man. Indeed, as Kitto has no-
ticed (1956: 22), the expression ‘ἄνευ φθόνων’ might echo the chorus’ appropri-
ation of the adjective φθονερόν in Ag. 450 – 451, and suggests that people in
Argos foment painful wrath against him:¹²⁴
Ag. 450 – 451: … φθονερὸν δ’ ὑπ’ ἄλγος ἕρ-

πει προδίκοις Ἀτρείδαις
Similar remarks suit passage 946 – 952 of the carpet scene:
καὶ τοῖσδέ μ’ ἐμβαίνονθ’ ἁλουργέσιν θεῶν

μή τις πρόσωθεν ὄμματος βάλοι φθόνος·
πολλὴ γὰρ αἰδὼς δωματοφθορεῖν ποσίν
φθείροντα πλοῦτον ἀργυρωνήτους θ’ ὑφάς.
τούτων μὲν οὕτω·τὴν ξένην δὲ πρευμενῶς
τήνδ’ ἐσκόμιζε·τὸν κρατοῦντα μαλθακῶς
θεὸς πρόσωθεν εὐμενῶς προσδέρκεται
Here, Agamemnon hopes that nobody will turn their punishing eye (ὄμματος
φθόνος) against him while walking on the carpet: gods look favourably (θεὸς
πρόσωθεν εὐμενῶς προσδέρκεται) upon those who make a gentle use of the
power that comes with victory (τὸν κρατοῦντα μαλθακῶς).¹²⁵ Ostensibly, then,
Agamemnon considers the danger of divine wrath to be related to the waste of
the house goods, but not to the excesses of the war. Moreover, when he uses
the word ἁλουργέσιν in reference to the carpet, the wealth of the house rests
on the will of the gods.¹²⁶ In contrast, when Clytemnestra, in this scene, uses
the words εἱμάτων βαφάς/dyed (Ag. 960) to name the red carpet, the wealth of
the Atreid house becomes a sinister symbol of the bloodshed in Aulis and
Troy:¹²⁷
 Note also Agamemnon’s representation as a fortunate man by the herald and his rhetoric of
appropriation of ἀνήρ as vir fortis and rex in Ag. 530: ἄναξ Ἀτρείδης πρέσβυς εὐδαίμων ἀνήρ. On
this line, cf. Dawe (1963: 50) and Vogel-Ehrensperger (2012: 89 n. 386).
 For the anger of people in Argos, cf. also Ag. 456 – 457. On passage 450 – 451, cf. p. 59.
 For the word κράτος as victory, power of victory, cf. Il. 1, 509; 15, 216; 18, 308.
 With D-P (ad loc.), Fraenkel (ad loc.), Dover (1977: 57– 58), Kraus (1978: 61) and Meridor
(1987: 41 n. 22), I read θεῶν as a genitive of origin dependent on ἁλουργέσιν. For θεῶν as
dependent on φθόνος, cf. Easterling (1973:11 n. 2); Neitzel (1977: 204– 205).
 On Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words εἱμάτων βαφάς and κηκῖδα as
naming blood and death, cf. Lebeck (1964: 38 – 41; 1971: 85 – 86); Lynn-George (1993: 7 n. 23);
McClure (1997b: 133). On Clytemnestra’s similar appropriation of the word εἱμάτων, cf. Ag. 1383:

76 Agamemnon
Ag. 958 – 960: ἔστιν θάλασσα· τίς δέ νιν κατασβέσει;

τρέφουσα πολλῆς πορφύρας ἰσάργυρον
κηκῖδα παγκαίνιστον, εἱμάτων βαφάς
The pun ‘εἱμάτων βαφάς’ (dyes for fabrics) and ‘αἵματος βαφάς’ (dyes of blood)
supports this interpretation. In this regard, one might consider the expression
‘πορφυρᾶι βαφῆι’ in Pers. 317, where πορφυρᾶι stands as a synonym for blood.
There is more to say about Agamemnon’s speech to Argos and his view of the
Trojan War. Agamemnon uses the word δίκη in order to justify the violence of the
war as determined by divine necessity:¹²⁸
Ag. 813 – 816: … δίκας γὰρ οὐκ ἀπὸ γλώσσης θεοί

…………
ψήφους ἔθεντο
Thus, it is not surprising that he hints at the destruction of Troy’s goods without
problematising the sack of the city, and that he describes himself as a victorious
lion, eager for blood:¹²⁹
Ag. 819 – 820: ἄτης θύελλαι ζῶσι, δυσθνήισκουσα δέ

σποδὸς προπέμπει πίονας πλούτου πνοάς
Ag. 827– 828: ὑπερθορὼν δὲ πύργον ὠμηστὴς λέων
ἅδην ἔλειξεν αἵματος τυραννικοῦ
Agamemnon’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word δίκη shows that his repre-
sentation of the Trojan War differs consistently from Clytemnestra’s discourse
on the facts in Troy. In the carpet scene, when Clytemnestra uses the word
δίκη in relation to Agamemnon’s entry in the Atreid palace (Ag. 910 – 911:
εὐθὺς γενέσθω πορφυρόστρωτος πόρος/ ἐς δῶμ’ ἄελπτον ὡς ἂν ἡγῆται Δίκη),
she alludes to the punishment of the war’s excesses (cf. p. 63).
πλοῦτον εἵματος κακόν, with Neustadt (1929: 263 – 264); Fowler (1967: 27); Petrounias (1976: 150)
and Ferrari (1997: 10 – 11) on this line. For the same rhetoric of appropriation of the words κηκίς
and βαφή, cf. Orestes at Cho. 1012– 1013 (φόνου δὲ κηκὶς ξὺν χρόνωι ξυμβάλλεται/ πολλὰς
βαφὰς), with Neustadt (1929: 264) on these lines. On the carpet as symbol of the blood shed in
war, cf. n. 110.
 On the violence of the Greek expedition against Troy as generated by divine necessity, cf.
also the herald in Ag. 524– 528 and 581– 582. On passage 525 – 528, cf. Kitto (1956: 15 – 16),
defending the transmitted text. On the verb κατασκάψαντα (Ag. 525) as meaning the total
destruction of a city, cf. Connor (1985: 85 with n. 17 and 96 – 99).
 Similarly on these lines, cf. Higgins (1978: 26); Foley (2001: 210); Vogel-Ehrensperger (2012:
106 – 107); Lawrence (2013: 83).

Finally, when Agamemnon appropriates the word γυνή as casus belli, he

does not question, as the chorus does, the position of women as a means of ex-
change between men and, accordingly, the legitimacy of the war he fought. The
chorus refers to Helen with an expression that problematises the expedition
against Troy as a war fought both because of a woman and for a woman
(Ag. 448 – 449: ἀλλοτρίας διαὶ γυναι/κός). Agamemnon, instead, represents the
punishment of Paris’ crime as a righteous action.¹³⁰ Thus, he states that his mili-
tary campaign was waged because of a woman (γυναικὸς οὕνεκα) and that the
gods were helping the Greeks to punish the arrogant abduction of Helen (ἀρπα-
γὰς ὑπερκόπους):
Ag. 822– 824: ἐπείπερ χἀρπαγὰς ὑπερκόπους

ἐπραξάμεσθα, καὶ γυναικὸς οὕνεκα
πόλιν διημάθυνεν Ἀργεῖον δάκος
In this context, Agamemnon’s rhetoric of appropriation of the adjective ὑπέρκο-

πος is particularly telling. By describing the crime of Paris as an arrogant act,
Agamemnon tacitly describes himself as a just punisher. Yet, the echo of lines
468 – 469 (τὸ δ’ ὑπερκόπως κλύειν/εὖ βαρύ) is of course huge, and raises the
question of whether Agamemnon plays the role of an arrogant executioner or
not.¹³¹
The authority of Agamemnon’s status as king and warrior is undercut by the
fact that Agamemnon’s, the chorus’ and Clytemnestra’s representation of the Tro-
jan War does not coincide. Yet, the text invites us to question both Clytemnestra’s
and Agamemnon’s discourse on war and power. I turn to this point in the next
section.
5 The misuse of power
There are no exceptions to the rule that everyone

thinks they’re an exception to the rule
Banksy
As we have seen, the chorus shares Clytemnestra’s criticism of the Trojan War.
Nonetheless, we can argue that it also expresses doubts about her representation
 On Agamemnon talking about Helen as casus belli, cf. Earp (1950: 51) and Dawe (1963: 48).
On the legitimacy of the Trojan War as a war fought for a woman, cf. also the herald at lines
534– 535.
 On line 468 as referring to Agamemnon, cf. Di Benedetto (1977: 174).

78 Agamemnon
of Agamemnon’s murder as a compensation for the violence of the Trojan War.

Before the murder of Agamemnon, the chorus welcomes him as its victorious
king (Ag. 782: ἄγε δὴ, βασιλεῦ, Τροίας πτολίπορθ’), and admits that some citizen
of Argos plotted against him (Ag. 799 – 809).¹³² After Agamemnon is killed, the
old men of Argos question the many deaths in Troy (Ag. 1338 – 1342; cf. p. 58).
Yet, they see the victory at Troy as the fulfilment of a divine plan (Ag. 1335 –
1336: καὶ τῶιδε πόλιν μὲν ἑλεῖν ἔδοσαν/ μάκαρες Πριάμου), and Agamemnon
as a man honoured by the gods (Ag. 1337: θεοτίμητος).¹³³ Moreover, in the exo-
dos, full of despair for the loss of Agamemnon (Ag. 1462– 1463: μηδὲν θανάτου
μοῖραν ἐπεύχου/τοῖσδε βαρυνθείς), the chorus is fervently hoping that Orestes
will return and avenge his father’s assassination (Ag. 1646 – 1648); it speaks of
Clytemnestra’s death as an act of dike (Ag. 1535 – 1536: Δίκα δ’ ἐπ’ ἄλλο πρᾶγμα
θήγεται βλάβης/πρὸς ἄλλαις θηγάναισι Μοίρας), it remembers Agamemnon as
the most kindly guardian (Ag. 1452: φύλακος εὐμενεστάτου); it repeatedly pro-
fesses loyalty to its dead king (Ag. 1491 = 1515: φρενὸς ἐκ φιλίας τί ποτ’ εἴπω;)
and mourns the heroic deeds (Ag. 1545 – 1546: ἔργων μεγάλων) of a divine
man (Ag. 1547: ἐπ’ ἀνδρὶ θείωι). Furthermore, in the long lyrical-epirrhematic ex-
change of the chorus with Clytemnestra, this representation of Agamemnon as
rex and vir fortis corresponds to the projection of a negative image on Clytemnes-
tra as a woman and a wife plotting against the ἀνήρ, i. e. her husband and vir
fortis. To Clytemnestra, who jubilates over the corpse of Agamemnon, the chorus
answers back that she utters insolent words about the man in power:
Ag. 1399 – 1400: θαυμάζομέν σου γλῶσσαν, ὡς θρασύστομος,

ἥτις τοιόνδ’ ἐπ’ ἀνδρὶ κομπάζεις λόγον
Clytemnestra resists this criticism. In passage 1401– 1406 she performs three dis-
tinctive speech-acts. She defends the reliability of her mind; she refuses, as we
have seen (cf. p. 12), to be identified as Agamemnon’s wife, defending the author-
ity of her female status as mother and queen; and she claims the justice of her
revenge:
πειρᾶσθέ μου γυναικὸς ὡς ἀφράσμονος·

ἐγὼ δ’ ἀτρέστωι καρδίαι πρὸς εἰδότας
λέγω·σὺ δ’ αἰνεῖν εἴτε με ψέγειν θέλεις,
ὁμοῖον· οὗτός ἐστιν Ἀγαμέμνων, ἐμός
 For a detailed analysis of the welcome speech that the chorus delivers to Agamemnon, cf.
Harriott (1982: 9 – 13).
 Cf. similarly the herald’s description of Agamemnon as the most praiseworthy man of his
time (Ag. 531– 532: ἀξιώτατος βροτῶν/τῶν νῦν).

πόσις, νεκρὸς δέ, τῆσδε δεξιᾶς χερός

ἔργον, δικαίας τέκτονος. τάδ’ ὧδ’ ἔχει
Yet, even after the death of Agamemnon, the chorus does not seem to be com-
pletely dismissing Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explanation for the murder of the
king as a punishment for the violence of the Trojan War. When Clytemnestra,
during her last dramatic exchange with the chorus, recalls Iphigeneia’s sacrifice
again (Ag. 1555 – 1559), the old men of Argos assert that it is hard to judge wheth-
er it is worse to kill a daughter or to kill a husband and king, coming to the con-
clusion that, according to the law of Zeus, the ravager has to be ravaged, and the
killer has to be killed:¹³⁴
Ag. 1560 – 1564: ὄνειδος ἥκει τόδ’ ἀντ’ ὀνείδους,

δύσμαχα δ’ ἐστὶ κρῖναι·
φέρει φέροντ’, ἐκτίνει δ’ ὁ καίνων·
μίμνει δὲ μίμνοντος ἐν θρόνωι Διὸς
παθεῖν τὸν ἔρξαντα …
Interestingly enough, by stating that it is hard to choose sides between Clytem-

nestra and Agamemnon, the chorus moves again from a moment of acceptance
of the undisputed authority of the king’s male power to a moment of doubt and
hesitation about the opportunity to validate power as merely masculine. Accord-
ingly, it seems to sum up in five words (ὄνειδος ἥκει τόδ’ ἀντ’ ὀνείδους) the un-
solvable conflict of Eumenides between the Erinyes (for the maternal authority)
and Orestes, Athena and Apollo (for the paternal authority). In this sense,
these uncertainties in the narrative of the chorus anticipate the dramatic situa-
tion of Orestes’ absolution in dubio pro reo and strongly affect the reader’s posi-
tion-taking within the text.
To conclude, it seems important to read Clytemnestra’s assertions at the very
end of the play, in Ag. 1656 (πημονῆς δ’ ἅλις γ’ ὑπάρχει μηδὲν αἱματώμεθα), 1659
(εἰ δέ τοι μόχθων γένοιτο τῶνδ’ †ἅλις†, δεχοίμεθ’ ἂν) and 1661 (ὧδ’ ἔχει λόγος
γυναικός, εἴ τις ἀξιοῖ μαθεῖν), against the background of the chorus’ narrative
of doubt and hesitation in regard to Agamemnon’s male power. Clytemnestra
speaks these lines while trying to prevent Aegisthus from using violence against
the old men of Argos. She states that there is enough suffering in the Atreid fam-
ily already, that she would accept a cure for it if there was one, and that anyone
might learn from her female words. Clytemnestra’s refusal to use violence
 On the expression ‘φέρει’ ‘φέροντ’’, cf. the extended discussion of Neitzel (1979a) and
Seaford (2003: 149).

80 Agamemnon
against the chorus is perhaps in relation to the reluctance of the old men of
Argos to deny legitimacy to Agamemnon’s murder as a compensation for Iphige-
neia’s sacrifice and the resulting wrong committed at Troy: why should Clytem-
nestra use violence against somebody who is not an enemy to her? In this per-
spective, line 1661 seems particularly interesting. Clytemnestra’s hint at the
possibility of learning from her (εἴ τις ἀξιοῖ μαθεῖν) recalls the words she ad-
dressed to the chorus in Ag. 1425 (γνώσηι διδαχθεὶς ὀψὲ γοῦν τὸ σωφρονεῖν).
Moreover, the expression ‘λόγος γυναικός’ points out the same rhetoric of appro-
priation of the word γυνή in line 348 (τοιαῦτά τοι γυναικὸς ἐξ ἐμοῦ κλύεις): os-
tensibly, her need to mark her female position suggests that acquiring knowledge
from her (μαθεῖν) is like recognizing the authority of the voice of the other.¹³⁵
What shall the chorus learn from Clytemnestra? The chorus might recognize pre-
cisely what Clytemnestra asked it to learn (διδαχθείς) in line 1425, namely that a
father cannot kill his daughter and break the bond between mother and daugh-
ter: killing a daughter does not belong to the sphere of sophronein, i. e. to acting
and talking in the right way (cf. above, I. 5). However, even though she is able to
teach the chorus a lesson about inter-familial violence, Clytemnestra is and re-
mains a dreadful figure, i. e. the murderess of Agamemnon.¹³⁶ In Aeschylus, we
are confronted with the futility of understanding the mechanisms of violence:
comprehending the implications of violence does not protect against it. As the
blood story of the Atreid family shows, violence engenders more violence, and
its trace is indelible: the wrongdoer becomes the victim and vice versa. In the
chapter on Eumenides (cf. ch. 3, 4– 5), I turn to this impossibility of marking
boundaries for the use of violence in the Oresteia.
In the next chapter I explore Clytemnestra’s characterisation as mother,
queen and wife in Choephoroi. As in this chapter, in the following one too, I dis-
cuss how the characters and the chorus constantly fail in their attempt to project
a negative image on Clytemnestra as an adulterous wife, and therefore as a
mother non-mother, a tyrant, a female whose mind is darkened, trying at the
same time to explain how this failure affects our interpretation of Orestes’ matri-
cide and our position within the text.
 Accordingly, in contrast to McClure (1999: 99 – 100), I argue that in line 1661 there is more
than just the evidence for Clytemnestra’s bilingualism, notably her shift from a male way of
speech to a female one.
 On Clytemnestra teaching the chorus about violence, cf. Freyman (1976: 71) who notes that
in lines 1658 (πρὶν παθεῖν ἔρξαντα) and 1661 (εἴ τις ἀξιοῖ μαθεῖν) she is repeating the chorus’
principle of the pathei mathos.

6 Conclusions
In sections one to five, we have seen that:

1. in discussing Clytemnestra’s characterisation as queen, critics do not allow a
validation of her public power. In fact, when critics say that Clytemnestra’s
power is transgressive, they are merely pursuing the same critical level that
leads them to suppress Clytemnestra’s maternity in favour of her character-
isation merely as the adulterous wife of her husband Agamemnon. Yet, as
the narrative of the chorus shows, the play engages with a constant problem-
atisation, and not merely with a condemnation, of the authority of her fe-
male public acts:
‒ following the chorus, the tragic discourse of Agamemnon on the Trojan
War displays a positive evaluation of Clytemnestra’s public mode of
speech as queen and, accordingly, a valorisation of her female mind;
‒ according to the chorus’ rhetoric of appropriation of the word γυνή in
Ag. 483, Clytemnestra as a woman is unable to rule, and her female
mind is unreliable. Such a usage of the word γυνή is in sharp opposition
to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the same word and to her
claim to female rationality in Ag. 592, as well as to the chorus’ valorisa-
tion of Clytemnestra’s public speech in Ag. 615–616;
‒ when the chorus uses the words δίκη and the word γυνή to refer to the
legitimacy of the Trojan War and its cause, its use of language, as in the
case of Clytemnestra, problematises Agamemnon’s past in Aulis and
Troy;
‒ despite the striking similarities between the chorus’ and Clytemnestra’s
discourse on the Trojan War, the chorus, after the murder of Agamem-
non, clearly expresses doubts about the legitimacy of Clytemnestra’s
rhetoric of explanation for the murder of Agamemnon as a punishment
for the wrong committed at Troy. The chorus represents the vengeance
for its dead king as an act of retributive justice (Ag. 1535: Δίκα δ’ ἐπ’
ἄλλο πρᾶγμα θήγεται βλάβης). Nonetheless, in its last confrontation
with the queen, it ends up questioning Agamemnon’s warlike violence
(the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, the vengeance for Helen’s abduction) and,
at the same time, Clytemnestra’s explanation of the murder of Agamem-
non as an act of retributive justice for the violence committed at Aulis
and Troy (Ag. 1560 – 1564);
2. Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word γυνή in Ag. 1661 mirrors
the same usage in Ag. 348, and claims the legitimacy of her position as a fe-
male subject capable of understanding what sophronein is.

Choephoroi
My reading of Choephoroi follows two distinct lines of argumentation. First, I
argue that Choephoroi tends to de-legitimise Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explana-
tion for her killing of Agamemnon in Agamemnon, which is considered a central
step towards the justification of matricide. The essential feature of this discourse
is to be found in the attempt to project the image of a mother-echthros on Clytem-
nestra, that is to say the figure of a mother who does not give life to her children
(non-tokeus) and does not nurture them (non-tropheus). Along with this depic-
tion of Clytemnestra, the text of Choephoroi explores once again, and on a deeper
level, the mechanisms of suppression of Clytemnestra’s biological motherhood
that we have already seen at work in Cassandra’s representation of Clytemnestra
as a promiscuous wife and a bad mother.
My analysis proceeds again from the use of language by the dramatis person-
ae. In the first part of the chapter, I explore Clytemnestra’s characterisation as a
mother non-tropheus. In sections one to four, I discuss the rhetoric of appropri-
ation of the keywords τρέφειν, φρήν, πόνος, πονεῖν and πατήρ by the nurse, Cly-
temnestra, Orestes and Electra; in section five, I sum up my conclusions. In the
second part of the chapter, I discuss Clytemnestra’s depiction as a mother non-
tokeus: in sections one and two, I focus on Orestes’, Electra’s and the chorus’
rhetoric of appropriation of the keywords τίκτειν, φιλεῖν, ἀνήρ, πατήρ and
δίκη, and, in section three, I sum up again my conclusions.
Then, I discuss the characters’ failure to suppress Clytemnestra’s maternal
role of giving and nurturing life, and to reduce her female status to her marital
role as wife. In part three, I first explore Clytemnestra’s characterisation as a
mother-philos. In section one, I look at Orestes’ and Electra’s rhetoric of appro-
priation of the keywords μήτηρ, ἀνήρ, γυνή, φίλος and δίκη. In section two to
six, I focus on Orestes’, Electra’s and the chorus’ rhetoric of appropriation of
the keywords τίκτειν, φίλος, σώφρων, εὔφρων, δόλος, μήτηρ, πατήρ, ἀνήρ
and γυνή. In section seven, I sum up my conclusions. In the fourth part of the
chapter, I proceed to a close analysis of the text of Clytemnestra’s dream.
Here, I show that the functions of trephein and tiktein are not easily erased
from the play’s portrait of Clytemnestra as mother of her children.
My discussion of Choephoroi aims to explain why the language of the play is
marked by the difficulty to define who a mother is, and where dike is when a
mother dies. Again, as in the case of my reading of Agamemnon, I claim that
Choephoroi can be read as an open text that calls into question the very mean-
ings it produces, as well as the reader’s position within the text.

I Clytemnestra as mother-echthros and non-tropheus

Clytemnestra is no longer truly thought of as a mother
F. McHardy, Revenge in Athenian Culture
1 The nurse on trephein
In her long speech (Cho. 734– 765), the nurse insists upon how hard she had to
work to raise Orestes. Her memories are precise. She remembers being awakened
repeatedly by the cries of baby Orestes, as he had to eat, drink, or do a wee:
Cho. 750 – 753: ὃν ἐξέθρεψα μητρόθεν δεδεγμένη

καὶ νυκτιπλάγκτων ὀρθίων κελευμάτων
< >
καὶ πολλὰ καὶ μοχθήρ’ ἀνωφέλητ’ ἐμοὶ
τλάσηι …
Cho. 755 – 757: οὐ γάρ τι φωνεῖ παῖς ἔτ’ ὢν ἐν σπαργάνοις
εἰ λιμὸς ἢ δίψη τις ἢ λιψουρία
ἔχει· νέα δὲ νηδὺς αὐτάρκης τέκνων
These lines introduce a basic question in the context of the tragic discourse of
Choephoroi: what is maternal love, and therefore, what makes Clytemnestra a
mother? The answer seems obvious: a mother really is a mother if she nurses
her baby. Now, since according to the wet nurse Orestes was not raised by his
mother, Clytemnestra, despite her claim of having fed Orestes (Cho. 896 – 898),
cannot be considered his mother-tropheus. According to this reading, the nurse’s
revelations fit the narrative line that turns Clytemnestra into a bad mother, and
they contribute significantly to a conception of matricide as an act that, in this
case, is at least partly legitimate.¹³⁷ We could object that the nurse’s revelations
simply mirror the practice, frequent in antiquity, of entrusting babies to wet
nurses, and therefore they can hardly be read as an attempt to undercut Clytem-
nestra’s motherhood. Yet, if we read the Oresteia as a play of words and not as a
document that reproduces a historical reality, I think it is interesting to explore
how the nurse’s assertions are in sharp opposition to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of
motherhood, and how they affect the play’s discourse on motherhood and ma-
tricide.
When the wet nurse speaks about her relationship with the little Orestes, she
never uses the verb τίκτειν. This omission might correspond to her status of non-
 Cf. e. g. Goheen (1955: 132); Albini (1977: 81– 82); Zeitlin (1978: 157); Margon (1983: 297).

84 Choephoroi
biological mother, who mothered and nurtured Orestes as he was a baby

(Cho. 749 – 750: φίλον δ’ Ὀρέστην … ὃν ἐξέθρεψα), but who has not given life
to him. On a closer reading, this emphasis on maternal care (φίλον … ἐξέθρεψα)
seems to redefine the terms of motherhood through the dichotomy of trephein/
tiktein, allowing us to draw some important conclusions. First, in the mother-
child relation the biological experience of pregnancy and labour (tiktein) is of lit-
tle or no importance in comparison to breast-feeding and mothering (trephein).
Second, it is not the biological experience of motherhood, but the task of moth-
ering and nursing that bonds mother and child in the first place. Lines 753 – 754
leave little doubt in this regard:
… τὸ μὴ φρονοῦν γὰρ ὡσπερεὶ βοτὸν

τρέφειν ἀνάγκη, πῶς γὰρ οὔ; τρόπωι φρενός
Here, the nurse appropriates the verb τρέφειν in the sense of ‘nurturing, mother-
ing’, and claims that the maternal duties of breast-feeding and taking care of the
baby, who has no intelligence, are an absolute necessity. The reason is clear. Car-
ing for a baby, unable to think (Cho. 753: τὸ μὴ φρονοῦν), is a sign of intelligence
(Cho. 754: τρόπωι φρενός), and, as the scholiast suggests, of maternal care (ἐπι-
μέλεια ψυχῆς). In line with this idea, I accept the transmitted text and read the
expression ‘τρόπωι φρενός’ as ‘by way of intelligence’ (LSJ; cf. Garvie ad loc.).
Thus, I maintain that the Greek ‘τρόπωι φρενός’ means ‘the way intelligence
would require it’. Furthermore, I maintain that φρενός has to refer to the mother.
When the nurse says that an intelligent mother nurtures her child, she implicitly
admits that this is not the case for Clytemnestra.¹³⁸ Accordingly, the nurse’s re-
 The expression ‘τρόπωι φρενός’ has posed some philological problems. Garvie (ad hoc.)
refuses LSJ’s reading as ‘by way of intelligence’: ‘LSJ, s. v. τρόπος II. I, render “by way of
intelligence, i. e. in lieu of the intelligence which is lacking to the child”. But the explanation
does not follow from the translation, which is itself dubious. If anything, it should mean, “in the
way in which a mind would do it”, or “as if it were a mind”, and this is nonsense’. But why
should ‘in the way in which a mind would do it’ be interpreted as ‘as if it were a mind’? Garvie
corrects the text in τροφοῦ φρενί, as proposed by Thomson (1936: 111), arguing that ‘what we
require is an antithesis between the baby who has no φρήν and someone else who does’,
suggesting for passage 753 – 754 the following translation: ‘that which has no reason must be
nurtured like an animal – of course it must – by the reason of its nurse’. But why do we have to
refer φρήν to the nurse and not to Clytemnestra? Note that in referring φρήν to the nurse, Garvie
is following Thomson (1936: 111): ‘In other words, since a baby has no wit of its own, it is
dependent on the nurse’s, just as an ox is dependent on the driver’s’. On the meaning of φρήν
and related terms in Aeschylus, cf. the detailed discussions of Yarkho (1972), esp. pp. 182– 183 for
these lines in Choephoroi; Petrounias (1976: 237– 243).

marks on φρήν contribute to the depiction of Clytemnestra as a mother non-tro-

pheus.
Following this line of argumentation, the nurse’s discourse on mothering
shapes a representation of motherhood that is radically different from Clytem-
nestra’s rhetoric of motherhood. As we have seen, in Agamemnon, when Clytem-
nestra speaks about the mother-child relation, she sees her daughter as exclu-
sively hers, as a duplicate of her maternal body and as the object of her
maternal love. Accordingly, she conceives the female mind as strictly connected
to the female power of reproduction. Conversely, when the wet nurse speaks of
her love for Orestes and maternal phronein, she does not take into account the
mother’s body and her power of giving life: according to the nurse, love for a
child and maternal intelligence are limited to nursing or trephein.
Bearing in mind Clytemnestra’s and the nurse’s diverging discourses on
mothering and motherhood, it is remarkable that the nurse, while talking
about τρέφειν and maternal mind, compares the child to an animal (Cho. 753:
ὡσπερεὶ βοτόν). Clytemnestra too assimilates her child to an animal, as she
speaks of maternal love in strict relation to the mother’s ability to give life. To
express this assimilation, Clytemnestra uses, like the nurse, the word βοτόν
(Ag. 1415 – 1418: ὡσπερεὶ βοτοῦ μόρον…/φιλτάτην ἐμοί/ὠδῖν’). As their appropri-
ation of the word βοτόν shows, the nurse and Clytemnestra see the child the very
same way: as a grazing animal. Yet, such a representation of the child does not
imply the same view on the maternal role for both of them. For Clytemnestra,
motherhood is the biological experience of giving (tiktein) and nurturing life in
utero (trephein); for the nurse motherhood is the cultural experience of nursing
and mothering. As Bacon (2001: 56) has aptly observed: ‘The nurse describes
her maternal activities not in terms of nature but as exercising the crafts (cheir-
onaxias, Cho. 761) of laundress, fuller, and nurse in order to help an infant “like a
beast” (boton, Cho. 753) grow into a human being’.
Further remarks on the expression ‘τρόπωι φρενός’ and maternal intelli-
gence are possible. These words recall to mind the image of the ‘μητρὸς εὐ-
φρόνης’, which in turn implies the imagery of the mother ‘μητρὸς εὔφρονος’
in Ag. 265 (cf. p. 34). According to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of
the words μήτηρ and εὐφρόνη, a mother is a cheerful and reasonable being.
This is not the case in the nurse’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words φρήν
and τρέφειν: when she uses these terms to talk about maternal care and mater-
nal mind, she seems to insinuate that Clytemnestra is a wicked, unreasonable
woman since she did not take care of the child’s hygienic and alimentary de-
pendence on his mother (obviously, from a historical point of view, having a
nurse was a common praxis in Athens, and therefore hardly a sign of wicked-
ness).

86 Choephoroi
The attempt to undermine the mind of Clytemnestra works as an important

element in her representation as a mother-echthros, and it is not just a feature of
the nurse’s speech. Similar remarks are possible also for Orestes and Electra.
Orestes emphasises with a rhetorical question the unjust disposition of his moth-
er’s mind:
Cho. 996: τόλμης ἕκατι κἀκδίκου φρονήματος;
Electra asserts that Clytemnestra cannot be called a ‘mother’, since she has a
wicked attitude of mind towards her children:
Cho. 190 – 191: ἐμή γε μήτηρ, οὐδαμῶς ἐπώνυμον

φρόνημα παισὶ δύσθεον πεπαμένη
I explore further Electra’s rhetoric of motherhood in relation to her criticism of

Clytemnestra’s mind at pp. 122– 125. In what follows, I look at Clytemnestra’s
rhetoric of appropriation of the verb τρέφειν and at the differences inherent in
Clytemnestra’s and the nurse’s use of this verb.
2 Clytemnestra on trephein
Clytemnestra uses the verb τρέφειν in lines 908 and 928, first as she opens, and
then as she ends her stichomythic dialogue with Orestes. In front of her matrici-
dal son, Clytemnestra appeals to her faculty of trephein attempting to coerce
Orestes to have pity for his mother’s life. However, there is more, in this appeal
of Clytemnestra. I begin with some remarks about line 908:
ἐγώ σ’ ἔθρεψα, σὺν δὲ γηράναι θέλω
As Clytemnestra employs the verb τρέφειν, she does not refer merely to the ac-
tivities of breast-feeding and raising a child, as according to LSJ, Italie and Din-
dorf. In fact, we can assume that Clytemnestra is also pointing to the maternal
activity of nurturing the baby in the womb with maternal blood.¹³⁹ We are in
 My reading of line 908 relies on Demont (1978), who shows that in the Corpus hippo-
craticum, and already in Homer, τρέφειν means ‘faire prendre corps’. Cf. also Benveniste (1966:
293) who argues that τρέφειν means ‘favoriser (par des soins appropriés) le développement de ce
qui est soumis à croissance’. For τρέφειν in the meaning of ‘to rear in utero’, cf. Sept. 752– 755.
Furthermore, my use of the term ‘activity’ to name maternal care is not accidental. Referring to
pregnancy, labour and mothering as ‘activity’, I maintain that we are talking about women’s

the position to establish a continuity between Clytemnestra’s self-representation

as mother in Agamemnon and in Choephoroi. As in Agamemnon, according to her
rhetoric of appropriation of the words ὠδίς and ἔρνος (cf. 1, I. 2– 3), in Choephor-
oi too, according to her appropriation of the verb τρέφειν, she repeatedly insists
upon the exclusive power of women’s body to give and nurture life.¹⁴⁰
The polysemy of Clytemnestra’s appropriation of the verb τρέφειν returns in
line 928. Again, she appropriates the verb τρέφειν in the meaning of ‘breast-
feeding, bringing up’ (cf. LSJ, Italie, Dindorf), and, as I assume, of ‘nourishing
a child in the womb’:¹⁴¹
οἲ ’γώ, τεκοῦσα τόνδ’ ὄφιν ἐθρεψάμην
We cannot help but notice a striking difference in the double usage of this verb.
In line 908, ἔθρεψα in the active voice means ‘I nourished you (in my womb) to
your benefit’; in line 928 ἐθρεψάμην in the middle voice means ‘I nourished him
(in my womb) to my damage’.¹⁴² This is an important point. According to Clytem-
work, and I cannot accept therefore Beauvoir’s (1949: 24– 27) position, according to which giving
birth and breast-feeding are not activities, but natural functions. On raising babies as an activity
and unpaid work I shall mention Fouque (1994: 296 – 297) and Nancy Fraser’s brilliant essay on
state walfare, ‘What’s critical about Critical Theory? The case of Habermas and Gender’, now
reprinted in ‘Unruly Practices’ (1989).
 Accordingly, I differ from Simon (1988: 52) who maintains that Clytemnestra’s characteri-
sation as mother is ambivalent: ‘the picture of Clytaemestra’s ambivalent maternity is also
consonant with her portrayal in The Agamemnon as the mother of Iphigenia. It is Iphigenia slain
who arouses her maternal assertion, not an evocation of Iphigenia as a babe or young girl whom
she tended and raised’.
 Obviously, if one reads τεκοῦσα as ‘after I bare him’, the main verb ἐθρεψάμην can only
mean ‘to breast-feed; to raise up’. Of course, nourishing in utero precedes birth. Yet, the Greek
admits the reading of τεκοῦσα and ἐθρεψάμην as referring, paratactically, to the two biological
activities of the mother (to give birth and to nourish (in utero) her baby). Indeed, as a participle
aorist, τεκοῦσα is not supposed to indicate an action prior to the main verb ἐθρεψάμην. Cf. e. g.
Smyth (1936): ‘Ah me, this is the serpent I bare and suckled’; Lloyd-Jones (1982): ‘Ah woe, that I
bore and I reared this snake’; Battezzato in Di Benedetto (1999): ‘Ahimè, è un serpente questo
che io ho fatto nascere e ho nutrito’; Burian and Shapiro (2003): ‘Ah, you are the snake I bore
and suckled!’; Steiner (2007): ‘Weh mir, diese Schlange habe ich geboren und aufgezogen?’;
Sommerstein (2008): ‘Ah me, this is the snake I bore and nourished!’. Similalry, in line 913
(τεκοῦσα γάρ μ’ ἔρριψας ἐς τὸ δυστυχές) the participle aorist τεκοῦσα is not supposed to
indicate an action prior to the main verb τεκοῦσα.
 Cf. Untersteiner (ad loc.), who follows Porzig 1926. For the verb ἐθρεψάμην as expressing
the positions of the speaking person in relation to his actions, cf. also Moussy (1969: 60): ‘Il ne
s’agit plus alors de l’intérêt que le sujet prend à l’action, mais de celui que la personne qui parle,
la mère de l’enfant, manifeste pour les soins dont elle souhaite que son fils soit l’objet’.

88 Choephoroi
nestra’s discourse on the mother-daughter bond in Agamemnon, her relationship

with Iphigeneia is a symbiotic bond of philia. The same cannot be said for the
relationship between Orestes and Clytemnestra. For Clytemnestra, Orestes is
the beloved creature to whom she gave life (Cho. 928: τεκοῦσα τόνδ’), but, at
the same time, he is also a snake she nurtured in her womb (Cho. 928: ἐθρε-
ψάμην ὄφιν).¹⁴³ The complexity of this mother-son relation mirrors a similar
complexity in the action of the son against his mother. On the one hand, Clytem-
nestra is an echthros of Orestes, and his matricide is therefore legitimate. On the
other hand, Clytemnestra is a philos of her son, and matricide amounts to a hor-
rifying act of violence.
There is an additional reason here to draw attention to Clytemnestra using
the verb τρέφειν also in the meaning of ‘nourishing, bringing up in the
womb’. In Eumenides, Orestes asks himself whether he stands in a relation of bi-
ological consanguinity to Clytemnestra or not:
Eum. 606: ἐγὼ δὲ μητρὸς τῆς ἐμῆς ἐν αἵματι;
The Erinyes answer him that his mother brought him up in her womb, and that
maternal blood ties mother and son together in a very strong bond of philia. In-
terestingly, the Erinyes, like Clytemnestra in Choephoroi, make use of the verb
τρέφειν:
Eum. 607– 608: πῶς γάρ σ’ ἔθρεψεν ἐντός, ὦ μιαιφόνε,

ζώνης; ἀπεύχηι μητρὸς αἷμα φίλτατον;
Apollo’s theory of patrilinear generation (Eum. 657 ff.) is in contrast to such po-
sitions endorsed by the Erinyes. According to his rhetoric of appropriation of the
verbs τίκτειν and τρέφειν, the formation and gestation of the foetus in utero does
 I separate τόνδ’ and ὄφιν (respecting the metrical caesura). Garvie (ad loc.) argues that this
is artificial. Yet, as I argue, the separation of τόνδ’ and ὄφιν pinpoints the complexity of Cly-
temnestra’s and Orestes’ relationship. Read this way, I differ from Dumortier (1975a: 97– 98) who
in glossing line 928 focuses on Clytemnestra merely in her role as wife and argues that she is
speaking as a killing wife: ‘Lorsque l’épouse meurtrière tombera sous les coups de son fils, il lui
souviendra de ses visions nocturnes: οἲ ’γώ, τεκοῦσα τόνδ’ ὄφιν ἐθρεψάμην 928’. It is important
to notice that Orestes, like Clytemnestra, recognizes that his mother’s body gave him life. On this
issue, cf. below pp. 144– 146. I also differ from Zeitlin (1978: 158) who, if I am not wrong, argues
that Orestes’ repudiation of Clytemnestra’s motherhood mirrors Clytemnestra’s suppression of
her mother-child bond with him: ‘The next step, paradoxically, will be her undervaluation, even
rejection, of the mother-child bond, as in the case of Electra and Orestes. Child, in response, will
undervalue and reject mother’.

not mean a process of creation of life. Children are biological extensions of their
fathers, not of their mothers; it is the father figure that generates life:
Eum. 660: τίκτει δ’ ὁ θρώισκων …
Moreover, Apollo denies the elementary biological fact that a mother gives life to
her child by nourishing (trephein) him in utero:¹⁴⁴
Eum. 663 – 666: … πέλας

μάρτυς πάρεστι παῖς Ὀλυμπίου Διός
οὐδ’ ἐν σκότοισι νηδύος τεθραμμένη,
ἀλλ’ οἷον ἔρνος οὔτις ἂν τέκοι θεά
We need to bear in mind that Apollo speaks these lines as the most important
performance in his defense of Orestes. We have to stress two important points.
First, we see how the position of the god, expounding a patrilinear theory of pro-
creation, is opposing both Clytemnestra’s matrilineal view of procreation in Aga-
memnon and in Choephoroi as well as the Furies’ defence of matrilinearity in Eu-
menides. In all three plays of the trilogy, then, theories of procreation play a
crucial role in the characters’ rhetoric of explanation of their deeds: Apollo ac-
quits Orestes because he is the son of Agamemnon and not of Clytemnestra;
in Agamemnon and Choephoroi, Clytemnestra is in need of a matrilineal theory
of procreation, in order to defend the rightneousness of the murder of Agamem-
non, and to defend herself against her matricidal son; in Eumenides, the Furies
defend blood kinship with the mother, in order to pursue Orestes. Second, Apol-
lo’s suppression of the biological power of the mother in favour of the definition
of the father as the only genetic parent of the child is in line with the god’s cul-
tural definition of the mother as ‘the wife of the father for whom she has borne
children’ (cf. pp. 163 – 165). As Bacon (2001: 56 – 57) has aptly pointed out: ‘The
father has the role of nature. In Apollo’s words, “the parent is he who mounts”
 Accordingly, I differ from Winnington-Ingram (1983: 123 – 124): ‘If the mother is not tokeus,
she is still trophos. It will be noted how often this root is found in earlier stages of the debate.
“Am I of my mother’s blood?” asks Orestes (606). “How then did she nurture you beneath her
girdle?” replies the Coryphaeus. Apollo gives an answer, but leaves the fact untouched. … The
mother carries the child, nourishes it in the womb, gives birth to it in pain, suckles it at the
breast: all these things remain untouched by Apollo’s argument’. It is certainly true that Apollo
recognizes the mother’s role as trophos of the child and denies her role as tokeus (Eum. 657 ff.).
Yet, as we see at lines 663 – 666, the god refers to Athena’s example to state that a mother is not
trophos of his children. On this issue, cf. ch. 3, 3. For τρέφειν here in the meaning of ‘nutrire in
utero’, cf. Italie.

90 Choephoroi
(Eum. 660). … Apollo’s ruling that the mother has the role of culture is part of the
trilogy’s insistence on the importance of cultural laws (xenia, marriage etc.)’.
To conclude, we might note that a comparison between the rhetoric of appro-
priation of the verb τρέφειν by Clytemnestra and the nurse shows that they use
this verb in quite a different way: Clytemnestra in the sense of nourishing in
utero, breast-feeding, bringing up; the nurse only in the sense of breast-feeding,
bringing up. Why this difference? How does it shape the Choephoroi and its vi-
sion of the maternal role? Relying on Loraux, we seem entitled to say that it
sheds the image of an unjust mother on Clytemnestra, i. e. the image of a mother
who, by claiming the power of her body to give and to nurture life, resists the
equation ‘mother = wife of the children’s father’.¹⁴⁵ Thus, Clytemnestra’s asser-
tions about maternal trephein contribute to her representation as an echthros
of the Atreid family, and help to legitimate the action of the matricidal son. How-
ever, as I show later on (cf. pp. 113–114), the implications of the nurse’s speech,
aimed at denying Clytemnestra’s maternal role of giving and nurturing life in
utero, expose their vulnerability: as a mother, Clytemnestra is a woman both tro-
pheus and tokeus in regard to her children. Therefore, the nurse’s speech does
not have just a normative function. It also introduces a doubt in the play’s dis-
course on motherhood: is it true that a mother is neither tokeus nor tropheus of
her child? We have to consider that the nurse’s discourse is posing a question
about Clytemnestra’s maternal role. Read this way, as the nurse affirms that
she received Orestes from her mother (Cho. 750: μητρόθεν δεδεγμένη), we are
in the position to say that her use of the word μήτηρ is implicitly indicating
the difficulty to suppress the normative and emotive power of the word. Illustrat-
ing such a hardness to signify who a mother is, Choephoroi anticipates the dra-
matic situation in Eumenides and the conflict between Apollo and the Furies
about the mother’s role (wife of the children’s father, or woman giving and nur-
turing life?).
In the following section, I explore the play’s discourse on Clytemnestra as a
mother non-tropheus further, focusing on Agamemnon’s characterisation as a fa-
ther-tropheus.
 Cf. Loraux (1990: 108): ‘Parce que, au cœur même de la justice, il y a la droite filiation,
seule mérite le titre de “Juste” la mère qui sait ce que reproduction veut dire: que reproduire le
père, c’est en fournir une copie conforme sans que, sur l’enfant, demeure la moindre trace de
celle qui l’a nourri et mis au monde’ (italics mine).

3 Agamemnon as father-tropheus
Immediately after the recognition between himself and his sister, Orestes, while
he is praying, addresses himself to Zeus in the hope of winning the god’s help in
avenging the death of his father. He compares the position of Clytemnestra as the
killer of Agamemnon to the case of an echidna that kills the eagle in its coils:
Cho. 246– 251: Ζεῦ Ζεῦ, θεωρὸς τῶνδε πραγμάτων γενοῦ,

ἰδοῦ δὲ γένναν εὖνιν αἰετοῦ πατρὸς
θανόντος ἐν πλεκταῖσι καὶ σπειράμασιν
δεινῆς ἐχίδνης· τοὺς δ’ ἀπωρφανισμένους
νῆστις πιέζει λιμός· οὐ γὰρ ἐντελεῖς
θήραν πατρώιαν προσφέρειν σκηνήμασιν
The fight between the eagle and the snake is a familiar motif in Greek literature.
We find it for the first time in Homer (Il. 12, 200 ff.), and it is mentioned by Aris-
totle (HA 609a4–5). In Aeschylus, the conflict between eagle and snake turns
into a metaphor for the inter-familial conflict in the Atreid household. As or-
phans (Cho. 249: τοὺς δ’ ἀπωρφανισμένους), Agamemnon’s children are exclud-
ed from the chance to inherit the property of their father (Cho. 250: νῆστις πιέζει
λιμός), and are like little eagles (Cho. 247– 248: ἰδοῦ δὲ γένναν εὖνιν αἰετοῦ πα-
τρὸς/ θανόντος) that are not old enough (Cho. 250: οὐ γὰρ ἐντελεῖς) to bring the
prey haunted by their father to the nest (Cho. 251: θήραν πατρώιαν προσφέρειν
σκηνήμασιν).¹⁴⁶ On this account, Orestes’ murderous violence against his mother
can be read as the action of a son who intends to restate the authority of his fa-
ther as the one true tropheus of the family members.
The idea that the wealth of the house depends on the father figure reflects
the common social practice in Athens, according to which, notably, women
did not run properties (except, of course, for the epikleros). Still, this insistence
on paternal wealth may tell us much more. Saying that the father’s wealth main-
tains the family is like trying to re-define filiation as a social fact based on the
role of the mother as wife of her husband. In other words, it is not Clytemnestra,
as mother giving life and nurturer of her children, but Agamemnon, in his social
role as genitor by virtue of the laws of marriage, inheritance and succession, who
guarantees the preservation and the continuity of the family.¹⁴⁷ In the stichomy-
 On the imagery of the eagles as derived from the Archilochean fable of the eagle and the
fox, cf. Janko (1980). On the animal symbolism in this passage as mirroring the symbolism in
Agamemnon, cf. Fowler (1967: 55 – 56).
 Cf. Cho. 1, 76 – 77, 126, 235, 237; 479 – 480; 487; 864– 865. On the characters’ rhetoric of
appropriation of the word πατήρ as head of the household, cf. also Eum. 654 (ἔπειτ’ ἐν Ἄργει

92 Choephoroi
thia between Orestes and Clytemnestra, line 921 definitely points in this direc-
tion. According to his rhetoric of appropriation of the verb τρέφειν and the
word ἀνήρ, he was not nourished in utero by Clytemnestra’s maternal blood
and nurtured by maternal milk, as Clytemnestra has claimed in Cho. 908 and
928; he was nurtured by the work of his father as aner, that is to say as husband,
miles and vir fortis:¹⁴⁸
Cho. 921: τρέφει δέ γ’ ἀνδρὸς μόχθος ἡμένας ἔσω
Thus, we are able to recognize that the definition of the father as nurturer of the
family implies a struggle about what the word ἔσω is supposed to mean in the
case of the mother. Where should we place maternal ἔσω? Is ἔσω the mother’s
womb in relation to her body and her faculty to give and to nurture life (as ac-
cording to Clytemnestra’s discourse), or is it the mother’s social position in the
household as the wife nourished by her husband (as according to Orestes’ dis-
course)?¹⁴⁹ Posing this question on Clytemnestra’s maternal role (woman giving
δώματ’ οἰκήσει πατρός;) and sections 3 and 6 in the chapter on Eumenides. For a similar line of
argumentation, cf. Goldhill (LSN: 147): ‘the redefinition of the role of the mother, the female,
asserts also the redefinition of the model of narrative towards its authorisation of/by the word of
the father’. On πατήρ in Greek as denoting the social and religious role of the man with children,
cf. Chantraine (1947: 235) and Strauss (1993: 24– 28); on the role of the father figure in Greek
tragedy, cf. Caldwell (1970), esp. pp. 88 – 92 on the Oresteia, and the brilliant paper of Griffith
(1998).
 Cf. Italie who assumes for τρέφειν the meaning of ‘victum praebere’. For a similar analysis,
cf. Sommerstein (1996: 267): ‘the mother may nurture (trephein) the child (908, cf. 898), but the
father by his labour supports (trephein) the mother and everyone else (921): ultimately it is by his
efforts that the oikos can survive’. In this regard, Orestes’ matricide seems to confirm the female
economic dependence on men, cf. Euben (1990: 93): ‘It is also true that the trilogy can be
interpreted as commending the sexual division of labor’. On the characters’ rhetoric of appro-
priation of the word ἀνήρ as father-tropheus, rex, miles and vir fortis, cf. Cho. 345 – 349, 363 – 364,
430 – 435, 479, 505, 556, 572, 627, 808, 1070, 1072. For Agamemnon’s toils and his power as
victorious king and the source of the survival of the Atreid family, cf. also Cho. 301–305.
 Accordingly, I differ from Foley (2001: 231– 232), who in her discussion of line 921 sees the
struggle on the definition of ἔσω merely as a struggle for the supremacy of paternal ponos over
maternal gala: ‘The sufferings of a wife in war … are now trivialized by Orestes, who will not
accept an equivalence between the one who sits at home and the toil of the husband in the
public world (trephei de g’andros mochthos hēmenas esō, 921; see also 919, which again stresses
the ponos or labor of the father in contrast to the activity of those inside). It is now the father who
is the provider of nurture (trephei) that is often the mother’s special province (eutraphes gala,
898)’. This is not by chance: Foley (2001: 232 n. 109) does not consider the fact that Clytemnestra
appropriates the verb τρέφειν in Cho. 908 and 928 also as ‘to nurture in the womb with maternal
blood’: ‘Clytemnestra does not accept Orestes’ claim. She insists on her nurture [milk], but now
sees that she has raised a snake (ethrepsamēn, 928)’. As Foley, neither Sommerstein in his

life, or wife of the husband?), Orestes’ attempts to suppress Clytemnestra’s moth-

erhood and to represent her as dependent on her husband Agamemnon antici-
pate the conflict between the Furies and Apollo on the definition of bloodlines
and power relations as paternal.¹⁵⁰
Orestes’ attempt to redefine what is supposed to be ἔσω in the case of his
mother constitutes the conceptual core of line 919 too, as he reproaches Clytem-
nestra for the slothful inactivity of women:
Cho. 919: μὴ ἔλεγχε τὸν πονοῦντ’ ἔσω καθημένη
Two locutions are of fundamental importance here: πονοῦντα vs. ἔσω καθημένη.
This polarity can be read as the essential dualism between the sexes: the male
toils of war are in contrast to female unproductiveness.¹⁵¹ Now, when Orestes
uses the verb πονεῖν to praise Agamemnon’s martial deeds and to denigrate
the indolence of women, he seems to redefine the Trojan War as a glorious
task, and therefore to wipe every criticism (μὴ ἔλεγχε) of the Troika (τὸν πο-
νοῦντ’) away. Thus, Orestes’ discourse on ponos and female indolence seems
to undermine Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explanation of the murder of Agamem-
non as a punishment for the wrongs committed in Troy (cf. ch. 1, III. 2).¹⁵² On this
commentary on Eumenides (on Eum. 607– 608) considers the meaning of nutrire in utero for
Cho. 908 and 928, and thus notes that Clytemnestra could have appealed to the stronger ar-
gument that she gave life to Orestes: ‘Clytaemestra had claimed that Orestes had no right to kill
her, because she had nurtured him with her milk (Ch. 896 – 8, 908, 928; cf. Ch. 527– 33, 543 – 6).
That, however, was not the strongest claim she could have made … Now we are reminded that
she had nurtured him earlier still, before birth, with her blood’. This attempt to redefine the
maternal ἔσω will return in Eumenides with Apollo’s speech and its definition of the mother’s
position in the family as the wife of her husband and, accordingly, with the expropriation of the
womb of its faculty of giving life; cf. pp. 162–165.
 Cf. Zeitlin (1978: 157) who brilliantly argues: ‘Son must slay mother; father must be avenged,
but in so doing, son’s alliance with paternal power and interests must simultaneously be seen as
repudiation of the mother’. On the repudiation of motherhood as central step toward the legi-
timisation of paternal power, cf. Irigaray (1984: 100): ‘Dimension qu’il faut renier en paroles et en
actes pour accomplir le salut de la famille et de la cité’.
 Cf. Loraux (1989: 56 – 57): ‘Mais habilité pour la guerre, le citoyen l’est d’abord en tant qu’il
porte le nom du mâle: anēr. Et, tout naturellement, ponos sert à marquer l’opposition cardinale
qui, plus que toutes les autres peut-être, fonde la société grecque: je veux dire l’opposition des
rôles sexuels. Du côté du mâle est le ponos: normative chez Xénophon, l’idée se fait simple
constatation chez l’auteur du traité hippocratique Du régime ou chez celui du Système des
glandes, qui opposent le régime viril, placé sous le signe de la fatigue et de l’endurcissement, à
la “facilité” du régime oisif des femmes’. On ponos, cf. as well Loraux 1982.
 On the verb πονεῖν as referring to Agamemnon’s warlike toil in opposition to female
indolence, cf. Di Benedetto (1999: 44).

94 Choephoroi
account, we have two important points to stress. First, in the tragic machinery of
death, Orestes’ matricide can be seen as an act of retributive justice that with-
draws the authority of Clytemnestra’s discourse on the Trojan War in Agamem-
non, and aims to restore the father’s heroism and to rehabilitate his power as vic-
torious king.¹⁵³ Second, as Goldhill (LSN: 143) has observed, through the
rehabilitation of Agamemnon’s ponos, the opposition of philos (= father) vs. ech-
thros (= mother) seems to take on military implications.¹⁵⁴
Electra and Orestes share the same view on ponos. In the speech she delivers
on the tomb of her father, during the first scene, Electra reproaches Clytemnestra
for the wastage of Agamemnon’s wealth. According to Electra’s appropriation of
the word πόνος, Clytemnestra’s wastefulness is in strict opposition to Agamem-
non’s heroic toils:
Cho. 135– 137: κἀγὼ μὲν ἀντίδουλος, ἐκ δὲ χρημάτων

φεύγων Ὀρέστης ἐστίν, οἱ δ’ ὑπερκόπως
ἐν τοῖσι σοῖς πόνοισι χλίουσιν μέγα
Given this discourse of Electra and Orestes about Agamemnon’s martial deeds
and Clytemnestra’s indolence, it seems important to add to the opposition tre-
phein/tiktein the opposition trephein = ponos/tiktein as a constituent element
of the Choephoroi’s discourse on motherhood. Following the ongoing analysis,
we have seen that the meaning of the verb τρέφειν in Choephoroi is gradually
narrowed and redefined. To Clytemnestra, τρέφειν means ‘raising up in the
womb, breast-feeding, bringing up’. To the nurse, it means ‘breast-feeding, bring-
ing up’; to Orestes and Electra, ‘maintaining the family’. In particular, as lines
135 – 137 and 919 – 921 show, for Orestes and Electra only the power bestowed
upon Agamemnon by his warlike ponos can guarantee the continuation of the
genealogical line, glory and prestige of the Atreid household.¹⁵⁵
 Cf. Goldhill (LSN: 194): ‘the “initiation” of Orestes, then, is not so much (though partly) into
his role within the oikos, of reasserting his κράτος, as also reasserting the role of the oikos with
regard to the wider society’. Compare Kitto (1956: 56): ‘When Orestes prays to Agamemnon δὸς
κράτος τῶν σῶν δόμων … he is praying for the renewal of order, “degree”, in the state of Argos
as well as in the house of its King’. Similarly, cf. e. g. Gagarin (1976: 99); Meier (1988: 147– 148);
Strauss (1993: 77); McHardy (2008: 108).
 In this regard, lines 354– 360 are particularly interesting as well. Here, the chorus defines
Orestes as philos of his father philos (Cho. 354– 355: φίλος φίλοισι τοῖς ἐκεῖ καλῶς θανοῦ/σιν),
pointing precisely to Agamemnon’s position as the victorious king at Troy: Cho. 355 – 359: κατὰ
χθονὸς ἐμπρέπων/σεμνότιμος ἀνάκτωρ/πρόπολός τε τῶν μεγίστων/χθονίων ἐκεῖ τυράννων.
 On Electra’s and Orestes’ authorisation of the power of Agamemnon as genitor, victorious
king in war and head of the family, cf. also Föllinger (2007: 18 – 19).

In the next section, I look at further implications of Clytemnestra’s charac-

terisation as a mother non-tropheus.
4 Clytemnestra as mother non-tropheus and female tyrant
Clytemnestra, mother non-tropheus, is also depicted as an avid consumer of the

goods of Agamemnon, father-tropheus: after having set up a tyranny in Argos
with her love-mate (Cho. 267, 377, 537, 658, 664, 700), she squanders her hus-
band’s patrimony (Cho. 136 – 137, 919 – 921, 942– 945, 973 – 974).¹⁵⁶ The motif of fe-
male tyranny expands on a theme that was already present in Agamemnon
(Ag. 1362– 1365, 1638 – 1640, 1673). In Choephoroi, the tyranny set up by Clytem-
nestra has brought the Atreid house to a complete ruin (Cho. 262– 263): Orestes is
dispossessed of his father’s wealth (Cho. 135 – 136, 249 – 250, 277, 301, 407– 408;
cf. Eum. 754– 756); Electra is forced to live in misery, as if she were a slave
(Cho. 135, 444 – 450). Agamemnon’s children will have the duty to prove them-
selves as saviours of their father’s house (Cho. 264: σωτῆρες ἑστίας πατρός). Ac-
cordingly, when Orestes, immediately before his first dramatic exchange with
Clytemnestra, uses the word γυνή in reference to her position as ruler, he appro-
priates the word γυνή in the opposite sense of ἀνήρ as vir fortis and rex (notice
the juxtaposition of γυνή and ἄνδρα):
Cho. 664: γυνὴ τόπαρχος, ἄνδρα δ’ εὐπρεπέστερον
According to Orestes, an aner is someone who is able to command; a gune, on

the contrary, just misuses power.¹⁵⁷ If this is appropriate, vesting Clytemnestra
with the image of a female tyrant means denying any righteousness to her action
as a queen, i. e. to her vendetta as a compensation for the violence of Agamem-
non’s war against Troy. This seems to be quite clear at the beginning of the play
(Cho. 55 – 65). Here, the chorus first mentions the respect of the people of Argos
for Agamemnon’s royal authority, and the climate of fear established by the tyr-
 Locus classicus for the stereotype of women as consumers of men’s goods is Th. 590 – 602.
On this topic in Greek literature, cf. e. g. Loraux (1978: 61– 63); Carson (1990: 140). Especially on
the passage in Hesiod, cf. Sussman (1978).
 On male power, cf. Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word ἀνήρ in Cho. 672–
673: εἰ δ’ ἄλλο πρᾶξαι δεῖ τι βουλιώτερον/’ἀνδρῶν τόδ’ ἐστὶν ἔργον, οἷς κοινώσομεν. Fur-
thermore, on the construction of the male as the subject with the power of right thinking and
right acting, as well as on the construction of the female as being unable of right thinking and
right speaking, cf. Orestes’, the chorus’, the nurse’s and Aegisthus’ rhetoric of appropriation of
the words ἀνήρ and γυνή in Cho. 626 – 627; 666 – 667; 735 – 736; 845; 849 – 850.

96 Choephoroi
anny of Clytemnestra (Cho. 55 – 59). Then, it expresses its criticism for Clytemnes-
tra’s abuse of power and wealth, and the necessity to punish the usurper of Aga-
memnon (Cho. 59 – 65). Following the chorus in this passage, Agamemnon’s
death represents a loathsome murder, plotted by an illegitimate ruler against
the sovereign king of Argos and victor in Troy. In what follows, I dwell in
more detail on some lines that attest the rehabilitation of Agamemnon’s heroic
career and power.
To begin with, lines 255 – 256 are particularly interesting. Orestes speaks
these lines immediately after the recognition with his sister, in the context of
the prayer he addresses to Zeus, in order to win the god’s help in taking revenge
for the death of his father:
καίτοι θυτῆρος καί σε τιμῶντος μέγα

πατρὸς νεοσσοὺς τούσδ’ ἀποφθείρας …
According to Winnington-Ingram (1983: 134), Garvie (ad loc.) and Goldhill (LSN:
135), Orestes is referring to Iphigeneia’s sacrifice. If we read, with Garvie (ad loc.),
καὶ τοῦ of M’s instead of the correction καίτοι, the article τοῦ emphasises the
idea that Agamemnon has honoured Zeus with Iphigeneia’s sacrifice. Now, if
Agamemnon is depicted as ‘the agent of Zeus’ (LSN: 135), Orestes’ use of the
word πατρός in Cho. 256, in opposition to θυτῆρος in Cho. 255 and in emphatic
position at the beginning of the verse, seems to obliterate the horror of the fa-
ther’s action against his daughter and to restore Agamemnon’s heroic career at
Aulis and Troy. Thus, when Orestes uses the words θυτήρ and πατήρ, he is dis-
playing a different rhetoric of appropriation from the chorus, in the parodos of
Agamemnon, and from Clytemnestra. As we have seen (cf. pp. 16–18), Clytemnes-
tra’s and the chorus’ discourses in Agamemnon point to Agamemnon’s paternal
warlike violence against his daughter.
Similar remarks are possible about line 918 of the stichomytia, in the ex-
change between Orestes and Clytemenstra. Here, Clytemnestra urges her son
to recall his father’s faults:
μὴ ἀλλ’ εἴφ’ ὁμοίως καὶ πατρὸς τοῦ σοῦ μάτας
Although critics persist in claiming that in Choephoroi Clytemnestra never men-

tions the sacrifice of her daughter, a reference to the events in Aulis seems to be
at work here.¹⁵⁸ By referring to Agamemnon as pater and agent of violence, Cly-
 Cf. Föllinger (2003: 96); for an opposite position, cf. Garvie. According to Garvie, in line 918
the word μάτη applies to sexual folly. Thus, Clytemnestra might be alluding to Agamemnon’s

temnestra, as in Agamemnon, might be criticizing him for his misuse of the pa-
rental role. Quite the opposite, Orestes’ silence about the sacrifice of Iphigeneia
and, as we have seen, his objection that a woman is nourished by the ponos of
her man (Cho. 919 – 921) seems to function as crucial steps towards a rehabilita-
tion of Agamemnon’s heroic career and a de-legitimisation of Clytemnestra’s ac-
tion against the conqueror of Troy and the killer of his own daughter. However,
Orestes’ discourse on the authorisation of the father as man of power and head
of the family is exposed to the danger of failing. How can a man, who kills his
own daughter, nourish his family?
The allusions to Iphigeneia’s sacrifice in Choephoroi help us to illustrate
some differences between the Homeric version of the Atreid myth and the Ae-
schylean reworking of it. Unlike the Oresteia, the Odyssey does not display a dis-
course that first calls into question and then rehabilitates the Trojan War. In this
sense, the paradigmatic perspective from which Orestes’ mythical biography is
told to the young Telemachus does not just rely upon the silence about Iphige-
neia’s sacrifice and Orestes’ matricide, but also upon the lack of a narrative in-
cluding a re-evaluation of the Trojan War.¹⁵⁹
Yet, although Choephoroi asserts both Agamemnon’s position as father-tro-
pheus (i. e. head of the family, king and warrior) and Orestes’ status as Agamem-
non’s heir-in-law, there is no cure in the Oresteia for the carnage in Troy and the
blood shed by Clytemnestra. In Aeschylus, the Atreid family is trapped in a piti-
less fight against itself and Troy. In Agamemnon the seed of dissension remains
in the house (Ag. 154– 155: μίμνει γὰρ φοβερὰ παλίνορτος/οἰκονόμος δολία);
there is no escape from the persecution for Agamemnon, the one who killed
too many (Ag. 461– 468); the Erinyes are bred in the family (Ag. 1190: συγγόνων
Ἐρινύων). In Eumenides, the law of the Erinyes always ‘remains’ (Eum. 381:
μένει). As we know, in Eumenides Athena will defend the necessity of war and
exalt the glory of warriors (Eum. 848 ff., 903 ff.). However, as I show in the chap-
ter on Eumenides (cf. section 6) the notion of war is problematized also in the
last drama of the trilogy.
relations with Chryseis and Cassandra. If that is not wrong, the same seems true for Clytem-
nestra’s use of μάτη as a hint to Iphigeneia’s sacrifice as well. Given that the word μάτη in Greek
properly describes a fault made by madness (cf. LSJ), it is important here not to miss a reference
to Agamemnon’s dilemma in Aulis, and to his loss of control over rational faculties (Ag. 220 –
223). On this topic, cf. ch. I. 5.
 On the paradigmatic function of the Atreid myth in the Odyssey, cf. p. 14, with n. 31. On the
numerous passages of the Odyssey about the value of the Trojan War, cf. for example book 8
(Demodocos on Odysseus and the Trojan horse) and book 16 (when Telemachus recognizes
Odysseus, he also remembers the warlike deeds of his father).

98 Choephoroi
In the next section I explore Agamemnon’s characterisation as a father-to-

keus, after a summary of what I discussed in sections one to four.
5 Conclusions
In sections one to four, we have seen that:

1. according to the nurse’s speech about Orestes’ childhood, Clytemnestra did
not take care of her child, nor did she feed him at her breast. In particular:
– in the nurse’s discourse on mothering, we are faced with an attempt to
separate the activity of trephein from the maternal agency of giving life;
for the nurse, who is not a biological mother, a mother feeds and brings
up her baby (trephein) but she does not give him life;
– in the nurse’s discourse on mothering, there is no relation between the
mother’s mind and her biological role in conceiving, bearing and raising
children;
2. according to Clytemnestra’s discourse on the maternal agency of trephein, a
mother nourishes her baby in the womb, feeds and raises him. Thus, the re-
lation between mother and child is shaped by a bond of consanguinity and
inviolable philia;
3. Orestes’ and Electra’s discourse on the authority of Agamemnon’s social role
as genitor is bound together with a discourse on female biological agency.
Agamemnon is a father-tropheus just on the condition that Clytemnestra in
her role as mother is non-tropheus of her children: it is Agamemnon’s war-
like toils and his position as king and warrior – not Clytemnestra’s maternal
blood and milk – that maintain the family and guarantee the survival of its
glory and prestige. This attempt to rehabilitate Agamemnon’s warlike hero-
ism implies a de-legitimisation of Clytemnestra’s discourse about the Trojan
War and about the authority of her action and speech as queen;
4. according to Orestes, Agamemnon did not sacrifice his daughter to fulfil his
warlike ponos, but to respect the obedience which is due to the gods. Such a
presentation of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice implies a rehabilitation of Agamem-
non’s heroic career;
5. according to Orestes and Electra, Agamemnon is the king victorious at Troy,
and Clytemnestra is the usurper of his male power. Therefore, the killing of
Agamemnon is the killing of the king in power. Matricide is at least partly
legitimate.

II Clytemnestra as mother-echthros and non-tokeus
1 Agamemnon as father-tokeus and Clytemnestra as mother non-tokeus
Clytemnestra is not just the mother non-tropheus of her children, and the squan-
derer of Agamemnon’s wealth. According to her matricidal son, she is also a
mother non-tokeus. When Orestes speaks of her power to give life, using the
verb τίκτειν, the experiences of pregnancy and labour undergo a monstrous
transformation in his words. According to Orestes in the stichomythia with his
mother, Clytemnestra gave life to her son only to throw him out into misery:
Cho. 913: τεκοῦσα γάρ μ’ ἔρριψας ἐς τὸ δυστυχές
What is worse, Clytemnestra is for Orestes a mother who bartered his own son in
a exchange of goods, making a source of profit out of him, in order to protect her
affair with Aegisthus:
Cho. 915 – 917: Oρ. αἰκῶς ἐπράθην ὢν ἐλευθέρου πατρός

Kλ. ποῦ δῆθ’ ὁ τῖμος ὅντιν’ ἀντεδεξάμην;
Oρ. αἰσχύνομαί σοι τοῦτ’ ὀνειδίσαι σαφῶς
This depiction of Clytemnestra as a mother non-mother corresponds well to her

characterisation as a wife betraying her man. As Zeitlin (1978: 157) has poignant-
ly phrased, ‘Here in the Choephoroi adulterous wife is now fully equated with
hostile mother’.¹⁶⁰ Indeed, as an adulterous woman, she is an enemy of her chil-
dren and of her husband Agamemnon:
Cho. 906 – 907: … … ἐπεὶ φιλεῖς

τὸν ἄνδρα τοῦτον, ὃν δὲ χρῆν φιλεῖν στυγεῖς
Cho. 991: ἥτις δ’ ἐπ’ ἀνδρὶ τοῦτ’ ἐμήσατο στύγος
As Clytemnestra is a mother non-mother, so Orestes is not the son of his mother.

According to his understanding of the word τέκνον, he is the son of Agamem-
non, while Clytemnestra has ‘only’ carried the father’s children in her womb:
 As Zeitlin, cf. Vernant (1996: 340): ‘L’épouse coupable devient mère terrible’; Patterson
(1998: 143): ‘the mother who was once philos is now echthros (hostile, an enemy; 993), a clear
sign of the perverted state of this household’. Now, as a hostile mother and adulterous wife,
Clytemnestra is an unrestrained woman hated by the gods (Cho. 46: δύσθεος γυνά, 525: δύσθεος
γυνή). Cf. the same depiction of Orestes by the Pythia and the Furies in Eum. 40: ὁρῶ δ’ ἐπ’
ὀμφαλῶι μὲν ἄνδρα θεομυσῆ, 151: ἄθεον ἄνδρα. On Clytemnestra’s adultery, cf. also Cho. 599 –
600; 764; 893 – 895; 975 – 976.

100 Choephoroi
Cho. 992: ἐξ οὗ τέκνων ἤνεγκ’ ὑπὸ ζώνην βάρος
Orestes speaks this line in the context of the talk he delivers after the matricide,
beside the corpses of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Clearly, Orestes does not rep-
resent the mother-child relation in the same terms as she does. As we have seen,
according to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words μήτηρ, ἔρνος,
φίλος and ὠδίς in Agamemnon, a mother is a cheerful being, of sound mind; the
child is a biological extension of his mother; a bond of philia ties relatives by
blood. Instead, according to Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the words τίκ-
τειν, φιλεῖν and τέκνον, Clytemnestra’s motherhood is a paradigm of aberration;
children belong biologically to their fathers; the bond of philia is also externally
defined (bond between wife and husband), and is normative in itself (philia has
to tie a wife to her husband: Cho. 906 – 907: ἐπεὶ φιλεῖς/ τὸν ἄνδρα τοῦτον, ὃν δὲ
χρῆν φιλεῖν στυγεῖς).¹⁶¹
Through the characterisation of Clytemnestra as genetrix of the father’s chil-
dren and as an adulterous woman, enemy of her own family, we are faced with a
process of normalisation of her maternal sexuality, and with an attempt to ex-
propriate her female body of its reproductive power. This is like saying that
Orestes’ discourse on adultery and child reproduction defines the proper social
role of a woman within marriage as being the wife of her husband from and for
whom she has borne children. Thus, Clytemnestra’s adultery threatens the social
position of the male in the family. As Goldhill has similarly noticed (LSN: 111;
2004: 36), refusing her role of wife through adultery, Clytemnestra stops being
a woman who gives birth to the children of her husband, the father-tokeus, be-
coming instead a bad mother, or a mother who escapes male control over female
sexuality and female agency of reproduction.¹⁶² This infringement of the female
 Cf. similarly Foley (2001: 231): ‘Orestes refuses to permit Clytemnestra to categorize Aga-
memnon (or, later, her children) as enemy, not philos and husband. … Her children are not
exclusively hers but also her husband’s’. I differ from Podlecki who, in his edition of Eumenides,
notes at line 608 that the Erinyes’ claim that the mother nurtures her baby in the womb is
reminiscent of Orestes’ words in Cho. 992– 993. As I argue in the case of Clytemnestra, and as I
will in the case of the Erinyes, their claim that the child is the fruit of the maternal womb echoes
Orestes’ words in Cho. 992–999, insofar as it reverses them: for Orestes a child belongs bio-
logically to his father; but not for Clytemnestra and the Erinyes. On Orestes’ rhetoric of mo-
therhood in Cho. 992, his rhetoric of appropriation of the word τέκνον and the difference
between Clytemnestra’s and Orestes’ discourse on motherhood, cf. Garvie (ad loc.): ‘In a sense
Orestes reverses the charge brought by Clytaemestra against Agamemnon who sacrificed Iphi-
genia (Ag. 1417 f.)’.
 My point about the verb τίκτειν and the position of the father as father-tokeus (namely that
the father is the only genetic parent, given the expropriation of the mother of his power of giving

function in the family and in the community of the fathers produces a fracture in
the social continuity of the family, making the revenge of Orestes imperative.¹⁶³
Following these remarks, we can see that the discourse of Orestes about the so-
cial function of women does not state merely the necessity of controlling female
sexuality. It also states the need to control the relationship between female sex-
ual pleasure and social reproduction.
Yet, the definition of the father as the only genetic parent of the children (to-
keus), in addition to his definition as the only guarantor of the family’s survival
(tropheus), implies that he is not only responsable for the economic subsistence
of his family, but also for its biological continuity.¹⁶⁴ We may conclude, then, that
‘the development of the language of familial relations’ (cf. LSN: 155) involves a
semantic shift in both terms τίκτειν and τρέφειν. Against this background,
there seems to be no discontinuity between Choephoroi and Eumenides. In Choe-
phoroi we face the attempts to suppress Clytemnestra’s maternal role as tokeus
and tropheus of her children, and to equate her role as mother with her role
as wife. Similarly, in Eumenides, the discourses of Apollo and Athena engage
with the definition of the civic ideology of motherhood, according to which
the mother is the wife of the father, for whom she has borne children, whereas
the father is the only genetic parent of the children and the tropheus of the family
through his political and economic prestige (cf. ch. 3. 3).
Electra follows the discourse of Orestes about Clytemnestra’s power of giving
life closely. In the speech she delivers on the tomb of her father during the first
episode, Electra affirms that Clytemnestra has sold her children in exchange for
sex with Aegisthus:
Cho. 132– 134: πεπραμένοι γὰρ νῦν γέ πως ἀλώμεθα

πρὸς τῆς τεκούσης, ἄνδρα δ’ ἀντηλλάξατο
Αἴγισθον …
life) can be argued for the term ‘parens’ as well. Cf. the brilliant paper of Thomas (1986) and
Loraux (1990: 127 n. 26): ‘Yan Thomas me fait remarquer qu’il en va de même pour parens, qui,
du vocabulaire de l’ accouchement, a été détourné au profit des pères’. On female sexual fidelity,
cf. Cantarella (2011: 335 – 336) and Cox (2011: 232– 235), each with further bibliography.
 Cf. Kitto (1956: 57): ‘Marriage is the key-stone of civilised society, and if Clytemnestra’s
crime is not punished this key-stone is knocked away’. On marriage and the social reproduction
of the polis, cf. Seaford (1994: 206 – 220); Cox (2011), with further bibliography at p. 243.
 According to Goldhill (LSN: 149), in order to express the exclusive function of the father
figure as tropheus and tokeus, the chorus uses the words πόνος ἐγγενής (Cho. 466): on the one
hand ponos refers to the economic commitment of the father as in verses 919 – 921, on the other
hand the adjective ἐγγενής puts the notion of ponos in the context of the sphere of filiation.

102 Choephoroi
According to Electra as well, Clytemnestra is an adulterous wife (ἄνδρα δ’ ἀντηλ-

λάξατο) and therefore a mother non-mother who has given life to her children
only to make money out of them (notice the significant juxtaposition of
τεκούσης, ἄνδρα). Bearing in mind this representation of Clytemnestra, there
seems to be no relation of philia between mother and daughter. This suppression
seems to work as a redefinition of the causes of Clytemnestra’s maternal
wrath.¹⁶⁵ In this respect, lines 239 – 242 are particularly interesting:
… προσαυδᾶν δ’ ἔστ’ ἀναγκαίως ἔχον

πατέρα σε, καὶ τὸ μητρὸς ἐς σέ μοι ῥέπει
στέργηθρον, ἡ δὲ πανδίκως ἐχθαίρεται,
καὶ τῆς τυθείσης νηλεῶς ὁμοσπόρου
Electra speaks these lines on the tomb of her father, when she finds a ringlet and
speculates whether it belongs to her brother Orestes or not. Here, she gives ex-
pression to her love for Agamemnon, Iphigeneia and Orestes in opposition to
the allegation that her mother has good reasons to be an object of hatred. It
seems reasonable, then, to suppose that there is no bond of kinship fondness be-
tween Clytemnestra and Iphigeneia. Obviously, the suppression of philia between
Iphigeneia and Clytemnestra affects the way Electra appropriates the verb θύειν.
In fact, also Electra depicts the sacrifice of her sister as a pitiless act (Cho. 242:
τῆς τυθείσης νηλεῶς). However, considering the background of Clytemnestra’s
representation as a mother-echthros, we have to assume that in Electra’s dis-
course Iphigeneia’s sacrifice can hardly represent, as for Clytemnestra in Aga-
memnon, the breach of the inviolable bond of philia and of consanguinity be-
tween mother and daughter.
Passage 239 – 242 deserves further attention. In her groundbreaking paper on
the images of corrupted sacrifice in Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Zeitlin (1965: 492) lucid-
ly observes that ‘the loss of maternal feelings towards Orestes and Electra works
retroactively, we might say, in her attitude towards Iphigenia’. It is helpful to ex-
pand on Zeitlin’s thoughtful remark. Clytemnestra’s lack of maternal feelings to-
wards Iphigeneia is linked to Orestes’ and Electra’s definition of the mother fig-
ure as an echthros of her family (because of Clytemnestra, Orestes is exiled;
Electra lives like a slave). I think this point has important consequences,
which I sum up in short:
 On Clytemnestra’s representation as a mother full of relentless wrath, cf. Cho. 421– 422:
λύκος γὰρ ὥστ’ ὠμόφρων ἄσαντος ἐκ/ματρός ἐστι θυμός. On these lines, cf. Petrounias (1976:
186, 202).

1) the definition of the mother figure as an echthros of the family implies a re-
definition of the principles on which philia between relatives is based. Fol-
lowing Electra in line 241, Clytemnestra is hated with good reason (πανδίκως
ἐχθαίρεται), but the same cannot be said for her father, her brother and her
sister Iphigeneia, who are of the same seed (Cho. 242: ὁμοσπόρου). Accord-
ingly, we can take for granted the equation philos = homosporos. Now,
since obviously Clytemnestra as a mother cannot be of the same seed as
her children, she can hardly be bound to them through a relation of philia.
More than that, the equation philos = homosporos reveals the fact that con-
sanguinity only exists in connection to the father figure. Indeed, as Wilgaux
(2006: 343) has pointed out, in Greek this adjective implies a blood tie be-
tween father and children, according to the belief that sperm is made out
of blood. We may take these remarks a step further, and say that in Choephor-
oi consanguinity with the father figure (or kinship relations of social consan-
guinity) is made possible by a negation of the biological consanguinity with
the mother.¹⁶⁶ In the speech delivered by Electra, when she finds a ringlet on
the tomb of her father, and speculates whether it belongs to Orestes or not,
lines 189 – 200 are consistent with this representation of bloodlines as pater-
nal. First, in lines 189 – 191, Electra states that Clytemnestra cannot be con-
sidered a mother, since she hates her children. Second, in lines 195 – 200, she
asks if the ringlet found on Agamemnon’s grave belongs to an enemy
(Cho. 198: ἀπ’ ἐχθροῦ), or to a relative who shares the same blood
(Cho. 199: ξυγγενής).¹⁶⁷ Again, if Clytemnestra is an echthros for Electra,
she is also non-suggenes. As Goldhill has similarly pointed out (LSN: 124),
Electra’s definition of the opposition philos vs. echthros through the criterion
of consanguinity affects her appropriation of the word πατήρ in line 197–
200:
 Cf. also Sissa (1983: 130 – 139). On the blood of the Father as the foundation of social ties, cf.
Heritier-Augé (1989); Heritier (1996: 53 ff.). On the patrilinear organisation of the Atreid family, cf.
also Cho. 236: δακρυτὸς ἐλπὶς σπέρματος σωτηρίου, 503: καὶ μὴ ’ξαλείψηις σπέρμα Πελοπιδῶν
τόδε.
 On syngeneia as kinship of blood and on suggeneis as blood relatives, cf. Loraux (1987: 25 –
30), in particular p. 25: ‘Syngeneia è la parentela di sangue: in altri termini, la più naturale di
ogni ralazione, che non ha bisogno di essere codificata per essere vissuta nell’immediatezza
dell’esistenza quotidiana’; Wilgaux (2011: 221): ‘all the next of kin – the suggeneis – in so far,
precisely, as they “share the same blood,” regardless of whether it comes from the male or the
female side’. On this topic, cf. also Musti (1963: 230 – 232); Littman (1979: 13), and for further
bibliography Wilgaux (2011: 229 – 230).

104 Choephoroi
ἀλλ’ εὖ σάφ’ ἤινει τόνδ’ ἀποπτύσαι πλόκον

εἴπερ γ’ ἀπ’ ἐχθροῦ κρατὸς ἦν τετμημένος,
ἢ ξυγγενὴς ὢν εἶχε συμπενθεῖν ἐμοί,
ἄγαλμα τύμβου τοῦδε καὶ τιμὴν πατρός
Here, as she states that a blood kin can honour the tomb of her father along
with her (Cho. 199 – 200), she seems to imply that it is rather Agamemnon as
father and philos, instead of Clytemnestra as mother and echthros, to be a
blood relative of his children.
2) According to Orestes’ and Electra’s discourse on consanguinity with the fa-
ther figure and to their discourse on adultery and the inviolability of mar-
riage, we are in the position to conclude that their reprimand of adultery jus-
tifies the expropriation of the reproductive power of maternal blood, thus
transferring the agency of giving life from the mother’s womb to the father’s
blood:
− in marriage, the mother = the wife of the father-tokeus (therefore, male
control over maternal blood, female sexuality and female reproduction);
− through adultery, the mother ≠ the wife of the father (therefore, no male
control over maternal blood, female sexuality and female reproduction)
However, this discourse of exclusion on Clytemnestra’s motherhood and wife-

hood (she is an adulterous wife and therefore a mother non-mother) is not entire-
ly successful. To begin with, two different readings are possible for lines 132–
134. We can read the modal particle πως with ἀλώμεθα: in this case, Clytemnes-
tra has clearly sold her children away. However, it is also legitimate to read it
with πεπραμένοι: in this case, it is as if Clytemnestra has sold her children
away.¹⁶⁸ When language excludes and separates, the dynamics of categorisation
tremble: excluding (the mother) has always the meaning of including (her).
Orestes’ attempt to separate Clytemnestra’s role as mother from her role as
wife, that we have seen at work in his rhetoric of wifehood in lines 906 – 907
and 991– 993 (cf. pp. 99 – 100), is fraught with the danger of failing too. Lines
991– 993 are particularly interesting. Orestes says that his mother is an object
of abomination, set against her husband and the children’s father:
 Relying on Rösler, I do not read, as Garvie does (ad loc.), lines 132– 134 as a metaphor.
However, I differ from Rösler (2006: 14– 15) who reads lines 132– 134 just in one direction,
namely as a proof of the fact that Clytemnestra has sold her children, and therefore is lying, as
she affirms to have given Orestes to Strophius (Ag. 877– 886). Rösler’s detailed analysis does not
comment the particle πως. On Clytemnestra, Orestes and Strophius, cf. p. 117.

ἥτις δ’ ἐπ’ ἀνδρὶ τοῦτ’ ἐμήσατο στύγος

ἐξ οὗ τέκνων ἤνεγκ’ ὑπὸ ζώνην βάρος,
φίλον τέως νῦν δ’ ἐχθρόν, ὡς φαίνει, κακόν
Yet, as Orestes’ question in Cho. 994 illustrates, he does not know whether this is
actually true or not:
τί σοι δοκεῖ;
Again, the fact that we acknowlege by a gesture of separation and exclusion who
Clytemnestra is pushes us to question this very certainty. More than that, it im-
plies admitting the limits of a discourse on Clytemnestra as a mother non-moth-
er. Indeed, a positive answer to Orestes’ question ‘τί σοι δοκεῖ;’ (and, accordingly,
a reading of this expression merely as a rhetorical question) would pose further
problems rather than solve them. Even if we consider true that Clytemnestra is
an object of abomination, i. e. the bad wife of the children’s father, which kind
of στύγος is she supposed to be? Is she a moral eel, or a viper?
Cho. 994: τί σοι δοκεῖ; μύραινά γ’ εἴτ’ ἔχιδν’ ἔφυ
Echoing Cassandra’s questions in Ag. 1232– 1233 (τί νιν καλοῦσα δυσφιλὲς δάκος/
τύχοιμ’ ἄν; ἀμφίσβαιναν ἢ Σκύλλαν τινὰ), Orestes’ doubts about the monstrosity
of Clytemnestra as mother and wife undercut the authority of his discourse of
exclusion, insomuch as it becomes quite problematic to speak plausibly of the
mother as a monster. The text insists upon this difficulty to define Clytemnestra
as a mater monstruosa. In line 997 Orestes asks himself again how to name his
mother:¹⁶⁹
τί νιν προσείπω … ;
Lines 1026 – 1028 are consistent with Orestes’ difficulty to represent Clytemnestra
as an opprobrium:
ἕως δ’ ἔτ’ ἔμφρων εἰμί, κηρύσσω φίλοις

κτανεῖν τέ φημι μητέρ’ οὐκ ἄνευ δίκης,
πατροκτόνον μίασμα καὶ θεῶν στύγος
 For νιν as hinting to Clytemnestra as well, cf. LSN: 100; Morgan (1994: 133), who also
underlines the striking similarities between Ag. 1232– 1233 and Cho. 994 ff.

106 Choephoroi
Orestes speaks these lines in his last speech during his ultimate confrontation
with the chorus. Here, as in passage 991– 993, Orestes once again describes Cly-
temnestra as a στύγος, i. e. as an object of abomination. Yet, his representation of
his own mother as a mater monstruosa does not have the power to suppress Cly-
temnestra’s motherhood, and to assess matricide as a legitimate act of violence.
Indeed, the litotes ‘οὐκ ἄνευ δίκης’ reveals Orestes’ caution in presenting matri-
cide as an act of undisputed justice. Thus, it opens up to the suspicion that the
killing of Clytemnestra might play as a highly problematic deed for him. This
problematisation of matricide implied in Orestes’ use of the word δίκη casts a
shadow of doubt on his rhetoric of appropriation of the words ἔμφρων and
φίλος as well. To start with, how can a killer of his own mother claim to have
control over his mind? And moreover, what does it mean to be philos of someone
who killed his own mother? Here, Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the word
φίλος seems to give us good evidence of how difficult it is to define who is a
philos and/or an echthros and, accordingly, to appropriate the word μήτηρ mere-
ly as the echthros of the children and their father.¹⁷⁰
However, if we are to follow Orestes and Electra on Clytemnestra’s mother-
hood and wifehood and their discourse of exclusion, matricide represents an act
of retributive justice for Agamemnon’s children against the murderess of their fa-
ther (Cho. 909: πατροκτονοῦσα, 974: πατροκτόνους, 1028: πατροκτόνον μίασμα):
Cho. 144 καὶ τοὺς κτανόντας ἀντικατθανεῖν δίκηι

Cho. 244 μόνον Κράτος τε καὶ Δίκη σὺν τῶι τρίτωι
Cho. 497 ἤτοι Δίκην ἴαλλε σύμμαχον φίλοις
Cho. 805 λύσασθ’ αἷμα προσφάτοις δίκαις
Cho. 884 αὐχὴν πεσεῖσθαι πρὸς δίκης πεπληγμένος
Cho. 935 ἔμολε μὲν Δίκα Πριαμίδαις χρόνωι
The enactment of this justice takes the shape of a struggle for Orestes and Electra
(Cho. 489: μάχην, 866: τοιάνδε πάλην, 874: μάχης), and will end with a victory
(Cho. 148: δίκηι νικηφόρωι, 478: ἐπὶ νίκηι, 499: εἴπερ κρατηθείς γ’ ἀντινικῆσαι
θέλεις, 868: ἐπὶ νίκηι).¹⁷¹
 On this topic, cf. LSN: 115. The same line of interpretation can be applied to Cho. 100: τῆσδ’
ἔστε βουλῆς, ὦ φίλαι, μεταίτιαι; 552: τἄλλα δ’ ἐξηγοῦ φίλοις; 825 – 826: ἄ-/τα δ’ ἀποστατεῖ
φίλων; 833: τοῖς θ’ ὑπὸ χθονὸς φίλοις. Here, Electra and the chorus use the word φίλος, meaning
the enemy of Clytemnestra and the supporter of the vengeance for Agamemnon. Now, how can
somebody, who helps children in their plot against their mother, be philos? On the difficult task
to distinguish philoi from echthroi in the Choephoroi’s discourse on motherhood and matricide,
cf. Electra in Cho. 110: τίνας δὲ τούτους τῶν φίλων προσεννέπω. Cf. as well p. 52.
 For the imagery of victory in these lines of Choephoroi, cf. Poliakoff (1980: 253 – 255).

Yet, as I argue in the third part of this chapter, once more the play shows
how Orestes’ and Electra’s repudiation of Clytemnestra’s power of giving and
nurturing life, their definition of Agamemnon as father-tropheus and tokeus
and the definition of bloodlines and power relations as exclusively paternal
are in fact all elements of a discursive justification of matricide, which is always
exposed to the danger of failing. As in Eumenides, in Choephoroi is already pres-
ent the search for a definition of dike, which:
– is deeply committed to a search both for paternal genealogy and for the au-
thorisation of the Father as the subject of power in the family (genitor, hus-
band) and in society (head of the family, warrior and king);
– pinpoints the limits of a discourse on justice based merely on the law of the
Father.
This crisis in Orestes’ and Electra’s definition of blood ties and power relations as
only paternal destabilizes the play’s discourse on kinship and power:
– are blood ties and power relations maternal? (no, they are not: mother is ech-
thros, i. e. non-tokeus and non-tropheus);
– are they paternal? (yes, they are: father is tokeus and tropheus);
– are they only paternal? (no, they are not: mother is echthros, but still tro-
pheus and tokeus).
In the next section, I explore the implications of Agamemnon’s characterisation

as a father-tokeus further.
2 The father-tokeus and the estrangement between mother and son
In the third episode, Orestes arrives at Argos with Pylades, pretending to be a

stranger coming from Daulis in Phocis (Cho. 674), and claiming to be dead
(Cho. 682: τεθνεῶτ’ Ὀρέστην εἰπέ). Yet, during the dramatic exchange with his
mother, Orestes is not recognized by Clytemnestra. Why this disguise, and why
the failure of anagnorisis between mother and son? We obviously need a dis-
guise, or Clytemnestra would recognize her own offspring and, as we already
know from the Homeric tale, disguises never fail in Greek literature. However,
as Pontani observed (2007: 221), we can also argue that Orestes’ disguise and Cly-
temnestra’s failure to recognize her own son are direct evidence of the estrange-
ment between the two. What does it mean for a mother and a son, in the context
of a play about matricide, to be thought of as strangers? A look at Cho. 688 – 690
might help us to answer the question. Orestes speaks these lines to Clytemenstra,
pretending to be a stranger from Daulis:

108 Choephoroi
Cho. 688 – 690: … εἰ δὲ τυγχάνω

τοῖς κυρίοισι καὶ προσήκουσιν λέγων
οὐκ οἶδα, τὸν τεκόντα δ’ εἰκὸς εἰδέναι
Orestes, using the verb τίκτειν (τὸν τεκόντα) in opposition to προσήκουσιν,

seems to claim that between parents (προσήκουσιν) only the father is not a
stranger to his son, in virtue of their biological bond (τὸν τεκόντα). Read this
way, as has often been argued (Cf. Garvie ad loc.; Lebeck, 1971: 126 – 127; LSN:
165 – 166), Orestes’ disguise as a stranger or his dolos may foreshadow Apollo’s
theory about the father’s role in reproduction, a bias which, strictly speaking,
is like a dolos or a misleading discourse on the mother’s reproductive agency.
However, does Orestes’ succeed in his deceitful punishment of Clytemnestra,
as the chorus describes Orestes’ vendetta (Cho. 726: Πειθὼ δολίαν, 947: δο-
λιόφρων Ποινά)?¹⁷² Of course, he does not. Clytemnestra’s motherhood remains
a fact, and her death is the result of a problematic act which has to be punished,
as the Erinyes’ persecution of Orestes clearly shows. Thus, despite the chorus’
rhetoric of explanation of matricide as a necessary act ordered by Apollo
(Cho. 935 – 941), matricide represents a questionable deed, whose theological ne-
cessity and justice is hindered by the use of deception:¹⁷³
Cho. 946 – 956: ἔμολε δ’ ἇι μέλει κρυπταδίου μάχας

δολιόφρων Ποινά,
ἔθιγε δ’ ἐν μάχαι χερὸς ἐτήτυμος
Διὸς κόρα, Δίκαν δέ νιν
προσαγορεύομεν
βροτοὶ τυχόντες καλῶς,
ὀλέθριον πνέουσ’ ἐν ἐχθροῖς κότον.
τάνπερ ὁ Λοξίας ὁ Παρνασσίας
μέγαν ἔχων μυχὸν χθονὸς ἐπωρθία-
ξεν ἀδόλως δόλια
βλαπτομέναν …
 On the phrase ‘δολιόφρων Ποινά’ and its different interpretations, cf. Garvie and Unter-
steiner (ad loc.). I follow Garvie, who refers it to Orestes’ vengeance.
 Accordingly, I differ from McClure (1999: 100), who argues that Orestes’ use of dolos obeys a
divine order: ‘through the figure of Orestes, whose task and speech represent a divinely sanc-
tioned form of dolos’. In regard to Orestes’ dolos in Choephoroi, I also differ from Thalmann
(1985: 230), who assumes that Orestes is not using dolos against his mother. For Orestes’ dolos
against Clytemnestra, cf. Taplin (1977: 340 – 343); Konishi (1990: 176 – 180), and, in particular,
LSN: 206.

Reckoning with these lines about the relation between dolos and matricide, we
may begin to wonder: can Apollo really be the god who proclaims without deceit
(ἐπωρθίαξεν ἀδόλως), the god who has never lied in the past (Cho. 559: ἄναξ
Ἀπόλλων, μάντις ἀψευδὴς τὸ πρίν) and whose prophetic art is always true
(Eum. 615: μάντις ὢν δ’ οὐ ψεύσομαι)? Again, as we have seen in the case of Cas-
sandra’s prophetic language (cf. p. 47), in the case of Apollo as well the Aeschy-
lean text might call into question the authority of the divine word.
In this regard, my observation is that deception structures the way the Atreid
family resorts to violence. According to Cassandra, Aegisthus and the chorus in
Agamemnon (Ag. 155, 1228 – 1229, 1519, 1636), and Orestes in Choephoroi
(Cho. 556 – 557), Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon by deceit. According to Cly-
temnestra’s discourse on Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, Agamemnon kills his daughter
with the help of dolos (cf. ch. 1, I. 4). According to the chorus’ discourse on
Orestes’ matricide (Cho. 726, 947, 955), for the Atreids the fulfilment of justice
goes hand in hand with the use of deception. We can pinpoint other analogies
in the chain of mutual murders in the Atreid family. In the eyes of Clytemnestra,
Agamemnon was guilty of dolos as he betrayed the inviolable bond of consan-
guinity and philia between mother and daughter by killing Iphigeneia (cf.
ch. 1, I. 4). In the case of Orestes, the matricidal son uses dolos as he attempts
to deny the biological relation of philia with his mother. I dwell upon the role
dolos plays in the narrative of the play in my analysis of the dream scene
(ch. 2, IV. 5), and in the chapter on Eumenides (cf. ch. 3. 4).
3 Conclusions
The discussion in sections one and two leads to the following conclusions:
1. like Cassandra, also Electra and Orestes make an attempt to separate Cly-
temnestra’s role as a wife from her role as a mother:
– according to Electra and Orestes, Clytemnestra is an adulterous wife and
therefore a mother non-tokeus and an enemy of her children. This sup-
pression of philia between mother and children implies also a suppres-
sion of the blood connection between them. It establishes, then, a dis-
course about consanguinity with the father figure, and about social
kinship through marriage;
– according to Orestes and Electra, Agamemnon, being the father, is the
only genetic parent and philos of his children;
2. by Agamemnon’s characterisation as the only tokeus of children, his author-
ity as father seems to be strictly connected to his power as the begetting one.
Thus, we notice that the tragic discourse on male social power is combined

110 Choephoroi
with a discourse on the power of reproduction. The father authority is insep-

arable from his genealogical prerogative of birth;
3. with the characterisation of Agamemnon as the only tokeus of his children,
and the denial of Clytemnestra’s agency of tiktein, the Choephoroi’s discourse
on Clytemnestra’s role as mother and wife seems to be based on a perversion
of the parental structures, a point that destabilizes the authority of the fa-
ther’s definition as sole origin of life, and as the only subject of power in
the family and in society;
4. foreshadowing Apollo’s patrilinear argument on reproduction, Orestes’ dis-
guise as a stranger, or his dolos, might be read as an attempt to deny Clytem-
nestra’s maternal faculty of tiktein, and the bond of consanguinity between
mother and child;
5. according to the chorus, Orestes and Electra, matricide represents an act of
retributive justice that aims to instantiate the Father as the sole origin of life
and power in the family and in society.
III Clytemnestra as mother-philos

Ἀντίνο’, οὔ πως ἔστι δόμων ἀέκουσαν ἀπῶσαι
ἥ μ’ ἔτεχ’, ἥ μ’ ἔθρεψε …
Od. 2, 130 – 131
1 The adulterous wife is still a mother

A woman is her mother
That is the main thing
A. Sexton, Housewife
In what follows, I argue that the characters’ depiction of Clytemnestra merely as

an unfaithful wife does not have the power to suppress her maternal bond with
her children, and to justify matricide and to instantiate the Father as the subject
of power in the family and society. First, lines 88 – 90 seem to jeopardize this dis-
course of exclusion. Right at the beginning of the play, the opening lines of Elec-
tra’s speech to the servant women are meant to win their help for the libations in
honour of her father. Yet, she is admittedly unaware of how to name Clytemnes-
tra, as she is about to speak in defence of her father: does she have to refer to
Clytemnestra as a wife (γυναικός) who should have been faithful (φίλης) to
her beloved (φίλωι) husband (ἀνδρί), or does she have to name her as her mother
(τῆς ἐμῆς μητρός)?

Cho. 88 – 90: πῶς εὔφρον’ εἴπω; πῶς κατεύξωμαι πατρί;

πότερα λέγουσα παρὰ φίλης φίλωι φέρειν
γυναικὸς ἀνδρί, τῆς ἐμῆς μητρὸς πάρα;
In the following lines, Electra emphasizes her doubts. After her hesitation to
refer to Clytemnestra as the beloved wife of Agamemnon (or as her mother),
she is admittedly at a loss for words:¹⁷⁴
Cho. 91– 92: τῶνδ’ οὐ πάρεστι θάρσος, οὐδ’ ἔχω τί φῶ

χέουσα τόνδε πελανὸν ἐν τύμβωι πατρός
Later, she asks again what words she has to utter; finally, almost in a crescendo,
she asks whether it is better for her to remain silent on her father’s tomb, or not:
Cho. 93 – 97: ἢ τοῦτο φάσκω τοὖπος, ὡς νόμος βροτοῖς,

ἴσ’ ἀντιδοῦναι τοῖσι πέμπουσιν τάδε
στέφη, δόσιν γε τῶν κακῶν ἐπαξίαν;
ἢ σῖγ’ ἀτίμως, ὥσπερ οὖν ἀπώλετο
πατήρ, τάδ’ ἐκχέασα …
As in lines 91– 97, also in line 118, Electra admits that she does not know what to
say on the tomb of her father and asks the chorus for help:
τί φῶ; δίδασκ’ ἄπειρον ἐξηγουμένη
Once again, Electra states her doubts. In line 122, she asks the chorus if her de-
sire for revenge is blasphemous:
καὶ ταῦτά μοὐστὶν εὐσεβῆ θεῶν πάρα;
Now, let us go back to passage 88 – 90. Like Electra, who uses the expression ‘τῆς
ἐμῆς μητρός’ in line 90, Orestes too, in the course of the play, refers to Clytem-
nestra as his mother:
 Garvie prints lines 90 – 91 after line 97, according to Diggle. I follow the line-order in M. On
Electra’s uncertainty at the beginning of Choephoroi, cf. Tarkow (1979: 16 – 19). According to
Tarkow, the depiction of Electra as a character unable to talk and act is modeled on the
character of Menelaus in Agamemnon: Menelaus too is portrayed as relying on others ‘to solve
his affairs’ (he is full of despair at the loss of Helen, but he does not do anything on his own to
win her back: he does not sacrifice Iphigeneia; he is not involved in the total destruction of
Troy). Regardless of whether this interpretation might be right or not, I argue that Electra’s
uncertainty is deeply involved with her reluctance to suppress Clytemnestra’s motherhood.

112 Choephoroi
Cho. 899: … μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ κτανεῖν;
It is exactly when he uses the word μήτηρ that Orestes interrupts his violent ac-
tion against Clytemnestra, and asks his friend Pylades what he is supposed to
do:¹⁷⁵
Cho. 899: Πυλάδη, τί δράσω;
Clearly enough, when it comes to the act of matricide, Orestes is at a loss for
words, and needs his friend’s help: his rhetoric of representation of his mother
as an echthros is not enough, at the crucial moment of the confrontation with
Clytemnestra, to kill her straight away. Why do we need Pylades? What does
he add to the plot? Pylades opposes a point of certainty, descending from the
force of divine words, to Orestes’ moment of doubt and hesitation:
Cho. 900 – 902: ποῦ δαὶ τὸ λοιπὸν Λοξίου μαντεύματα

τὰ πυθόχρηστα, πιστά τ’ εὐορκώματα;
ἅπαντας ἐχθροὺς τῶν θεῶν ἡγοῦ πλέον
When the murder of the mother seems to fail on the human level (son against
mother), Pylades employs a new hierarchy: gods are above humans, therefore
humans have to obey gods, therefore Orestes has to kill his own mother. Read
this way, the solution of Orestes’ struggle and of the suffering of the Atreid family
comes from the gods. That is why Orestes’ reluctance to kill his own mother ap-
pears to be a reference to the very first line of the trilogy (Ag. 1: θεοὺς μὲν αἰτῶ
τῶνδ’ ἀπαλλαγὴν πόνων), as well as to the dramatic situation of Eumenides,
where Orestes will be acquitted with the help of Athena. However, on a closer
reading, Pylades himself does not speak of Clytemnestra as mother of Orestes.
Rather, he only discusses the son-mother relationship in terms of power rela-
tions: to kill Clytemnestra means to obey the gods, and therefore to respect
the hierarchy divine/human, whereas not to kill her means to disobey their or-
ders. The silence of Pylades on Clytemnestra’s motherhood introduces again
the idea that Orestes cannot kill Clytemnestra as his mother. Once more, the vio-
lence of matricide seems to consist precisely in this repeated attempt (by Py-
lades, the chorus, Orestes and Electra) to suppress a fact that cannot be sup-
 In this context, it is important to note that Orestes talks about his violent deed in terms of
matricide only in this line, when he faces his mother; cf. Vogt (1994: 102); Seidensticker (2009:
229), with further bibliography on n. 75.

pressed, namely that an inviolable aidos exists between Orestes as son and Cly-
temnestra as mother whose breast fed him:
Clytemnestra – Cho. 896 – 897: … τόνδε δ’ αἴδεσαι, τέκνον,

μαστόν …
Orestes – Cho. 899: … μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ κτανεῖν;
From this perspective, Orestes’ hesitation to commit matricide and Pylades’ en-
couragement to obey the gods and kill his mother both seem to anticipate the
outcome of the votes for or against Orestes in Eumenides and his acquittal in
dubio pro reo. In this interpretation, Orestes’ question ‘μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ
κτανεῖν;’ threatens the authority of his discourse on Clytemnestra as a mother
non-mother and as a bad wife.
In the next section, I discuss Clytemnestra’s characterisation as a mother-
tropheus.
2 Clytemnestra as mother-tropheus
As we have seen (ch. 2, I. 1), according to the speech of the wet nurse, Clytem-
nestra cannot be considered a mother, as she did not feed or take care of her
baby Orestes. However, the nurse’s case demonstrates that any woman is able
to assume the duties of breast-feeding and mothering. It does not prove that
every woman who takes care of a baby can also replace the biological mother:
obviously, that role cannot be exchanged. It does not prove that Clytemnestra
has not breastfed her baby either. Thus, as Garvie has argued (ad loc.), there
is no reason to suppose that Clytemnestra is not telling the truth, when she
claims to have nurtured Orestes (Cho. 896 – 898). Moreover, the wet nurse contra-
dicts herself on the reasons why she had to take care of the baby all by herself.
Here, we should consider various points. First, it is not clear if Clytemnestra ac-
tually gives custody of Orestes to the wet nurse, relinquishing her duties as moth-
er. In line 750, the nurse says she took Orestes from his mother (μητρόθεν δεδεγ-
μένη); in line 762, she reveals that she received the child Orestes from his father
(Ὀρέστην ἐξεδεξάμην πατρί).¹⁷⁶ Now, the expression ‘μητρόθεν’ or ‘from the
 I read ἐξεδεξάμην as in the paradosis instead of Portus’ correction ἐξεθρεψάμην and I
understand πατρί as a dative of person ‘from whom’. This use of dative is well attested in Homer
and in classical Greek (cf. Tucker, Verrall, Untersteiner ad loc.). Blass (ad loc.) defends
ἐξεθρεψάμην: ‘indes der Gegensatz 763 τεθνηκότος fordert doch das ἐκτρέφειν vorher’. Ho-
wever, his explanation is questionable.

114 Choephoroi
mother’ (Cho. 750) seems to suggest that Orestes had been living with his mother,
or even that Clytemnestra, through the nurse, had found a way of providing food
for her child.¹⁷⁷ Second, if we follow the scholiast on line 762, it is unclear why
Agamemnon gave Orestes to the nurse. Did he want to protect him from his ter-
rible mother, or to save him from the danger of a possible political turmoil in
Argos (cf. Ag. 449–456, 805–809, 874– 879, 938)? The Greek is full of uncertain-
ties. The dative πατρί, unlike the genitive πατρός that we would expect after ἐξε-
δεξάμην, implies the idea that ‘the child was received for as well as from the fa-
ther, as the father’s trust’ (Verrall ad loc.).
As in the case of the nurse’s speech, also the scene of Clytemnestra’s dream
invites us to question Orestes’ representation of Clytemnestra as a mother non-
tropheus. Lines 545 – 546 are particularly striking:
καὶ μαστὸν ἀμφέχασκ’ ἐμὸν θρεπτήριον

θρόμβωι τ’ ἔμειξεν αἵματος φίλον γάλα
As we will see, when Orestes uses the words φίλον and γάλα in relation to the
image of blood in the maternal milk, he projects the image of a mother non-tro-
pheus on Clytemnestra (cf. ch. 2, IV. 2), denying that breast-feeding presupposes
a relation of philia between mother and child. However, Orestes’ words decon-
struct their own categories. When the matricidal son speaks about the alimentary
dependence of the son on his mother, he seems to anticipate Clytemnestra’s
words in Cho. 896 – 898:
ἐπίσχες, ὦ παῖ, τόνδε δ’ αἴδεσαι, τέκνον,

μαστόν, πρὸς ὧι σὺ πολλὰ δὴ βρίζων ἅμα
οὔλοισιν ἐξήμελξας εὐτραφὲς γάλα
On a closer reading, the expression ‘φίλον γάλα’ picks up the expression ‘εὐτρα-
φὲς γάλα’, whereas the adjective θρεπτήριον refers to εὐτραφές and the adjective
φίλον to the verb αἴδεσαι. As Orestes talks about Clytemnestra’s maternal breast,
like his mother, he is also unable to deny that it feeds the baby and unites moth-
er and child in a bond of philia. Thus, his attempts to suppress Clytemnestra’s
biological motherhood and to define his father as the sole condition of life
and power, which we have seen at work in his rhetoric of appropriation of the
words φίλος, πόνος and τρέφειν, are not successful in re-defining the relation
 According to this interpretation, I differ from Segal (1985: 18): ‘the Nurse’s lament at the
loss of one whom she “nurtured, receiving from his mother” (Cho. 750) … it does remind us again
of the mother’s rejection of the child she bore and of the destruction of the closest bonds of
blood in this family’.

between mother and child as a relation between two enemies. Therefore, to Gold-
hill’s question (LSN: 180) – ‘is it possible not to declare the mother-son relation
φίλος τε αἰδοῖός τε?’ – I am inclined to give a negative answer. As Orestes affirms,
when the recognition between his sister Electra and him takes place, Clytemnes-
tra is φιλτάτη:
Cho. 234: τοὺς φιλτάτους γὰρ οἶδα νῶιν ὄντας πικρούς
There is more to say about Clytemnestra’s representation as a mother-tropheus.

From the very start of Choephoroi, it is clear to Orestes that Clytemnestra
could actually murder Agamemnon, while remaining a mother-philos and tro-
pheus of her children:
Cho. 6 – 7: < > πλόκαμον Ἰνάχωι θρεπτήριον,

τὸν δεύτερον δὲ τόνδε πενθητήριον
As Lebeck (1971: 97) has observed ‘The contrast of θρεπτήριον with πενθητήριον,
made striking by similarity in sound and position in the line, suggests the con-
flict which faces Orestes, a conflict which the commos explores: the rite of
mourning due his father, the debt of nurture owed his mother’. Line 321 of the
kommos supports Lebeck’s remarks:¹⁷⁸
κέκληνται γόος εὐκλεὴς
When Orestes, Electra and the chorus gather around the king’s grave in order to
perform the kommos, and beg Agamemnon and the chthonic gods to help them
avenge him, Orestes is able only to intone a γόος εὐκλεής, i. e. a cry of future
glory. It is the chorus that asks Orestes a γόος ἔνδικος (Cho. 330), i. e. a cry of
mourning that conforms to justice.¹⁷⁹ Again, it seems reasonable to explain
Orestes’ impasse with his resistance to put into words the sense of his impending
violence against Clytemnestra, on the one hand, and with his reluctance to iden-
tify himself as a matricidal son, on the other. It is not by chance, then, that the
chorus will keep silent about Clytemnestra’s motherhood in its reply to Orestes:
Cho. 386 – 389: ἐφυμνῆσαι γένοιτό μοι πευ-

κάεντ’ ὀλολυγμὸν ἀνδρὸς
θεινομένου γυναικός
τ’ ὀλλυμένας …
 I am following here Snearowski (1990: 50 – 59).

 On the expression ‘γόος ἔνδικος’, cf. Lesky (1943: 39).

116 Choephoroi
The exhortation to matricide may succeed only if the very cause of Orestes’ con-
flict is removed – namely, the maternal bond between Clytemnestra and her
son.¹⁸⁰ In fact, we see that a) the suppression of Clytemnestra’s maternal
power to give and to nurture life, and b) her consequent characterisation as a
wife (γυναικός), enemy of her husband (ἀνδρός), and murderess of him (θεινο-
μένου), are two key-elements in the chorus’ search for a discourse that would
justify matricide.
However, through the voice of the chorus, the text describes a movement
from a moment of acceptance (justification of matricide as the necessary killing
of a bad wife) to a moment of doubt and hesitation. Indeed, given that the cap-
tive women never speak of Clytemnestra in her role as mother, how is it possible
for them to speak of matricide as a legitimate action?¹⁸¹ This is a crucial moment
in the chorus’ representation of matricide as a necessary deed, and in its dis-
course of exclusion and separation of Clytemnestra’s role as mother from her
role as wife. Let us look at passage 306 – 313 at the beginning of the kommos.
Here, the chorus defines matricide as a fulfilment of Zeus’ plans:
Cho. 306 – 308: ἀλλ’ ὦ μεγάλαι Μοῖραι, Διόθεν

τῆιδε τελευτᾶν,
ἧι τὸ δίκαιον μεταβαίνει
Moreover, it claims that according to the lex talionis:

1) hostile words call for hostile words in response:
Cho. 309 – 310: ἀντὶ μὲν ἐχθρᾶς γλώσσης ἐχθρὰ

γλῶσσα τελείσθω …
2) the one who kills has to be killed:
Cho. 312– 313: ἀντὶ δὲ πληγῆς φονίας φονίαν

πληγὴν τινέτω …
 Cf. also passage 827– 837. The chorus denies Clytemnestra’s motherhood as it exhorts
Orestes to see himself as the son of his father (Cho. 829: “τέκνον”, “ἔργωι πατρός” αὔδα) and to
compare his matricidal experience to Perseus’ killing of the Gorgon (Cho. 831– 833: Περσέως δ’
ἐν φρεσὶν/καρδίαν < > σχεθὼν/τοῖς θ’ ὑπὸ χθονὸς φίλοις). For a similar discussion of line 829,
cf. Neuburg (1991: 58 – 59 n. 26). On Orestes repeating the experience of Perseus, cf. Roux (1974:
79); Petrounias (1976: 166 – 167); Sider (1978: 23 – 24); Zeitlin (1978: 158 – 159); Rabinowitz (1981:
176 – 177); Loraux (1986: 90 – 92); O’Neill (1998: 222); Bacon (2001: 55 – 56). On line 829, cf. also
Rabel (1980) and Vogt (1994: 102).
 Cf. Eum. 154 where the Furies ask how matricide and the defence of the matricidal son
could be defined as just acts: τί τῶνδ’ ἐρεῖ τις δικαίως ἔχειν;

Yet, as a matter of fact, the hostile words of the chorus, namely its discourse on
Clytemnestra as a murderous wife, and its representation of matricide as a nec-
essary act do not succeed in denying her motherhood, and in justifying matri-
cide. As we know from his very words, Orestes is tied to his mother by an invio-
lable bond of aidos (Cho. 899: μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ κτανεῖν;).¹⁸² So the attempt to turn
Clytemnestra into a mother non-tropheus is not successful and the same can be
said for the attempt to turn her into a mother non-tokeus. I turn to this point in
the next section.
3 Clytemnestra as mother-tokeus
As we have seen, when Orestes uses the verb τίκτειν in Cho. 913 (τεκοῦσα γάρ μ’
ἔρριψας ἐς τὸ δυστυχές), he is reproaching Clytemnestra for being a bad mother,
or a mother non-mother (cf. p. 99). However, according to her, Orestes has not
been sold off. He was sent to Strophius, a friend of the Atreid family, for fear
of political turmoils in Argos (Ag. 874– 879).¹⁸³ Interestingly enough, like Clytem-
nestra, also the Argive elders and Agamemnon mention this danger (Ag. 449 –
456, 805 – 809, 938). Moreover, when Orestes himself mentions the name of Stro-
phius (Cho. 679), he seems to confirm the account of the events of his childhood
that had been given by Clytemnestra in the Agamemnon (Ag. 877 ff.).¹⁸⁴
Lines 983 – 989 too seem to pinpoint the failure of Orestes to undermine Cly-
temnestra’s power to give life. Orestes speaks this passage in the context of the
speech he delivers on the corpses of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. He hopes that
one day the sun will witness the justice of his matricide:
ἐκτείνατ’ αὐτὸ καὶ κύκλωι παρασταδὸν

στέγαστρον ἀνδρὸς δείξαθ’, ὡς ἴδηι πατήρ,
οὐχ οὑμός, ἀλλ’ ὁ πάντ’ ἐποπτεύων τάδε
Ἥλιος, ἄναγνα μητρὸς ἔργα τῆς ἐμῆς,
ὡς ἂν παρῆι μοι μάρτυς ἐν δίκηι ποτὲ
 On γλῶσσα as referring to a discourse of exclusion and separation of Clytemnestra’s status

as wife from her status as mother, cf. p. 48. On the inviolable bond of aidos between mother and
child, cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983: 141): ‘Orestes is to act within a society for which the parent is
a supreme object of aidos’.
 Cf. the similar situation for Telemachus in Ithaca (Od. 16, 418 – 447).
 Cf. Pontani (2007: 207– 208): ‘the name of Orestes’ host … represents not only one of the
threads connecting the second play of the trilogy to the first, but also the only ἐμφανὲς τέκμαρ
(Cho. 667) to Orestes’ entire tale’. Similarly, cf. Mejer (1979: 118).

118 Choephoroi
ὡς τόνδ’ ἐγὼ μετῆλθον ἐνδίκως φόνον

τὸν μητρός …
Yet, as Goldhill (LSN: 248) has similarly pointed out, Orestes does not deny Cly-
temnestra’s maternal power of reproduction, or her role as mother. As we know,
it is Apollo who denies it. In this respect, some questions arise. How does the
matricidal son appropriate the words μήτηρ and ἐνδίκως in Cho. 988 – 989? Do
we have to maintain that here, with the word μήτηρ, Orestes is referring to Cly-
temnestra as his mother non-mother, and as an adulterous wife, as he clearly
does in line 986 (ἄναγνα μητρὸς ἔργα)? Or should we rather assume that he is
talking about Clytemnestra as the murderess of her husband, and as his moth-
er-philos and tokeus at the same time? Furthermore, given this possible shift in
Orestes’ use of the word μήτηρ, how are we supposed to understand his defini-
tion of matricide as an act of dike (ἐνδίκως φόνον τὸν μητρός)? Does matricide
simply represent the killing of a bad wife, as in Apollo’s discourse in Eumenides,
or is it rather the killing of a mother giving life, as the Furies maintain? The dif-
ficulty to establish a fixed meaning for μήτηρ in line 989 reflects the reluctance
on the part of Orestes to murder his own mother in Cho. 899 (Πυλάδη, τί δράσω;
μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ κτανεῖν;), putting into crisis his representation of Clytemnestra
as a bad mother and an adulterous wife.
This reading of passage 983 – 989 fits to passage 197– 201 as well, which we
have already read as an attempt to deny consanguinity with the mother (cf.
pp. 103–104):
… εὖ σάφ’ ἤινει τόνδ’ ἀποπτύσαι πλόκον

εἴπερ γ’ ἀπ’ ἐχθροῦ κρατὸς ἦν τετμημένος,
ἢ ξυγγενὴς ὢν εἶχε συμπενθεῖν ἐμοί,
ἄγαλμα τύμβου τοῦδε καὶ τιμὴν πατρός.
ἀλλ’ εἰδότας μὲν τοὺς θεοὺς καλούμεθα
Here, Electra relies on the gods to decide about the children’s consanguinity with
their mother, and about the characterisation of the mother figure as an ech-
thros. ¹⁸⁵ This reference to the necessity of a divine ruling on the mother’s func-
tion in kinship relations foreshadows the coming controversy between the Fur-
 According to Garvie (ad loc.), with line 201 ‘the speech begins again … with the finding of
the new evidence’. Therefore, it can be objected that Electra is not referring to the gods as the
ones who know whether consanguinity exists between the mother and her children. However, in
passage 201– 204 Electra is not providing any new evidence, but lamenting instead the mise-
rable fate of her family. In this sense, it can plausibly be argued that Electra in line 201 relies on
the gods for the decision on maternal consanguinity.

ies, Apollo and Athena. It also shows that Electra, as a daughter, is unable to af-
firm or to deny her consanguinity with Clytemnestra, and therefore to speak
plausibly of her mother as an echthros. As Goldhill (LSN: 124) has aptly observed:
‘the opposition συγγενής/ἐχθρός is not sufficient to answer Electra’s incertitu-
de – it cannot, as suggested, εὖ σάφ’ ἤινει (197)’. The suspicion arises that killing
Clytemnestra might in fact imply, as the chorus claims, to break the biological
bond of consanguinity between mother and child (Cho. 1038: φεύγων τόδ’
αἷμα κοινόν) and to incur into a miasma (Cho. 1017: ἄζηλα νίκης τῆσδ’ ἔχων μι-
άσματα). It is worth commenting that the Greek in verse 1038 expresses a relation
of consanguinity between mother and child: the controversy on Orestes’ acquit-
tal will be primarily about the bond of blood between mother and child (cf. sec-
tion 3 in the chapter on Eumenides). Hence, I have the impression that Wilgaux
(2006: 342; 2011: 221– 222), in his important papers on social and natural kinship
in ancient Greece, has forgotten Orestes’ trouble, when he writes that terms re-
ferring to maternal blood are extremely rare in Greek.
There is even more to say about the play’s denial of the maternal bond that
ties up Clytemnestra with her children. Some remarks on Electra’s rhetoric of ap-
propriation of the verb τίκτειν in line 419 of the kommos point out the difficulty
to deny the maternal role of Clytemnestra:
πάθομεν ἄχεα πρός γε τῶν τεκομένων;
According to Italie, when Electra uses the verb τίκτειν, Clytemnestra is represent-
ed in her function as mother giving life.¹⁸⁶ The distinction between echthros (the
mother non-tropheus and non-tokeus) and philos (the father tropheus and tokeus)
is not enough, then, to eliminate the assimilation of the reproductive agency of
mother and father from the text. In Greek this assimilation is expressed by the
plural τῶν τεκομένων – probably something more than a polished replacement
of the colloquial genitive singular τῆς τεκούσης, and not just a periphrasis for
Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.¹⁸⁷
Again, in the kommos, the chorus’ rhetoric of appropriation of the verb τίκ-
τειν in line 329 – 330 confronts us with the same impasse:
 Cf. Italie who quotes this line for τίκτειν in the meaning of ‘gignere de matre’. The verb
τεκομένων has to refer to Clytemnestra also because in line 422 Electra talks about Clytemnestra
as her mother. On this point, cf. Freyman (1976: 66 with n. 3). For τίκτειν here as referring to
Clytemnestra, cf. also Föllinger (2007: 20).
 For these readings, cf. Lesky (1943: 87); Young (1971: 308); Amigues (1982: 33).

120 Choephoroi
πατέρων δὲ καὶ τεκόντων

γόος …
According to Goldhill (LSN: 142), the genitives πατέρων and τεκόντων, depend-
ent on γόος in line 330, may refer to ‘the possible separation of “biological” and
“social” definitions of paternity’. This is hard to deny, since in Greek the word
πατήρ defines the social and religious functions of a man with children. Howev-
er, I think that these lines are open to an alternative interpretation. The genitive
πατέρων, in juxtaposition to τεκόντων, seems to define motherhood and father-
hood respectively on the basis of male and female reproductive power, and thus
to assimilate the mother and the father in their respective role as genetic parent.
It is important to maintain that here τεκόντων has to refer also to Clytemnestra’s
motherhood. Indeed, the verb τίκτειν occurs repeatedly in the Oresteia in refer-
ence to Clytemnestra, since this verb is used primarily for the mother.¹⁸⁸ Again,
the attempt to deny Clytemnestra’s maternal role through the dichotomy of philos
(father-tropheus and tokeus) vs. echthros (mother non-tropheus and non-tokeus)
does not seem to function. Rather, the boundary between motherhood and fa-
therhood seems to be thin and faint.
The conclusions we have drawn for line 329 hold true for line 385 of the kom-
mos as well. In this case, Orestes uses the dative plural τοκεῦσι in order to refer
to both mother and father:¹⁸⁹
… τοκεῦσι δ’ ὅμως τελεῖται
Orestes’ language, as in the case of the chorus, is unable to suppress easily the
motherhood of Clytemnestra.
The assimilation of the mother’s and of the father’s reproductive agency, im-
plied in ‘πατέρων δὲ καὶ τεκόντων’ (Cho. 329) and ‘τοκεῦσι’ (Cho. 385) returns at
lines 681– 682, with the expression ‘πρὸς τοὺς τεκόντας’:
πρὸς τοὺς τεκόντας πανδίκως μεμνημένος

τεθνεῶτ’ Ὀρέστην εἰπέ …
 Cf. Chantraine (1947: 245 – 246). As in the Oresteia, also in Pindar’s odes the verb τίκτειν is
referred primarly of the mother; cf. Segal (1986: 177 with n. 24). For τίκτειν here as referring to
mother and father, cf. Italie who quotes τεκόντων in the meaning of ‘parentes’.
 For τοκεῦσι as referring also to Clytemnestra’s motherhood, cf. Lebeck (1971: 118). Accor-
dingly, I differ from Lesky (1943: 67) and Schadewaldt (1970: 264 n. 52) who refers it only to
Agamemnon. Italie does not quote this line.

Orestes speaks these lines to Clytemnestra, while, under the guise of a stranger
from Daulis, he affirms he has been told to report the news of Orestes’ death to
his parents. Coming from Orestes, the occurance of the verb τίκτειν (τοὺς τεκόν-
τας) refers to both Agamemnon and Clytemnestra and sounds like a reminder of
the atrocity of his impending matricide.¹⁹⁰ This may become clearer by consider-
ing that πανδίκως, in strict relation to τοὺς τεκόντας, foreshadows the dramatic
situation of Eumenides: here, the definition of kinship’s relations through mar-
riage, and the negation of consanguinity between mother and child become
the object of a judicial controversy between the Furies, Orestes, Apollo and Athe-
na.
As for Orestes, also for Electra Clytemnestra is a mother-tokeus. Interestingly
enough, Electra, like Clytemnestra in Agamemnon (Ag. 1417– 1418: ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ
παῖδα, φιλτάτην ἐμοί/ὠδῖν’), uses the word ὠδίς to express her mother’s power
to give life:¹⁹¹
Cho. 211: πάρεστι δ’ ὠδὶς καὶ φρενῶν καταφθορά
Electra speaks this line on Agamemnon’s tomb, in the context of the speech she
delivers after having found a ringlet: she represents Clytemnestra as a mater
monstruosa and asks herself whether the ringlet belongs to Orestes or not. Yet,
as her representation of Clytemnestra as a mother giving life (ὠδίς) shows, Elec-
tra’s rhetoric does not have the power to deny Clytemnestra’s motherhood entire-
ly. This might explain why in the kommos, when she begs paternal help to get her
revenge, she speaks of Clytemnestra as an enemy, not as her mother:
Cho. 142– 143: ἡμῖν μὲν εὐχὰς τάσδε, τοῖς δ’ ἐναντίοις

λέγω φανῆναι σοῦ, πάτερ, τιμάορον
The reluctance of Electra is emphasised in the text through the juxtaposition of

the words μητρός in lines 140 – 141 (αὐτῆι τέ μοι δὸς σωφρονεστέραν πολὺ/
μητρὸς γενέσθαι) and ἐναντίοις in lines 142– 143 (τοῖς δ’ ἐναντίοις/λέγω φανῆναι
σοῦ, πάτερ). Electra uses the word μήτηρ in order to normalise the role of Cly-
temnestra as a mother, implying that she is supposed to be the faithful spouse
of her husband and nothing more.¹⁹² Yet, as we have seen in Cho. 88 – 90 (cf. pp.
110 – 111), she is not able to use the word μήτηρ to name her mother as the object
of her revenge. When it comes to the killing of her mother, Electra keeps signifi-
 Cf. Italie who quotes this line for τίκτειν in the meaning of ‘parentes’.
 On ὠδίς as a hint to Clytemnestra’s motherhood, cf. Lebeck (1971: 109).
 For σώφρων in the meaning of castus here, cf. Italie. For σώφρων as referring to female
sexuality, cf. Goldhill (LSN: 117); Carson (1990: 142– 143).

122 Choephoroi
cantly silent about Clytemnestra’s motherhood. Her silence corresponds to the

repetition of the word πατήρ to refer to Agamemnon:
Cho. 139: κατεύχομαί σοι, καὶ σὺ κλῦθί μου, πάτερ

Cho. 143: λέγω φανῆναι σοῦ, πάτερ, τιμάορον
It is particularly relevant to notice that Electra’s use of the word πατήρ in lines
139 and 143 is closely related to her demand to be more σώφρων than her mother
in lines 140–141. Given that for Electra being σώφρων depends on her father,
with the word πατήρ she seems to consider Agamemnon the administrator of
her sexuality. However, there is more to say about Electra’s use of the word
σώφρων in the expression ‘σωφρονεστέραν μητρός’, and about its reference to
female sexuality. I face this issue in the next section.
4 Maternal sophronein
In lines 140–141, as we have seen, Electra makes a wish to be more σώφρων than
her mother is, i. e. to be more ‘of sound mind, shameful’ (LSJ) than Clytemnestra.
What can we plausibly say about Electra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the adjec-
tive σωφρονεστέραν? In the first place, we see that Electra’s questions about her
mother’s state of mind are clearly related to Clytemnestra’s deviant sexuality: it
is exactly because Clytemnestra is an adulterous wife that she might not be
σώφρων. In fact, Electra’s construction of her mother as a paradigmatic instance
of the female as not σώφρων presupposes a normative discourse on female sex-
uality: since she has no shame, she is not reasonable. Now, a comparison be-
tween Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the verb σωφρονεῖν in Aga-
memnon and Electra’s appropriation of the adjective σώφρων points to a shift
in the use of these words. According to Clytemnestra, a mother is endorsed
with σωφρονεῖν, since she gives life to her child. Therefore, for Clytemnestra,
the female mind is bound together with female reproductive agency (cf. ch. 1,
I. 5). On the contrary, Electra’s discourse does not link the female mind and fe-
male reproductive agency together, and, what is more, it criticises her mother’s
state of mind because of her deviant sexual behaviour. This is an important
point. Electra’s discourse on her mother’s state of mind paves the way to the Eu-
menides’ discourse on fatherhood and paternal authority. As we will see in the
chapter on Eumenides, in the last play of the trilogy the father figure is conceived

as the origin of life and rationality, given that the mother is understood as an
irrational being that plays no role in the reproduction of children.¹⁹³
However, it is remarkable that Electra uses the expression ‘σωφρονεστέραν
μητρός’ as she is praying, looking for help in avenging her father’s death. In this
context, her wish to be more σώφρων (i. e. of sound mind, shameful) than her
mother, obviously, cannot be fulfilled.¹⁹⁴ Her failed achievement is indicative:
it demonstrates how difficult it is to define a coherent discourse, capable of jus-
tifying matricide.
The line of interpretation I am following for passage 140 – 143 can be applied
to line 88 as well (cf. pp. 110–111),
πῶς εὔφρον’ εἴπω; πῶς κατεύξωμαι πατρί;
Here, Electra is searching for reasonable words that might help her to win sup-
port from her father in the revenge on Clytemnestra. Nonetheless, her quest is
doomed to fail: as a daughter desiring the death of her mother, Electra cannot
act and speak in a reasonable way. In fact, Electra’s language in these lines prob-
lematises her representation as mourning daughter for her father. Surely, Elec-
tra’s funeral rites are not corrupt (unlike the rites performed by Clytemnestra).
However, the similarities between Clytemnestra and the mourning Electra (she
is as unreasonable as Clytemnestra is), shed a negative light on the supposed le-
gitimacy of the rites she is accomplishing for her dead father.¹⁹⁵ Therefore, we
end up with two reading options: either Electra is non-εὔφρων like her mother,
or, when she uses the word εὔφρων, she is simply constructing a negative dis-
course on Clytemnestra’s state of mind. I am inclined towards the second possi-
bility. The absence of Agamemnon from the stage supports this choice. Electra
uses words to construct a negative characterisation of Clytemnestra, and to
deny the reliability of her female mind. Yet, she does not have any words that
might make Agamemnon appear again, legitimatising her discourse of revenge.
 Electra’s discourse on Clytemnestra and her maternal mind echoes the Homeric paradigm
of female mind. The Homeric epos, as we know, does not envisage the adjective σώφρων.
However, as Zeitlin has shown in her brilliant paper ‘Figuring fidelity in Homer’s Odyssey’ (p. 44,
n. 56), Penelope embodies the prototype of fidelity precisely because she is ἐχέφρων, that is to
say able to keep a good mind, a good sense (e. g., Od. 24, 196 – 198).
 Similarly, cf. Lebeck (1971: 103): ‘on the lips of Electra … the traditional pity … of this prayer
is sacrilege’; Rademaker (2005: 112): ‘Clytemnestra also lacked σωφροσύνη in that sense, be-
cause she insisted on revenge for Iphigenia. And Electra herself is as unprepared to accept this
type of σωφροσύνη as were Agamemnon and Clytemnestra’.
 For, I differ from Hame (2004) who sees in Electra’s mourning a clear evidence of the health
of the Atreid household, when it was run by Agamemnon.

124 Choephoroi
Despite Orestes’ statement towards the end of the kommos – about Agamemnon
not being dead, even if he is a dead person (Cho. 504: οὕτω γὰρ οὐ τέθνηκας
οὐδέ περ θανών) – as a matter of fact the king is and remains dead, and as
such he is not able to help his daughter to kill her mother. Surely, we could object
that putting Electra’s and Clytemnestra’s mind and their use of language on the
same level is misleading. Electra is struggling for a proper use of language (in
fact, she asks how she could pronounce reasonable words); in Agamemnon, Cly-
temnestra admits that she has spoken shamefully:¹⁹⁶
Ag. 855 – 857: ἄνδρες πολῖται, πρέσβος Ἀργείων τόδε,

οὐκ αἰσχυνοῦμαι τοὺς φιλάνορας τρόπους
λέξαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς …
Ag. 1372– 1373: πολλῶν πάροιθεν καιρίως εἰρημένων
τἀναντί’ εἰπεῖν οὐκ ἐπαισχυνθήσομαι
We have to consider two points here. First, even though Clytemnestra admits that
her way of speech is transgressive, her rhetoric of explanation for the killing of
Agamemnon still has a certain legitimacy, as I argue in the first chapter. Second,
it is precisely the struggle of Electra for a proper use of words that can be inter-
preted as a sign of weakness in her discursive suppression of the motherhood of
Clytemnestra. In this sense, her language destabilizes the legitimation of matri-
cide, as well as the definition of Agamemnon as father and subject of power.
Orestes struggles for a proper use of words too, when, at the beginning of the
kommos, he asks himself which words he is supposed to utter to refer to his fa-
ther:¹⁹⁷
Cho. 315 – 318: ὦ πάτερ αἰνόπατερ, τί σοι

φάμενος ἢ τί ῥέξας
τύχοιμ’ ἄγκαθεν οὐρίσας
ἔνθα σ’ ἔχουσιν εὐναί;
Yet, despite his search for a proper language, and the request for paternal sup-
port, Agamemnon will not help his son to plot against the bad mother Clytem-
nestra: he is and remains dead.¹⁹⁸ Again, the absence of Agamemnon from the
 On lines 855 – 857 as paradigmatic for Clytemnestra’s bilingualism and transgression of
correct linguistic behaviour for women, cf. McClure (1999: 77– 78).
 The expression ‘πάτερ αἰνόπατερ’ seems to recall by contrast the Homeric expression
‘μῆτερ δύσμητερ’ in Od. 23, 97.
 The same can be said for Orestes’ certainty in Eumenides that his father will help him
during the trial (Eum. 598, 647– 648). For Orestes asking the help of his father, cf. also Cho. 489:

stage performs something that is hardly accomplished with words, namely the
definition of an authoritative discourse both about Clytemnestra as a mother
not giving life, and about Agamemnon as father and subject of power in the fam-
ily and in society.
In the next section, I discuss Clytemnestra’s reaction to the news of Orestes’
death, exploring further her characterisation as a mother-philos of her child.
5 Clytemnestra as mother-philos and the death of her son
The third episode, as we have seen (cf. ch. 2, II. 2), attests the biological estrange-
ment between Clytemnestra and Orestes: when he deceptively announces his
own death, Orestes takes for granted that the father figure is the only genetic pa-
rent of children. Furthermore, if we consider true the nurse’s assertions about
Clytemnestra being actually pleased for Orestes’ death (Cho. 737– 740), we
have to suppose that Clytemnestra is lying, when she expresses her grief at
the death of her son (Cho. 691– 699). In fact, unlike the case of the nurse, who
really loved Orestes, in the case of Clytemnestra we might detect that she dis-
turbingly pretends her maternal feeling. From this point of view, the text of Choe-
phoroi seems very easy to read. The nurse tells the truth; Clytemnestra lies. As
Pontani (2007: 208 – 209 with n. 17) has similarly observed:
– Clytemnestra is not a mother;
– Orestes does not commit matricide, rather he kills an adulterous wife, mur-
deress of her own husband, the king of Argos;
– if we see matricide as the killing of an adulterous wife and a mother, we are
stating a complexity in Choephoroi that the Aeschylean text does not display.
There is much to object to this interpretation. As we have seen, according to Elec-

tra’s and Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of words such as τρέφειν, τίκτειν,
σώφρων, εὔφρων and φίλος, Clytemnestra is an adulterous wife and a bad
mother. Yet, Orestes and Electra lose control over these words, giving rise to a
discourse on Clytemnestra as a mother, at least in part, philos. I maintain that
it is important to examine Clytemnestra’s reaction to the news of the death of
her son against the background of her depiction as a mother-philos. As such,
ὦ γαῖ’, ἄνες μοι πατέρ’ ἐποπτεῦσαι μάχην; 495: ἆρ’ ἐξεγείρηι τοῖσδ’ ὀνείδεσιν, πάτερ. Arguing
that Agamemnon in the kommos cannot help Orestes, I differ from Sewell-Rutter (2007: 160):
‘The presence of the father Agamemnon, a presence very strongly felt in this part of the drama
(315 – 18, 332– 5, 434– 7 and passim), helps the young man steel himself for an atrocious deed’.

126 Choephoroi
her despair in reaction to the alleged (but de facto false) report of Orestes’ death
is not surprising:
Cho. 694– 695: τόξοις πρόσωθεν εὐσκόποις χειρουμένη

φίλων ἀποψιλοῖς με τὴν παναθλίαν
According to Michelini, Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word

φίλος in these lines is a sound evidence of her adulterous love for Aegisthus,
and of her fake maternal feelings for Orestes.¹⁹⁹ Quoting Michelini (1979: 156 –
157): ‘She claims to be bereft of “dear ones” (philoi), presumably through the
deaths of two children. But the word philos is awkwardly ambiguous … She sub-
stituted for her proper husband a man who should have been an echthros
(“enemy”), thus estranging her remaining philoi, Agamemnon’s living children.
The potential irony of 695 becomes actual very soon after, when Klytaimestra
contradicts herself, boasting that she will consult Aigisthos on this matter,
since she “has no lack of philoi” (717). The paradox of exchanges and confusions
in love and hate is Klytaimestra’s unresolvable dilemma; it appears at the last in
Orestes’ words (907– 908)’.
I do not agree with these remarks, for two different reasons. First, we have to
distinguish between specific discourses on motherhood in this drama, and take
them equally seriously. Therefore, Orestes’ words in lines 906 – 907 can hardly be
read as a confirmation of Clytemnestra’s hypocrisy in lines 694– 695. According
to Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the word φίλος (cf. ch. 2, II. 1), Clytemnes-
tra is first and foremost a female betrayer of her husband in the first place, and
thus the echthros of the Atreid family and a mater monstruosa. According to her
rhetoric of appropriation of the word φίλος, instead, her adulterous love
(Cho. 717: σπανίζοντες φίλων) does not eliminate her maternal love for her chil-
dren (Cho. 695: φίλων ἀποψιλοῖς με τὴν παναθλίαν). Hence, Clytemnestra does
not dissimulate her love for the wrong man behind her rhetorical love for her
children. Rather, she manipulates the word φίλος by speaking of herself as a
woman and as a mother: when she expresses love for her dead child, she
hides her feelings for Aegisthus (and, therefore, she is deprived of any friends);
when she speaks about her feelings for Aegisthus, she hides her love for her
dead children (therefore, she has friends). So, an explanation for the apparent
 On Clytemnestra’s sincerity, cf. e. g. Dawe (1963: 53 – 54); Lesky (1972: 126); Otis (1981: 76 –
77); Rosenmeyer (1982: 240 – 241); Winnington-Ingram (1946: 59; 1983: 216 – 218); Margon (1983:
297); Garvie (ad loc.); Konishi (1990: 181 n. 69); Käppel (1998: 221); Di Benedetto (1999: 430 n.
122); Untersteiner (ad loc.); Föllinger (2003: 96 – 97). On her hypocrisy, cf. e. g. Bennett Anderson
(1932: 306); Zeitlin (1965: 491; 1978: 157); Conacher (1987: 119 – 120); Pontani (2007: 222).

anomaly of Clytemnestra’s speech in lines 694– 695 does not seem to be found in
the context of her sincerity or hypocrisy. Rather, we should read her reaction by
taking into account Orestes and Clytemnestra’s different rhetoric of appropria-
tion of the word φίλος. Furthermore, the similarities between the chorus’ expres-
sion ‘στερομέναν φίλων’ in Ag. 1429 and Clytemnestra’s expression ‘φίλων ἀπο-
ψιλοῖς με’ in Cho. 695 display the continuity in her representation as an outraged
mother in both Agamemnon and Choephoroi. This should prevent us from seeing
a hint of hypocrisy in her self-depiction as a mater dolorosa. ²⁰⁰ I would go even
further, and say that this alleged hypocrisy is again the result of a critical level
that manipulates Clytemnestra’s maternal pain into an excuse for sex. That said,
there is no point in assuming that the consistency of the text has to be saved,
and that lines 691– 699 have to be spoken by Electra.²⁰¹ Certainly, these lines
would make sense even on the lips of Electra. We can imagine her too, lamenting
the curse of the house, expressing despair and hopelessness to get a revenge on
her evil mother. However, this reading would simplify the text, erasing the tex-
tual evidence for the complex characterisation of Clytemnestra as a mother
and as a wife in the play.
Taking for granted that Clytemnestra is, at least in part, a philos of her son,
Orestes’ revenge, despite Electra’s, the chorus’, and his own rhetoric of the jus-
tice of matricide, does not fulfil dike. Rather, it turns out to be a highly ambig-
uous act (Cho. 931: συμφορὰν διπλῆν), an act of justice out of unjust things
(Cho. 398: δίκαν δ’ ἐξ ἀδίκων ἀπαιτῶ) and a violent accomplishment that oppos-
es dike to dike, Ares to Ares (Cho. 461: Ἄρης Ἄρει ξυμβαλεῖ, Δίκαι Δίκα), causing a
necessity for further retaliations (Cho. 313: δράσαντα παθεῖν).²⁰² Again, the tragic
 Cf. Goldhill (LSN: 168 – 169) who notes that Clytemnestra, enemy of her son, offers ho-
spitality, without knowing it, to Orestes: a xenos, coming from Phocis (Cho. 674, 688 – 690, 700 –
703). Thus, Orestes is forced to enter a relation of xenia, and therefore of philia, with his mother
in order to kill her: ‘yet by the laws of hospitality, Orestes as ξένος places himself in a relation of
φιλία (705, 708) to Clytemnestra … a relation that he will transgress’.
 On this discussion, cf. McDonald (1960).
 On this reading, cf. LSN: 183. Further elements in the text pinpoint the ambiguity of Orestes’
violence against his mother. The chorus stresses the ambivalent character of Orestes’ matricide
as an act of dike and an act against dike when it refers to Clytemnestra’s death with the
oxymoron ἀνεπίμομφον ἄταν (Cho. 830) – on Aeschylean oxymora, cf. Walsh (1984: 65 – 79) and
Seaford (2003). Similarly, as has been often observed, ruptures in the metereological and en-
vironmental equilibrium of nature underline the problematic aspects of Orestes’ violent action
against his mother (nature: Cho. 260, 281, 585–590, 1009; wind: 186, 202, 271 ff., 591– 592; light:
51–53, 536 – 538). On this topic, cf. Peradotto (1964); Dumortier (1975a: 114– 118). In particular on
the wind’s motif, cf. Rousseau (1963: 117, 134); Zeitlin (1965: 499 – 501); Scott (1966); Borthwick
(1976:7); Conacher (1996: 140); for the imagery of light, Fowler (1967: 64– 65) and Petrounias

128 Choephoroi
text re-writes itself, questioning the characters’ discourse on Clytemnestra as a

bad wife and a bad mother. In the next section, I bring further arguments in sup-
port of my thesis.
6 Divine command against the mother and human suffering for the mother
In Cho. 930, at the end of the stichomythia with his mother, the matricidal son
asserts that Clytemnestra killed the one who she ought not to, and therefore
that she has to experience/to suffer a pain that she was not supposed to:
ἔκανες ὃν οὐ χρῆν, καὶ τὸ μὴ χρεὼν πάθε
According to this verse, the necessity of a violent act against Clytemnestra seems
to vanish and Orestes’ yearning for matricide (Cho. 299: ἵμεροι), caused by the
fear that nothing would be worse than disobeying Apollo’s oracle (Cho. 269 –
296), seems like a daring theological deceit. Indeed, given that according to
her matricidal son Clytemnestra has to suffer a pain that she does not deserve,
how shall we understand Orestes’ firm belief that Apollo would guarantee the
fulfilment of the act he ordered?
Cho. 269 – 270: οὔτοι προδώσει Λοξίου μεγασθενὴς

χρησμὸς κελεύων τόνδε κίνδυνον περᾶν
With his assertion that his mother suffers undeservedly, is Orestes perhaps ques-
tioning the validity of the matricide ordered by Apollo?²⁰³
More can be said about Orestes’ casting doubt upon the divine necessity of
matricide. Orestes himself seems to be aware that the necessity of Clytemnestra’s
death does not come from a divine order in the first place. As we can easily guess
from lines 297– 298, he has to trust Apollo, but, at the same time, he has to com-
mit matricide with or without the trust in the divine authority of the oracular re-
sponse of the god:
(1976: 245 – 254). On line 931, cf. Higgins (1978: 31). For a review of metaphors of light in Homer,
tragedy and Platon, cf. Tarrant (1960).
 For a different and interesting analysis of the compelling ambiguity of Apollo’s oracle, cf.
Goward (1999: 66 – 67). On this topic, cf. also Roberts (1984: 70 – 72). On the divine necessity of
Orestes’ matricide, cf. also the chorus in Cho. 790 – 796, 949 – 952 and Eum. 203. On the divine
necessity of Orestes’ matricide, cf. e. g. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (1914: 205); Reinhardt (1949:
112– 119); Fritz (1962: 122 – 129); Schadewaldt (1970: 278 – 284).

τοιοῖσδε χρησμοῖς ἆρα χρὴ πεποιθέναι;

κεἰ μὴ πέποιθα, τοὖργόν ἐστ’ ἐργαστέον
I would like to raise some questions on this point. In line 438 (ἔπειτ’ ἐγὼ
νοσφίσας <σ’> ὀλοίμαν), is it legitimate to say that Orestes’ desire to die, after
having killed his mother, foreshadow the pain felt by the hero after the matricide
(Cho. 1016: ἀλγῶ μὲν ἔργα καὶ πάθος γένος τε πᾶν)? I will not attempt any psy-
chological interpretation.²⁰⁴ However, if we are to take seriously Orestes’ expres-
sion of pain for Clytemnestra’s death, his firm resolve to die after matricide, and
his statement that matricide is a theological necessity – but nonetheless must be
committed also in absence of the trust in an oracular command – the text of Choe-
phoroi seems to mark a difference between Orestes, the chorus and Pylades’ ap-
proach to the killing of the mother. For the chorus and Pylades, matricide has a
divine dimension: it has to be committed because Apollo orders it. This is true for
Orestes as well: the order of the god has to be obeyed. Yet, for Orestes, matricide
has also a human dimension: it has to be committed one way or the other, even
in the absence of the trust in a divine order; yet, to murder the mother means to
engender suffering and to arouse a desire to die. Thus, Orestes’ pain illustrates
how hard it is to bridge the distance between the human and the divine
world. In Aeschylus’ poetry, humans suffer not only because of the gods, but
also in spite of them.
Still, Orestes kills Clytemnestra. The brutality of such an action against a
mother on the part of her own son is pinpointed by Clytemnestra’s representa-
tion as a vulnerable woman.²⁰⁵ The woman, who tries to arm herself against
her son (Cho. 889: δοίη τις ἀνδροκμῆτα πέλεκυν ὡς τάχος), will be showing
her breast to Orestes. Now, does she really get the axe, and if so, why and
when does she lay down the weapon? The text seems to keep silent on the mat-
ter.²⁰⁶ However, despite these uncertainties, it seems open to the chance that a
fundamental difference between the male and the female use of violence is in
place. Clytemnestra might try to kill Orestes, but in the end, she does not; she
 On this issue, cf. Brown (1983: 16 – 17) who discusses at length why we should refrain from
such interpretations of this line.
 Cf. Sommerstein (2008: xii) who suggests ‘Clytaemestra’s failure to get hold of an axe or
other weapon to defend herself and/or Aegisthus, so that she is killed unarmed and in cold
blood’. For the discussion on Clytemnestra’s weapon, cf. Davies (1987); Sommerstein (1989a);
Prag (1991); Föllinger (2003: 71– 74). For the iconographic tradition of this scene, cf. Goldman
(1910: 135– 137); Prag (1985: 19, 24, 88 – 91, 96, 106 – 107, 141).
 Accordingly, I differ from Rösler (2006: 19 – 20) who assumes that Clytemnestra does get the
axe.

130 Choephoroi
will be killed by him. On the contrary, Agamemnon does not know whether he
should sacrifice her daughter or not, but in the end he will decide in favour of
Iphigeneia’s death. Orestes initially hesitates to kill his mother, but finally he
does. Thus, a father and a son both kill kindred (a daughter, a mother). A mother
cannot do it. Clytemnestra kills her husband and the father of her daughter; she
cannot kill her own son and, more than that, she cannot deny the philia with
Orestes, even after having been killed by him:
Eum. 100: παθοῦσα δ’ οὕτω δεινὰ πρὸς τῶν φιλτάτων
This could be the reason why Orestes, Apollo and the Furies display a different
rhetoric of appropriation of the word δίκη (the mother’s rights, the justice due to/
of the mother, the legitimacy/justice of matricide – cf. Eum. 230 – 231; 491– 492;
612– 613; 785 = 815). And, in turn, this might also be the reason why the
whole tragic conflict of Eumenides takes place, along with a search for a justifi-
cation both for the suppression of Clytemnestra’s motherhood, and for the def-
inition of blood ties and power relations as based on the law of the Father.
7 Conclusions
In sections one to six, we have seen that Orestes’ and Electra’s construction of
Clytemnestra as a mother-echthros, i. e. a mother non-giving and non-nurturing
life, and their search for an authoritative definition of the father figure as tro-
pheus and tokeus is not completely successful in the end:
– according to Orestes, Clytemnestra did actually feed her baby;
– according to Electra, there is a bond of consanguinity between mother and
child;
– Electra’s criticism of Clytemnestra’s mind is exposed to vulnerability;
– Orestes’ and Electra’s language is not successful in denying Clytemnestra’s
maternal power to give and to nurture life. As a mother, Clytemnestra is
and remains φιλτάτη (Cho. 234: τοὺς φιλτάτους γὰρ οἶδα νῶιν ὄντας πικρ-
ούς). Matricide, then, is a problematic act of dike;
– the chorus pushes Electra and Orestes to the act of matricide by suppressing
Clytemnestra’s motherhood, and by projecting the image of an adulterous
wife against her husband and the children’s father on her. However, the
pain of the matricidal son for the death of his mother tells us that matricide
is and remains a highly problematic deed.

IV Shall I kill the mother? The reality (of the metaphors) of son and mother 131
IV Shall I kill the mother? The reality (of the metaphors) of son
and mother
In what follows, I take a closer look at the text of the dream, in order to explain
why Orestes’ decision to kill his mother puts into crisis his own representation of
Clytemnestra as a bad mother. My contention is that the dream-text confronts us
with the failure of Orestes in decision-making (murder of the mother non-tro-
pheus and non-tokeus as revenge due to the father-tokeus and tropheus).
1 The blood of the mother, once again
Queens in Aeschylus tend to dream. Atossa dreams in the Persians (Pers. 176 –
214); Clytemnestra dreams in the Choephoroi (Cho. 523 – 539). Clytemnestra’s
dream is perhaps one of the most famous scenes of the Oresteia. She dreams
about giving birth to a serpent, wrapping it in swaddling clothes, and offering
her own breast to feed it on blood and milk.²⁰⁷ This dream has all the features
of a nightmare. It disturbs; it terrifies (Cho. 35: μυχόθεν ἔλακε περὶ φόβωι; 524:
καὶ νυκτιπλάγκτων δειμάτων πεπαλμένη; 535: ἡ δ’ ἐξ ὕπνου κέκλαγγεν ἐπτοη-
μένη; 929: ἦ κάρτα μάντις οὑξ ὀνειράτων φόβος). Something strikes Clytemnestra
with horror; not least a chromatic hallucination – the whiteness of the maternal
milk stained by the redness of her mother’s blood:
Orestes – Cho. 532: καὶ πῶς ἄτρωτον οὖθαρ ἦν ὑπὸ στύγους;

Chorus – Cho. 533: ὥστ’ ἐν γάλακτι θρόμβον αἵματος σπάσαι
As far as I can tell, almost nothing has been said in the scholarship about this
particular image.²⁰⁸ Where to begin? From the mother’s menstrual blood which
gives life. I suspect that, as in Ag. 1417– 1418 (ch. 1, I. 2– 3), this is the issue to
look at once again.
According to the studies of Heritier (1996: 154– 157), the African tribe of the
Samo, the Accadian physicians and the ones of early modern Europe all prescri-
bed sexual abstinence for lactating women. The reason was not fear of unwel-
 On the image of the serpent in western culture, cf. Sancassano (1997).
 As far as I can tell, only Segal (1985: 18), Sommerstein (1996: 248), Walde (2001: 118), and
Ceu Fialho (2010: 113) has written some brief remarks on the image of blood and milk in
Clytemnestra’s dream. Friedman’s and Gassel’s compelling psychoanalytic analysis of the dream
scene (1951: 425 – 427) focuses on the meaning of Clytemnestra’s breast, but it is silent on her
milk mixed up with blood. Fowler (1967: 56 – 57) and Petrounias (1976: 165 – 166) only discuss the
animal symbolism.

132 Choephoroi
come pregnancies, but rather the idea that the flood of semen during copulation
might move menstrual blood up to the breast and cause milk to curdle. Thus, re-
spect for a dietary order between mother and child denies sexual intercourse to
the lactating woman. As the cases studied by Heritier, also the dream scene of
Choephoroi and the image of blood in maternal milk may tell us something
about both the dietary regimen for mother and child, and female sexuality. In-
deed, the traces of Clytemnestra’s blood in maternal milk might be a sign of
her perverse sexual intercourse (she is the adulterous woman par excellence);
the image of the milk tainted with blood might be the sign that Clytemnestra
cannot nourish the baby Orestes.²⁰⁹ Lines 532– 533 are in favour of this interpre-
tation. The son-serpent bites the maternal breast as a monster would:
Cho. 532: καὶ πῶς ἄτρωτον οὖθαρ ἦν ὑπὸ στύγους;
Yet, according to the chorus, the blood in Clytemnestra’s milk seems to spurt out
of her breast with the feed of milk, not from a wound caused by the bite of her
serpent-son:
Cho. 533: ὥστ’ ἐν γάλακτι θρόμβον αἵματος σπάσαι
We could, of course, make it easier, as the scholiast does: ἐν γάλακτι = ἀντί γάλα-
κτος. Yet, in classical Greek ἐν with instrumental function (with the milk) is not
 It could be objected that Clytemnestra did not have sexual contact with Aegisthus while she
was breastfeeding (Orestes is Agamemnon’s son). Therefore, the image of blood in the milk
cannot hint at Clytemnestra’s adultery. It is obviously true that Orestes is the son of Aga-
memnon; therefore, that he was born before the adultery took place. Yet, dreams do not re-
present facts as they take place in reality. The confusion between what is real and what is not is
precisely what characterises dreams. In this sense, in regard to the image of blood in the milk as
a sign of Clytemnestra’s adultery, Clytemnestra’s dream mirrors what happens in reality (she is
Aegisthus’s mistress) as well as what did not happen (the adultery did not take place when
Orestes was born). The confusion between dream and reality recurs also in the case of the image
of blood in the milk as a sign of Orestes’ dietary dependence from his mother. The image of the
baby-serpent that suckles at the breast of his mother mirrors what did happen in reality, at least
according to Clytemnestra: Clytemnestra did breastfeed her son (Cho. 896 – 898). Yet, at the same
time, the image of the baby-serpent does not mirror what did happen in reality: Orestes is not a
serpent, neither is Clytemnestra; there were no wound and no blood in the actual suckling. On
Clytemnestra’s dream and the fuzzy boundaries between dream and reality, cf. pp. 143 – 145. It is
worth commenting that the dream that Zeus sends to Agamemnon is based on the ambiguity of
what is real. Aeschylus, then, is looking at the miglior fabbro. Still, Aeschylus is always anti-
homeric. With the dream of Homer we smile, while we do not with Aeschylus’ dream. On this
topic, cf. Maiullari (2006).

interchangeable with ἀντί (instead of milk).²¹⁰ Furthermore, there is no reason

why ἐν γάλακτι should not be understood as an indication of place. Also the fol-
lowing translation seems to render the Greek in passage 532 – 533:
Orestes – And how was the udder not harmed by the abominable thing?
Chorus – Of course not! He drew from the udder a clot of blood in the milk
There is more to be said. It is worth commenting that in Greek medical tra-

dition milk and blood are supposed to share the same nature (cf. Demont 1978:
364– 375), and that maternal womb is thought to be connected with the breast
(cf. Hanson 1992: 40 with n. 55; King 1998: 34–35, 143, 218). Thus, it seems
more suitable to suppose that the image of blood in maternal milk confronts
us with a similar situation as the Samo’s beliefs studied by Heritier: the trace
of blood in Clytemnestra’s milk might be thought of as the traces of her mother’s
menstrual blood rather than the generic blood of a wound. Dumortier (1975: 23)
seems to hint at something similar. On the expression ‘θρόμβον αἵματος’ in Choe-
phoroi, he writes: ‘Plus curieuse est l’expression θρόμβος αἵματος, grumeau ou
caillot de sang … Elle se retrouve souvent dans le Corpus hippocraticum. On sig-
nalera en particulier au livre II des Maladies des Femmes, θρόμβωι πεπηγότες
(112), où il s’agit de caillots de sang durcis qui tombent de la matrice. Au
même livre (165) l’auteur parle de caillots contenus dans la matrice’. Moreover,
the expression ‘θρόμβον αἵματος’ seems to confirm as well that blood flows into
milk with the feed, and not necessarily from a wound. According to Verrall (ad
loc.), the clots of blood are caused by the venom of the serpent’s bite. Devereux
(1976: 197– 198) follows Verrall and suggests that Orestes might be assimilated to
an Erinys: as the spit of an Erinys, the bite of Orestes too is venomous and causes
blood to coagulate. However, despite being clear in the text that the serpent bites
the breast, no venom is mentioned, as Garvie (ad loc.) observes. Therefore, it is
hard to assume that blood coagulates because of some venom coming from the
serpent’s bite. Rather, we can suppose, as in the cases studied by Heritier, that
blood is flowing into the milk with the feed, having already coagulated because
of the sexual intercourse of the lactant Clytemnestra. To sum up, I conclude that
the dream episode confronts us with an uncertain situation: the serpent bites
Clytemnestra’s breast, but blood seems to spurt out of the nipple with the
milk of the feed, and not from the wound caused by the bite of the serpent.
Further pieces of evidence in the text seem to support these remarks. When
the dream develops into Clytemnestra’s memories, the baby Orestes, according to
 Cf. Tucker and Untersteiner (ad loc.).

134 Choephoroi
her, does not have his little teeth yet, but leans instead on the mother’s breast
with his gums:
Cho. 897– 898: μαστόν, πρὸς ὧι σὺ πολλὰ δὴ βρίζων ἅμα

οὔλοισιν ἐξήμελξας εὐτραφὲς γάλα
Then, how could the blood in Clytemnestra’s milk possibly come from the wound
of a bite? It can be said that in line 545 the expression ‘μαστὸν ἀμφέχασκ’’ makes
clear that the son-serpent bites the maternal breast (cf. Garvie ad loc.) and that
the blood of a wound on the breast spots milk with red stains. Both the reference
to the pain of Clytemnestra (Cho. 547: ἐπώιμωξεν πάθει), and the definition of the
serpent as a monster with teeth (Cho. 530: δάκος) seem to support this conjec-
ture. Yet, in Greek the verb ἀμφιχάσκειν, referring to feeding, denotes the
baby’s act of sticking its lips and gums on the maternal nipple (cf. Tucker ad
loc.). This is not all. As Orestes repeats what the chorus has asserted in
Cho. 533 (ὥστ’ ἐν γάλακτι θρόμβον αἵματος σπάσαι), it remains unclear if
blood is spurting out of a wound or, instead, is flowing into the milk with the
feed:
Cho. 546: θρόμβωι τ’ ἔμειξεν αἵματος φίλον γάλα
This moment of uncertainty in the presentation of the events does not allow us to
apply a clear and sharp explanation for the violence of Orestes against his moth-
er, and for the mother’s pain. Finally, contrary to what Devereux (1976: 199) sug-
gests, πληγάς in line 103 of Eumenides cannot be read as a reference to the
wound in Clytemnestra’s breast. In Greek, πληγή is a generic word; as such, it
might recall as well the wound on Clytemnestra’s throat, which is mentioned
by the servant who – having found that Aegisthus was killed – asks for Clytem-
nestra:
Cho. 884: αὐχὴν πεσεῖσθαι πρὸς δίκης πεπληγμένος
It seems important to me to maintain that the blood in Clytemnestra’s milk is not

due to the bite of her serpent-son, but rather to his suckling during the feed. As a
proof of the corrupted alimentary relation between mother and son, and of Cly-
temnestra’s deviant sexuality, the image of maternal blood within maternal milk
is meant to deny the motherhood of Clytemnestra. Yet, we can also read this
image in the opposite direction. If milk is to trephein what blood is to tiktein,
the disgusting mixture of maternal blood and milk in Orestes’ feed is a visual
sign of the failure to separate the maternal functions of tiktein and trephein. Ac-
cordingly, it requires on our part consideration of the role of Clytemnestra as

mother-tropheus and mother-tokeus. To conclude, the image of blood clots in the

milk denies and affirms at the same time Clytemnestra’s maternal power to give
and to nurture life. By this interpretation, we might have found a plausible ex-
planation for the expression ‘ἐν γάλακτι θρόμβον αἵματος’: it authorises and de-
stabilizes the characters’ repudiation of Clytemnestra’s agency of giving and nur-
turing life, and therefore, the play’s construction of blood ties and power
relations as based merely on the law of the Father tropheus and tokeus.
In the next section, I expand on the image of milk mingled with blood in Cly-
temnestra’s dream.
2 The maternal continuum, once again
It is seems important to read passage 1388 – 1392 of Agamemnon in close relation

to the image of Orestes’ feed of blood and milk in Choephoroi. These lines in Aga-
memnon describe the perversion of the process of insemination (cf. pp. 42– 43).
In Choephoroi, the presence of a blood clot in the mother’s milk attests that Cly-
temnestra is not able to feed and to bring up her own child. Thus, in her case, the
biological stages of creating and preservating life are turned upside down from
the very beginning right to the end: her corrupted conception is followed by an
equally corrupted breast-feeding. Yet, the image of blood and milk in Clytemnes-
tra’s dream suggests something more than the continuity between Agamemnon
and Choephoroi. In fact, it indicates that things between mother and daughter
might not be what they are between mother and son. Devereux (1976: 206), in
his analysis of the dream scene, annotates: ‘I know of no Greek mention of
baby girls who nursed violently and painfully – but admit that girl babies are sel-
dom mentioned. This may perhaps mean that girls owe a lesser debt than boys to
their mothers’.²¹¹ I do not agree with Devereux. As we have seen, according to
Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and maternal revenge in Agamemnon,
there is a bond of philia between mother and daughter, and a biological symbio-
sis that runs through the same female blood. In the case of Clytemnestra and
Orestes, instead, the female blood does not tie mother and son in a bond of phi-
lia. Rather, the traces of maternal blood in Clytemnestra’s milk are a visual evi-
dence of the fact that Clytemnestra cannot nurture her own child. Seen this way,
the corrupted act of breast-feeding in the dream episode confirms the represen-
 Similarly, cf. Foley (2003: 113): ‘Greek art and literature by men had relatively little interest
in the birth and parenting of young daughters’.

136 Choephoroi
tation of Clytemnestra as a mother non-tropheus, which we have seen at work in

the nurse’s speech.
This depiction of Clytemnestra as a mother non-tropheus corresponds to the
representation of the mother-son relationship as a bond of death. If the traces of
blood in milk are an evidence of Orestes’ frustrated desire to be nourished by his
mother, then the shedding of Clytemnestra’s blood becomes a surrogate for this
desire: as the scholium to line 548 suggests, hunger for milk on the part of
Orestes turns into hunger for blood and death. As Segal has aptly pointed out
(1985: 18), the topic of Orestes’ frustrated desire for food appears also in the Aga-
memnon. In the second stasimon, he is depicted as a lion cub that loves the ma-
ternal breast (Ag. 719: φιλόμαστον), but has not been raised by maternal milk
(Ag. 718: ἀγάλακτον).²¹²
In the light of these remarks, I shall stress more clearly the differences that
pertain to the relationship between mother and daughter, and between mother
and son. According to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood, her relation with
Iphigeneia is featured by biological identity and philia. Her relation with Orestes,
by contrast, is featured by philia and violence: a ‘legame fisico e misterioso del
sangue e del latte’ (Setti in Untersteiner, p. 443). The text supports this reading.
First, according to Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the words φίλος and
γάλα, the milk of Clytemnestra does not feed her son; perhaps, for Clytemnestra
as mother and for Orestes as child, maternal milk is a warranty of life:
Clytemnestra – Cho. 898: οὔλοισιν ἐξήμελξας εὐτραφὲς γάλα

Orestes – Cho. 545 – 546: καὶ μαστὸν ἀμφέχασκ’ ἐμὸν θρεπτήριον
θρόμβωι τ’ ἔμειξεν αἵματος φίλον γάλα
Second, according to Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the verb τρέφειν, Cly-

temnestra’s blood gives birth to a monster, so perhaps her maternal blood gives
birth to her child:
Cho. 543: εἰ γὰρ τὸν αὐτὸν χῶρον ἐκλιπὼν ἐμοὶ

Cho. 548: … ὡς ἔθρεψεν ἔκπαγλον τέρας
Taking into consideration the familiar triangle of Clytemnestra (mother), Orestes

(son) and Iphigeneia (daughter) and the violence of/against children (killing of
Iphigeneia, matricide), we have to bear in mind, once again, the maternal con-
 For ἀγάλακτον as looking ahead to Orestes, cf. Knox (1952: 23); Grethlein (2013: 84). For the
representation of cubs as dependent of maternal milk, cf. Ag. 141– 142 (πάντων τ’ ἀγρονόμων
φιλομάστοις/θηρῶν). On food and blood in ancient Greek culture, cf. King (1995).

tinuum and Clytemnestra’s maternal body as the condition of life. This might
help us to understand why the search for an authoritative discourse on Agamem-
non as father tokeus (i. e. as genetic parent and origin of life) and tropheus (i. e.
head of the family, husband, warrior, king and origin of power) always results in
exposing the anxiety and vulnerability related to the suppression of a matter of
fact: the mother’s body gives and nurtures life.
In the next section, I discuss the dream of Clytemnestra once again, trying to
explain why Orestes’ attempts to suppress her motherhood and to represent kin-
ship and power relations as based on the law of the Father is constantly fraught
with the danger of failing.
3 Clytemnestra’s dream and metaphorical motherhood
If reality is realisation, then the dream of Clytemnestra realises the tragic reality
of Orestes as the result of a disturbing oneiric suggestion that ties and assimi-
lates the child to its mother. Finding a confirmation in the text is easily attained.
According to the chorus’ metaphorical rhetoric of appropriation of the verb τίκ-
τειν in its report of the dream, Clytemnestra gives birth to a serpent. In a similar
way, according to Orestes’ metaphorical appropriation of the verb τρέφειν and
its interpretation of the dream, the matricidal son absorbs his mother’s snake na-
ture:
chorus – Cho. 527: τεκεῖν δράκοντ’ ἔδοξεν …

Orestes – Cho. 548 – 550: δεῖ τοί νιν, ὡς ἔθρεψεν ἔκπαγλον τέρας,
θανεῖν βιαίως·ἐκδρακοντωθεὶς δ’ ἐγὼ
κτείνω νιν, ὡς τοὔνειρον ἐννέπει τόδε
Relying on Goldhill (LSN: 156) on passage 548 – 550, Orestes is the baby-serpent
of his serpent-mother: ‘ἐκδρακοντωθείς, then, suggests more than the simple
identification of Orestes with the animal; it also implies Orestes as ἔκπαγλον
τέρας (ἐκ-δρακοντωθείς/ἔκ-παγλον), as the object of Clytemnestra’s rearing’.
Now, when Orestes sees the snake in Clytemnestra, he fails to recognize the
mother who gave life to him. This failure of anagnorisis indicates that the son-
snake (Cho. 549: ἐκδρακοντωθείς), in this image avenger of the father, denies
the filial relationship between mother and son.²¹³ Now, we have to draw some
conclusions.
 The snake is usually associated with the dead. On this point, cf. Rohde (1925, index snake)
and Bock (1936: esp. p. 321 with n. 1 and n. 2). In this sense, as Sancassano has similarly pointed

138 Choephoroi
First, after the episode of the nurse as a replacement for the activity of tre-
phein, it is the dream scene that shows Clytemnestra as a snake mother with cor-
rupted trephein and tiktein. Second, we might stress the metaphorical character
of Orestes’ matricide, and the impossibility for him to murder Clytemnestra as a
biological mother: through the assimilation of Orestes to the mother-serpent and
his reification in the form of a serpent, the son does not kill his mother; it is pre-
cisely a baby monster that kills his monster mum. Who, then, kills whom? What
are we talking about when we mention the matricidal experience of Orestes? As
Kristeva (2000: 218) puts it: ‘Oreste, matricide s’il en est’. Finally, we might even
doubt that it is appropriate to speak of the violent death of a mother by the
hands of her own son. Rather, given that Orestes is forced to become a snake
like his mother in order to kill her, it is Clytemnestra, broadly speaking, that
kills herself, and not Orestes:²¹⁴
Cho. 923: σύ τοι σεαυτήν, οὐκ ἐγώ, κατακτενεῖς
out (1997a: 90), the image of Orestes as a serpent links the matricidal son to his dead father, and
characterises Orestes as the avenger of Agamemnon. Therefore, the motifs of blood and milk in
Clytemnestra’s dream may be read also as a hint at the votive offers for the dead Agamemnon.
On this matter, cf. Walde (2001: 118).
 Here, I shall mention in reference to the question ‘who kills whom?’ the extremely inter-
esting discussion by Hammond (2009: 59 – 60) on the characters’ constant attempt to construct
Orestes as something or someone different from himself: Clytemnestra herself (Cho. 923), Fate
(Cho. 911), Agamemnon’s death (Cho. 927). Moreover, the negation of matricide that operates in
this line is even more powerful, if we read verse 923 with line 922 (κτενεῖν ἔοικας, ὦ τέκνον, τὴν
μητέρα) where, according to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words μήτηρ and
τέκνον, Orestes is not a snake, but her child. On the reversibility of Clytemnestra’s dream, cf.
Kitto (1956: 50): ‘he must himself become a serpent, like his mother’; Vidal-Naquet (1977: 153):
‘Mais la relation qu’il a avec sa mère est réversible, Clytemnestre est elle-mȇme un serpent’;
Winnington-Ingram (1983: 135): ‘He will be a snake as Clytemnestra was a snake’; Walde (2001:
116): ‘Die Hauptfunktion des Traumbildes besteht darin, daß es als zwischen Mutter und Sohn
aufgestellter Spiegel fungieret’. Cf. also Whallon (1958: 273); Vellacott (1977: 115); Rabinowitz
(1981: 177); Sevieri (1995: 15). Thus, I disagree with O’Neill (1998: 221): ‘On the other hand, in her
nightmare, Clytemnestra denies her snaky nature while acknowledging to herself that the son
from her womb is a serpent’. One might also note that for the captive women, Orestes is like his
mother. According to the chorus, Orestes’ victory over Clytemnestra can only succeed if he
becomes, like his mother, an Erinys and a being devoted to wrath (Cho. 40 – 41, 402– 404, 454–
455, 646 – 651), who will share the same disposition to anger with her. For Orestes’ assimilation
of his mother’s nature, cf. also Cho. 527– 533, 541– 549, 831 ff., with Ag. 1232 ff., Cho. 249, 994,
1047– 1050 and Eum. 128 for Clytemnestra. For a general discussion on the mother-child relation
and the representation of the mother as a mater monstruosa as a central step in the constitution
of the male subject, cf. Irigaray (1984: 103 – 104).

In the context of these remarks, Orestes’ interpretation of the dream of Clytem-

nestra (Cho. 528: καὶ ποῖ τελευτᾶι καὶ καρανοῦται λόγος; 550: ὡς τοὔνειρον
ἐννέπει τόδε) lets her dream become true: Orestes is the baby-snake, and as
such he kills his mother-snake. This is like saying, as Loraux (1990a: 250) has
observed in her article on metaphors in the Oresteia, that ‘le travail des mots
tende vers la réalisation des métaphores’. However, at the same time, Orestes’
interpretation of the dream denies it exactly by fulfilling it: the baby-serpent
kills his mother-serpent; yet, Clytemnestra kills herself.
There is more to say. The position of Orestes killing his mother like the snake
of the dream indicates that, in the case of Clytemnestra’s death, we can detect a
dramatic equivalence between the tragic word (Cho. 515: ἐκ τίνος λόγου, 521: ὧδ’
ἔχει λόγος, 527: ὡς αὐτὴ λέγει, 528: καὶ ποῖ τελευτᾶι καὶ καρανοῦται λόγος) and
the tragic action (Cho. 512: δρᾶν, 513: ἔρδοις ἂν ἤδη, 553: τοὺς μέν τι ποιεῖν, τοὺς
δὲ μή τι δρᾶν λέγω). This should not be surprising. Indeed, it is impossible for
Orestes to kill Clytemnestra without using the logos at the same time, i. e. without
using words as a means to interpret her dream (Cho. 528: καὶ ποῖ τελευτᾶι καὶ
καρανοῦται λόγος; 550: ὡς τοὔνειρον ἐννέπει τόδε). In other words, Orestes
does not kill his mother after having interpreted her dream.²¹⁵ Rather, he kills
her (Cho. 550: κτείνω) with his words as he identifies himself in the oneiric re-
ality of Clytemnestra, and reifies himself in the form of a serpent born out of
the woman-serpent (ἐκδρακοντωθεὶς δ’ ἐγὼ/κτείνω νιν). It is not by chance
that Garvie (ad loc.) translates κτείνω as ‘I am her killer’. When Orestes says ‘I
am her killer’, language turns him into a snake – and he becomes istantly, not
in the future, the matricidal son. In this sense, contrary to what has been ob-
served, Orestes is not always killing Clytemnestra, even though in Greek κτείνω,
like ἀγρεῖ in Ag. 126, is a timeless present.²¹⁶ There is a precise moment in time
when the matricidal son kills his mother, and it is coincidental with Orestes’ use
of the verb κτείνω. According to this analysis, Orestes’ interpretation of the
dream of Clytemnestra seems to make it clear that Orestes’ matricide is first of
all a matricide of the logos, which, of course, will become reality (the present
tense κτείνω occurs in the place of the future, and indicates certainty).²¹⁷ So
 This temporal consequentiality is supposed by Andrisano (2004: 47): ‘Del sogno tragica-
mente premonitore del serpente si è fatto interprete secondo il suggerimento del Coro lo stesso
Oreste, che ne ha tradotto in azione il significato profondo’.
 Cf. Hammond (2009: 58): ‘the verb κτείνω is in the present tense: “I kill her”, “I am killing
her”; there is a form of time in which Orestes is even now (or, is always) killing Clytemnestra’.
 Accordingly, I differ from Devereux (1976: 203): ‘Orestes’ Interpretation of the Dream (540 ff.)
seems, from the literary point of view, heavy-handed and unnecessary: Athenian audiences were
not slow-witted’. On the interpretation of Orestes’ matricide as a matricide of the logos, cf. Lanza

140 Choephoroi
in the murderous experience of Orestes we can see both a ‘mise en discourse’ of

the turn to violence against Clytemnestra, and a performative act (Orestes’ words
are his act of matricide).
However, we should not follow too closely Orestes’ representation of the
mother-child bond as a relation between two monsters. In the case of Orestes,
the truth about Clytemnestra is the result of a construction operated by his
own rhetoric of motherhood. Indeed, his mother may be a serpent, but still, kill-
ing her means killing a friend:
Cho. 899: … μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ κτανεῖν;
Again, Orestes discourse of exclusion and separation (you are a serpent, not my
mother) implies inclusion and connection (you may be a serpent, but still you
are my mother).
In the following section, I focus on Orestes’ definition of Clytemnestra as a
mother non-mother further.
4 Orestes and Apollonian logos
Clytemnestra’s representation in the dream as a serpent-monster and the repudi-

ation of her maternal function will continue in Eumenides. As Clytemnestra does
not give birth to her son but to her snake-monster baby, so according to Apollo
the mother is meant to be a mere receptacle of the male seed; instead, it is the
father who is thought of as the child’s only genetic parent (cf. ch. 3. 3):
Eum. 660: τίκτει δ’ ὁ θρώισκων …
The act of denying that the maternal womb is the origin of life becomes the heu-
ristic act of the Father/God’s logos. In the case of the father, the logos establishes
a biological supremacy over the role of the mother, who therefore becomes infe-
rior. In other words, the logos states the exclusive agency of the Father of repro-
ducing semen – and ideas.²¹⁸
(1995: 42) who speaks about the murder of Clytemnestra as ‘un matricidio verbale’. On the
present tense as occuring in the place of the future and as indicating certainty, cf. Smyth (1980:
421– 422).
 I am paraphrasing Heritier (1996: 11). It is precisely in this sense that the logos makes
female biology (passive materiality) the evidence for male metaphysics (life of the sperm =
creativity of the logos); cf. Sissa (1983: 92– 96).

Let us try to refine the terms of the discussion. If fatherhood is only possible
by means of the logos, the reason is that the logos itself of Apollo is the outcome
of a point of departure from the the mother’s body.²¹⁹ This point of departure in-
dicates that any production of logos proceeds from a metaphorical violence
against the mother, in the sense of a rhetorical appropriation of female reproduc-
tive modalities by the male and, with Sissa, of a negation of the ontological in-
commensurability of the mother’s blood.²²⁰ Consequently, the logos might delib-
erate only by means of an absence, i. e. the recognition of a deficiency: the lack
in the woman’s body of sperm/life/cognitive faculties. This might explain the rea-
son why the mother – as said by Apollo – is in herself a foreign host to a foreign
guest, i. e. a stranger to a stranger (Eum. 660: ξένωι ξένη). Following this line of
interpretation, not only the logos of Orestes, but also the one of Apollo confronts
us with a case of verbal matricide, which unfolds through a process of definition
of the maternal body in terms not of what it is, but of what it is not:
– Orestes: the body of a serpent;
– Apollo: the bleeding body for the father
We can find other analogies between the logos of Apollo and the one of Orestes.
The latter too is engendered by a re-definition of the mother as both rationally
and biologically foreign to the son: what Clytemnestra is not able to realize
about her dream (or perhaps she does when it is too late: Cho. 887: οἲ ’γώ, ξυνῆ-
κα τοὖπος ἐξ αἰνιγμάτων) is exactly the logos of Orestes in its suppression of Cly-
temnestra’s biological motherhood, i. e. Orestes’ identification in the serpent de-
livered by his mother. Therefore, for Clytemnestra the logos of Orestes creates a
hiatus between the signs of her dream and their meaning: only her son, by an act
of rational interpretation, is able to restore the semantic connection between
them. In this sense, verse 887 indicates that Orestes’ logos is inhabited by a fig-
ure of death which Clytemnestra as mother is not able to recognize and under-
stand.²²¹
In the next section, I show how Orestes’ metaphorical construction of his
mother as a serpent and his repudiation of Clytemnestra’s motherhood risks fail-
 Cf. Derrida (1972: 100): ‘Il faut donc procéder à l’inversion générale de toutes les directions
méthaphoriques, ne pas demander si un logos peut avoir un père mais comprendre que ce dont
le père se prétend le père ne peut aller sans la possibilité essentielle du logos’.
 I am borrowing the phrase ‘ontological incommensurability’ from Sissa (1983: 92): ‘in-
commensurabilità ontologica’.
 I am following Cohen (1994: 15) on Othello: ‘a figure of “death” inhabits dialogue in a
determining way that has been ignored’.

142 Choephoroi
ing. My discussion aims to show that the most metaphoric word (μήτηρ) is also,
necessarily, the most real.
5 Orestes’ logos and biological motherhood
Mutter, ich
bin verloren
Mutter wir
sind verloren
Mutter, mein Kind, das
dir ähnlich sieht
P. Celan, Die Gedichte aus dem Nachlass
As we have seen, the dream scene displays the monstrous nature of Clytemnes-
tra’s motherhood, and the estrangement of the child from his mother. However,
the tragic text constantly re-writes and corrects itself. When Clytemnestra de-
mands piety to her son in the name of the breast which fed him (Cho. 896 –
898), she is in fact repeating and reversing the oneiric moment of breast-feeding
the serpent: so the logos of Orestes, which metaphorically defines Clytemnestra’s
motherhood as a relationship between two snake-monsters, wretchedly collap-
ses. In front of the breast of his mother, who is still alive, the feeling of aidos seiz-
es the matricidal son with a turmoil of doubts.²²² And the doubts will perhaps
never leave Orestes. Thus, after matricide, his logos gets lost, having deceived
the one who has killed with deception, according to Clytemnestra (Cho. 888: δό-
λοις ὀλούμεθ’).
Logos and dolos, then. How exactly may the logos of Orestes be deceitful? By
denying a matter of fact, that is Clytemnestra’s motherhood. When Clytemnestra
finally understands her dream (Cho. 887: οἲ ’γώ, ξυνῆκα τοὖπος ἐξ αἰνιγμάτων),
and recognizes it as true (Cho. 929: κάρτα μάντις οὑξ ὀνειράτων φόβος), she re-
alizes the impending reality of her death:
Cho. 922: κτενεῖν ἔοικας, ὦ τέκνον, τὴν μητέρα
The logos of Clytemnestra explains what actually happens: the serpent in the
dream, namely her son, will kill her. The same cannot be said for Orestes. He
also understands Clytemnestra’s dream as an expression of a reality he will
 Cf. e. g. Albini (1977: 83); Goldhill (1984a: 172); Vogt (1994: 102 with n. 18); O’Neill (1998: 222);
Saxonhouse (2009: 56 – 57). Clearly, if Orestes seeks to get rid of Clytemnestra’s maternal breast
through matricide (cf. Delcourt 1959: 150 ff.), he fails.

have to face, which is the necessity of matricide. However, in his case, the logos
does not produce the reality of matricide. It seems rather to deny the very reality
it names (we do not have a son killing his mother, but a baby-serpent killing his
mother-serpent). Thus, in the case of Orestes, the logos engenders an escape
from the very reality it names. The text mentions on two different occasions
the urgency for Orestes to find an escape from his condition of matricidal son:
Cho. 1038: φεύγων τόδ’ αἷμα κοινόν …

Cho. 1062: ἐλαύνομαι δὲ κοὐκέτ’ ἂν μείναιμ’ ἐγώ
To escape from reality: in order to use the logos and kill his mother, finally
Orestes will be able to speak only about what his mother is not (a serpent),
and about what for the others are mere visions (the Erinyes of the mother).
Yet, that is still the maternal reality he lives in (Clytemnestra’s monstrous moth-
erhood) at the margins of what is real in any case (Clytemnestra’s motherhood):
Cho. 1053 – 1054: οὐκ εἰσὶ δόξαι τῶνδε πημάτων ἐμοί,

σαφῶς γὰρ αἵδε μητρὸς ἔγκοτοι κύνες
Cho. 1061: ὑμεῖς μὲν οὐχ ὁρᾶτε τάσδ’, ἐγὼ δ’ ὁρῶ
Then, it might be not easy at all, for Orestes or for the reader, to find out who
Clytemnestra is in her dream – a mother and/or a serpent? Where shall we
place Orestes’ matricide? On the level of what is real (Clytemnestra as a biolog-
ical mother), or of what is a dream and metaphorical (Clytemnestra as a mother-
serpent)? What is real to Orestes? As Goldhill (LSN: 182) has poignantly put it,
how can we disclose ‘the distinction between metaphor and non-metaphor in
the text’?²²³ On the one hand, the meaning of Clytemnestra’s dream is quite
clear to Orestes (Cho. 542: κρίνω δέ τοί νιν ὥστε συγκόλλως ἔχειν, 554: ἁπλοῦς
ὁ μῦθος which echoes the chorus in Cho. 121: ἁπλωστὶ φράζουσ’): he is the ser-
 Now if Orestes’ logos is barely able to find out the principles of distinction between me-
taphor and non-metaphor, in the text of the dream ‘the serpent is the first deconstructor of the
logos’ (Hartman 1981: 8). Accordingly, in the words of Aeschylus we might have found an
explanation for the difficulty in reading him: there is theatre in the Oresteia when words begin to
revolt against the dramatic logic of realizing metaphors on stage. Here, I am using and somehow
inverting an analysis by Artaud (1964: 38): ‘il ne peut y avoir théâtre qu’à partir du moment où
commence réellement l’impossible et où la poésie qui se passe sur la scène alimente et sur-
chauffe des symboles réalisés’. On the difficulty in defining what the mother names and means,
cf. Derrida in Glas 133b with Hartman’s discussion (1981: 81– 83). For a different and interesting
interpretation of Clytemnestra’s dream, cf. Goward (1999: 66), who points to the fact that Cly-
temnestra’s representation in the dream as a serpent underlines the multiple meanings of
matricide as an act of retributive justice and an act that has to be punished itself.

144 Choephoroi
pent-baby, and as such he is going to kill his serpent-mother (Cho. 549 – 550:
ἐκδρακοντωθεὶς δ’ ἐγὼ/κτείνω νιν). Here, the serpent metaphor of mother and
baby equals to the non-metaphor of Clytemnestra as a mother and Orestes as
a son. On the other hand, the killing of Clytemnestra as a mother-serpent is
not possible without Orestes killing her as his own biological mother. Here,
the serpent metaphor of mother and baby is not equal to the non-metaphor of
Clytemnestra as a mother and of Orestes as a son.
These digressions on the fuzzy boundary, in the text of the dream, between
reality and metaphor and, therefore, on the problem of defining who is Clytem-
nestra are not far-fetched. When Orestes uses the expression ‘σὲ καὶ ματεύω’
(Cho. 892), he does not tell us whom he is looking for. Again, who is Clytemnestra
to Orestes? The mother who gives life, the mother monster, the mother of his
dreams, the mother-dog, the mother dead, the mother alive? I suggest that
Orestes, in order to know (with the help of the logos) who is Clytemnestra,
has necessarly to accept her as his human mother, that is to say he is forced
to undertake an act of restitution. ²²⁴
Orestes’ act of restitution is identical to his acknowledgement that the ma-
ternal womb is the condition of life, and that the maternal body is the origin
of language: he has to ‘give back’ to Clytemnestra what is properly hers, i. e.
he has to recognize that his mother generates life and at the same time is the
point of departure for the use of language. Here, I paraphrase Muraro (2006:
49): ‘Si tratta di pensare che l’origine della vita non è separabile dall’origine
del linguaggio, nè il corpo dalla mente’.²²⁵ In what follows, I take into consider-
ation how we might trace this theme in the text of Choephoroi’s dream, arguing
that Orestes’ words cannot escape his mother’s body.²²⁶
When Orestes uses the logos to interpret the dream of Clytemnestra
(Cho. 528: καὶ ποῖ τελευτᾶι καὶ καρανοῦται λόγος; 550: ὡς τοὔνειρον ἐννέπει
τόδε), the matricidal son claims that the mother’s body gives life:
Cho. 543 – 545: εἰ γὰρ τὸν αὐτὸν χῶρον ἐκλιπὼν ἐμοὶ

οὕφις †επᾶσα σπαργανηπλείζετο†
καὶ μαστὸν ἀμφέχασκ’ ἐμὸν θρεπτήριον
Exactly this operation undermines the foundation of Orestes’ logos, that is to say
the possibility for it to work without the body of the mother: in order to kill Cly-
 On the act of restitution between mother and child, cf. Muraro (2006: 131– 132 n. 1).
 As Muraro, cf. Fouque (1994: 306 – 307).
 It is interesting to note that the word μήτρα can be used both for the womb and for the
mother, cf. Loraux (1991: 49), with further bibliography at n. 102.

temnestra with his logos, Orestes must return to her maternal body and make her
womb, which is already the condition of life, the condition of his logos as well –
i. e. the condition (εἰ γάρ) of his interpretation of the dream and of his verbal con-
struction of Clytemnestra as a serpent-mother. Accordingly, we see how Orestes’
logos is indebted to his mother too: by reproducing a logic of signs that singles
out the estrangement of the mother’s body from any process of generation of life,
Orestes’ logos does not have the power to efface the matter of fact that the moth-
er’s body is the origin of life and the condition of logos.²²⁷ This is the reason why
the separation from the maternal origins, which we have indicated as the neces-
sary requirement for the functioning of Apollo’s and Orestes’ logos, marks the
failure of Orestes’ logos and gives birth to his monsters – his own monsters,
the Erinyes. As Kristeva (2000: 219) puts it: ‘lorsque cet accès à la symbolisation
fait défaut apparaît alors le versant lugubre d’Oreste’.
The implosion of Orestes’ logos brings us back to Orestes’ question at the be-
ginning of the drama. If we read, with Verrall, verses 1048 – 1050 as an interrog-
ative sentence (ἆ ἆ/δμοιαὶ γυναῖκες αἵδε Γοργόνων δίκην/φαιοχίτωνες καὶ πεπλε-
κτανημέναι/πυκνοῖς δράκουσιν;), they might be repeating verses 10 – 12:
… τίς ποθ’ ἥδ’ ὁμήγυρις

στείχει γυναικῶν φάρεσιν μελαγχίμοις
πρέπουσα; ποίαι ξυμφορᾶι προσεικάσω;
The text established by Verrall allows me to ask some questions. Given that both
before and after matricide Orestes does not know what is real, is a chronological
reading of the text of Choephoroi, which fulfils a telos for the narrated events,
still possible? What is the justice of dreams (Ag. 491: ὀνειράτων δίκην), what
is the justice of the son (Cho. 529: παιδὸς … δίκην), in what sense is the dream
of Clytemnestra τελεσφόρον for Orestes (Cho. 541)? I have no prompt answers.
However, thinking about the dolos of Orestes’ logos, and the incapacity of
Orestes’ logos to define who Clytemnestra is, it seems to me quite problematic
to speak of the dike of Orestes’ matricide.
In the next chapter, I look closely at the dispute between the Furies, Apollo
and Athena in Eumenides. I argue that, as in Agamemnon and Choephoroi, also in
the last play of the trilogy the Aeschylean text confronts us with the difficult task
of defining who a mother is, and with the danger of withdrawing the authority of
maternal power. Again, as I claim, this affects the way we discuss matricide,
Orestes’ acquittal and, finally, the reader’s position within the text’s discourse
 Cf. Derrida (1972: 100): ‘Le logos redevable à un père, qu’est-ce à dire?’. On the mother as
condition for rationality, cf. ch. 3. 1.

146 Choephoroi
on blood ties and power relations (do we have to understand kinship and power
as maternal and/or as paternal?).
6 Conclusions
In sections one to five on the text of the dream, we have seen that:
1. as in the case of the speech of the nurse, also in the case of Clytemnestra’s
dream and of the image of maternal blood in maternal milk, the text of Choe-
phoroi seems to outline an attempt to separate the mother’s functions of tik-
tein and trephein and to mark the failure of this separation;
2. Orestes’ logos interprets metaphorically Clytemnestra’s dream as the repudi-
ation of her own biological motherhood: Clytemnestra as a mother-serpent
does not give life to a child, but to a serpent. Clytemnestra’s violent death
represents the murder of a monster;
3. Orestes’ logos does not have the power to delete Clytemnestra’s motherhood:
Orestes kills his mother;
4. the heuristic faculties of Orestes’ logos operate on the borderline between
reality and metaphors. His metaphorical interpretation of Clytemnestra’s
motherhood as a relationship between a serpent-mother and its baby is de-
ceiving. Even if she is a serpent, Clytemnestra is still his biological mother:
in order to kill her, he has to use deception;
5. for Orestes, the maternal body of Clytemnestra is the first step to access the
logos and (mis)use it;
6. the difficulty to define Clytemnestra challenges the characters’ attempt to
represent her merely as a mother-echthros, destabilizing the notion of dike
in close relation to the violence of matricide.

Eumenides
The Eumenides is a drama preoccupied with beginnings, with origins
F. I. Zeitlin, ‘The Dynamics of Misogyny’
πῶς φράσω τέλος;

Ag. 1109
In the previous two chapters I argued that in Agamemnon, as in Choephoroi,

every attempt to project the image of an echthros of the Atreid family on Clytem-
nestra (as a bad and evil-minded mother who does not take care of her hus-
band’s children, an adulterous wife, and an usurper of king Agamemnon’s
power) is constantly exposed to the risk of failing. In my reading, the last play
of the trilogy confronts us with the same issue as well. On the one hand, Apollo,
Athena’s and Orestes’ discourses proceed with the dramatic disestablishment of
the power of Clytemnestra, both as mother and queen. This process implies the
authorisation of the power of Agamemnon as father tropheus and tokeus. On the
other hand, the positions endorsed by the Erinyes challenge the validity of this
depiction of Agamemnon as the unique genetic parent of his children, and as
source of the economical and political prestige of the Atreid household.
Read this way, Eumenides destabilises the construction of blood ties and
power relations as based merely on the law of the Father.²²⁸ I hope my discussion
 Cf. LSN, 147: ‘this authorisation of narrative, however, by the situating of its origin in the
word of the father … can also be questioned … . It is in the dynamics of this tension between the
authorisation of the word of the father and its undercutting questioning by the Erinues that the
trial of Orestes and the ending of the trilogy will be constituted’; LSN: 252: ‘Can the logos of
Apollo in its claim for the singleness, linearity of the relation father-child exclude the further
linearity of the relation mother-child? Can the establishment of the discourse of paternity (the
word-of-the-father) as the word of truth by its derivation from a fixed and single origin avoid in
this proof the suggestion of its own unstableness?’; Winnington-Ingram (1983: 124): ‘When the
votes are counted, they are found to be equally divided; and this verdict not only corresponds to
the balance of argument, but is a sign that Orestes has been confronted with an intolerable
dilemma, subjected to contradictory claims both based upon the blood-tie and backed by the
law of the vendetta’. Thus, I differ from Zeitlin (1978: 149 – 151): ‘For Aeschylus, civilisation is the
ultimate product of conflict between opposing forces, achieved not through a coincidentia op-
positorum but through a hierarchization of values. … Through gradual and subtle transforma-
tions, social evolution is posed as a movement from female dominance to male dominance, or,
as it is often figuratively phrased, from “matriarchy” to “patriarchy” ’. Similarly, on the victory of
the male over female, of the father figure over the mother figure, of new gods over ancient gods,
of law principles over blood feuds in the Eumenides, cf. de Beauvoir (1949: 165); Thomson (1966:
45 – 46); Millett (1971: 115); Pomeroy (1975: 97– 99); Reinhold (1976: 30); Vellacott (1977: 121);
Cohen (1986: 139); Fouque (1994: 298 – 299); Rosenbloom (1995: 116); Flashar (1997: 100); Pat-

148 Eumenides
will help us overcome the preconceived representation of Aeschylus’ poetry as

an authorisation of violent separations, exclusion and hierarchies.
1 The Erinyes and maternal sophronein
… bisogna essere folli

per essere chiari
P. P. Pasolini, Le ceneri di Gramsci
To begin with, we might ask: who are the Erinyes? As an occurrence of their
name shows in tablets inscribed in linear B (e. g., KN Fp 1. 8; V 52), they are god-
desses belonging to the oldest era of the Greek religion. According to Hesiod
(Th. 185), they arose out of blood drops in the context of Uranos’ castration,
whereas in Aeschylus they were born from the night in a distant time
(Eum. 69, 321– 322, 745, 844, 877, 1033). Their Hesiodic genealogy might explain
their connection with the punishment associated with inter-familiar murders
(cf. Il. 9. 454, Erinyes of the father; 9. 571, 21. 412, Erinyes of the mother; 15.
204, Erinyes of the brother; Od. 2. 135, 11. 280, 17. 475, Erinyes of the mother).
However, their functions transcend the mere vengeance of violent crimes. They
punish perjury (Il. 19. 86 ff.; Op. 803 ff.); they send Ate to human beings (Il. 19.
86 ff., Od. 15. 231 ff.), they execute curses (Il. 9. 454– 456, 571 ff.) and fulfil justice
(Aj. 1390; Heraclit., B 94 DK).²²⁹
In Agamemnon too, the Erinyes have several different functions. They punish
offences against hospitality (Ag. 55 ff., 746 ff.); they prosecute adultery
(Ag. 1192 ff.); they act as a legitimate instance of killing (Ag. 1432 ff., 1580 ff.),
and as avengers of bloodshed (in war: Ag. 461 ff.; in the family: Ag. 1119 – 1120,
Erinyes of the children). In Choephoroi, they are associated with murders within
the family (Cho. 283 ff., Erinyes of the father; 924 ff., 1048 ff. Erinyes of the moth-
er); in Eumenides, they are represented as avengers of bloodshed (Eum. 316 – 320,
337– 340), and as maternal ghosts of vengeance (Eum. 210, 496 – 498).²³⁰
Now, how do the Erinyes manifest themselves in Eumenides – τίνες ποτ’
ἐστέ; (Eum. 408)? As the Pythia reports, they are frightening, supernatural be-
terson (1998: 84); Helm (2004: 50 – 51); Baltrusch (2007: 160); Markovits (2009: 431). On the
teleology of the Eumenides and feminist and Marxist critical positions, cf. Goldhill (1986: 39 –
56).
 Cf. Dodds (1973a: 6 – 8; 18; 21 n. 37; 38 – 42); Sewell-Rutter (2007: 78 – 89); on the origins of
the Erinyes, cf. Lloyd-Jones (1990: 203 – 207).
 Cf. Brown (1983: 13 – 14 with n. 5 and n. 6; 1984: 267– 276); Sewell-Rutter (2007: 90 – 109).

Eumenides 149
ings fearful to look at (Eum. 34: δεινὰ δ’ ὀφθαλμοῖς δρακεῖν, 52: ἐς τὸ πᾶν βδελύ-
κτροποι). They are dark and without wings or feathers (Eum. 51– 52: ἄπτεροί γε
μὴν ἰδεῖν/αὗται μέλαιναί τ’); they snore and groan with terrible sighs (Eum. 53:
ῥέγκουσι δ’ οὐ πλατοῖσι φυσιάμασιν) in their sleep; they leak loathsome drops
from their eyes (Eum. 54: ἐκ δ’ ὀμμάτων λείβουσι δυσφιλῆ λίβα).²³¹ This is just
a partial depiction. In fact, they are so dreadful that the Pythia can only say
what they are not. As Prins has noticed (1991: 178), she only describes them
‘by a negation of vision’, as we infer from lines 48 – 49:
οὔτοι γυναῖκας ἀλλὰ Γοργόνας λέγω·

οὐδ’ αὖτε Γοργείοισιν εἰκάσω τύποις
We can push Prins’ remark a step further. For the Pythia, seeing the Furies is
something more than a mere negation of vision. According to the prophetess,
seeing the Erinyes is like seeing the unknown:
Eum. 57: τὸ φῦλον οὐκ ὄπωπα τῆσδ’ ὁμιλίας
Clearly, the Pythia does not see the Erinyes as Orestes does. Orestes knows who
they really are, and he knows it very well, as line 1054 of Choephoroi indicates:
σαφῶς γὰρ αἵδε μητρὸς ἔγκοτοι κύνες
These divergences between Orestes and the Pythia in their experience of the Fur-
ies seem quite important. What turns out to be an encounter with an estranging
force for the Pythia, for Orestes amounts to the visualisation of a knowledge that
proceeds from his own experience of killing, and, therefore, from his madness. I
would even say that for the crazed Orestes seeing the Erinyes is precisely what
validates the divine law of the pathei mathos: once he has killed, he is aware
of what is triggered by violence, and therefore he is able to see and to know
what, according to the Suda, is ἀπρόσωπον or faceless.²³²
 On lines 51– 52 and the meaning of ἄπτεροι and μέλαιναι, cf. Maxwell-Stuart (1973: 82– 83).
 I am expounding on Brown (1983: 18 – 22), who argues that Orestes sees the Furies because
he is mad. This is certainly true. However, Orestes does not simply see the Furies; he recognizes
them, he knows who they are. Now, Orestes knows who the Furies are not because he is mad, but
because he is a killer. Further, I shall notice that the case of Orestes who, as a crazed man and as
a murderer, sees and recognizes the Furies, recalls to mind the depiction of Clytemnestra,
immediately after the murder of Agamemnon. Orestes kills his mother and understands very well
what violence implies. By contrast, Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon and violence blinds her.
Indeed, after the murder of Agamemnon, her eyes are injected with blood (Ag. 1428).

150 Eumenides
The basic divergences in Orestes’ and the Pythia’s vision of the Furies (the
former, for what they actually are and what he knows; the latter, for what
they are not, and what she does not know) represent a crucial step in the Aeschy-
lean treatment of violence and knowledge. If, as I claim, in the case of Orestes,
we can speak of a realisation of the law of pathei mathos, then knowledge comes
to humans through the use of violence, and inevitably manifests itself through
suffering and alienation. The text supports this reading. Because he has to mur-
der his mother, Orestes is taught in suffering (Eum. 276: ἐγὼ διδαχθεὶς ἐν
κακοῖς).²³³ Moreover, he knows the right time for many things (Eum. 276 – 277:
ἐπίσταμαι/πολλῶν τε καιροῦς καὶ λέγειν ὅπου δίκη).²³⁴ Finally, he is a fugitive,
a wanderer banished from his land (Ag. 1282: φυγὰς δ’ ἀλήτης τῆσδε γῆς ἀπόξε-
νος); closely chased, and dragged away by his mother’s Erinyes (Cho. 1062:
ἐλαύνομαι δὲ; Eum. 139: ἕπου, μάραινε δευτέροις διώγμασιν, 338 – 339: τοῖς
ὁμαρτεῖν ὄφρ’/ ἂν γᾶν ὑπέλθηι), he has to leave (Cho. 1050 = Cho. 1062: οὐκέτ’
ἂν μείναιμ’ ἐγώ). Now, we might observe that the Aeschylean speculations on vi-
olence are fundamentally optimistic: in the world of the Oresteia – at least in the
case of Clytemnestra and Orestes – the use of violence occurs together with a
process of learning which shows that violence always involves pain for its
user, and not only for its victim.
Taking into consideration the fact that the Erinyes bestow painful knowl-
edge, I find it difficult to adopt a critical level that considers Apollo and Athena
as divine agents of knowledge, wisdom and civilisation, in opposition to the Fur-
ies as enemies of social order, knowledge and wisdom.²³⁵ In this regard, the sec-
 Cf. Eum. 102: κατασφαγείσης πρὸς χερῶν μητροκτόνων; 122: φονεὺς δ’ Ὀρέστης τῆσδε
μητρὸς οἴχεται; 153: τὸν μητραλοίαν; 202: ἔχρησας ὥστε τὸν ξένον μητροκτονεῖν; 256: λάθηι
φύγδα βὰς ματροφόνος ἀτίτας; 268: μητροφόντας; 281: μητροκτόνον μίασμα δ’ ἔκπλυτον πέλει;
326 – 327: ματρῶιον ἅ-/γνισμα κύριον φόνου; 425: φονεὺς …. μητρὸς; 427: μητροκτονεῖν; 463:
ἔκτεινα τὴν τεκοῦσαν; 493: τοῦδε μητροκτόνου; 587: τὴν μητέρ’ εἰπὲ πρῶτον εἰ κατέκτονας; 595:
μητροκτονεῖν; 599: νεκροῖσί νυν πέπισθι μητέρα κτανών.
 I read with Sommerstein (ad loc.) καιροῦς instead of καθαρμοῦς as in MS.
 Consider for example Lattimore (1972: 88): ‘Apollo stands for everything which the Furies
are not: Hellenism, civilization, intellect, and enlightenment’; Dodds (1973a: 40) who speaks of
‘the new world of rational justice’; Gagarin (1976: 83) who points out that ‘the limited and
ineffectual knowledge of the first two plays is replaced by a broader and more powerful wisdom
in the third’; Winnington-Ingram (1983: 172): ‘Athena represents a higher level of the divine
purpose than the Furies …, being a goddess of wisdom …, with its social progress, its intellectual
activity, and its creation of harmony in many forms’; Saxonhouse (2009: 53): ‘Orestes comes to
Athens for his trial searching for the civilized world … . And Apollo, along with the virgin
goddess Athena, stands here at the foundation of the city of the Athenians … . The order they
establish is predicated, however, on denying the forces of nature and replacing them with
reason’.

Eumenides 151
ond stasimon of Eumenides is of central importance. Here, the Erinyes claim that
their punitive actions against the murderers of parents represent a work of dike,
and that the suffering of their vengeful interventions is a means to acquire so-
phrosune:²³⁶
Eum. 511– 521: ὦ Δίκα,

ὦ θρόνοι τ’ Ἐρινύων’·
ταῦτά τις τάχ’ ἂν πατὴρ
ἢ τεκοῦσα νεοπαθὴς
οἶκτον οἰκτίσαιτ’, ἐπει‐
δὴ πίτνει δόμος Δίκας.
ἔσθ’ ὅπου τὸ δεινὸν εὖ
καὶ φρενῶν ἐπίσκοπον
δεῖ μένειν καθήμενον·
ξυμφέρει
σωφρονεῖν ὑπὸ στένει
As has been observed (cf. e. g. North 1966: 48 – 49, Sommerstein ad loc.), line 521
(σωφρονεῖν ὑπὸ στένει) constitutes a reformulation of the principle of pathei ma-
thos. What seems of particular interest to me is that here for the Furies the chance
to learn sophrosune through pain is related to the prohibition to kill a father
(πατήρ), or a mother who gives life to her child (τεκοῦσα). Thus, for the Furies,
not only the father’s, but also the mother’s genealogical authority of birth is
linked to the authority of knowing how to speak and act in the right way (σωφρο-
νεῖν).²³⁷ All this defines a continuity between Clytemnestra’s and the Furies’ rhet-
oric of motherhood. Clytemnestra, in Ag. 1425, uses this verb as much as the Fur-
ies do. As we have seen, also for her, learning sophrosune implies understanding
that the maternal authority of birth presupposes an inviolable bond of philia be-
tween a mother and the creature of her womb (cf. ch. 1, I. 5).
This appropriation of the verb σωφρονεῖν is not a minor detail. The link es-
tablished by Clytemnestra and the Erinyes between the learning of sophrosune
through the knowledge of pain, on the one hand, and the acknowledgement
of the mother as the condition of life, on the other hand, compels us to look
at cognitive processes as necessarily related to the mother’s body. As Goldhill’s
analysis has disclosed (LSN: 215, 228 – 231, 241– 245, 266, 276 – 278), the search for
authority in the Eumenides occurs as a search for the origin of birth and, accord-
ingly, for the origin of logos (words, truth) in the father. Nonetheless, this inquiry
 On this passage, cf. p. 156.

 Accordingly, I read σωφρονεῖν in Eum. 521, as in Ag. 1425, in the meaning of ‘sapere’. Thus, I
differ from Italie who quotes σωφρονεῖν in Ag. 1425 for the meaning ‘sapere’ but Eum. 521 for the
meaning ‘prudentiam discernere’.

152 Eumenides
also amounts to accounting for the mother’s mind-set and her reproductive
power. In what follows, I dwell at some length on this point.
The positions endorsed by Apollo about the female mind are in sharp oppo-
sition to the Furies’ and Clytemnestra’s understanding of maternal sophronein.
For Apollo, the Furies are nothing but furious, mad and savage beings:
Eum. 67: καὶ νῦν ἁλούσας τάσδε τὰς μάργους ὁρᾶις
As Benardete has noticed (2000: 66), this Apollonian representation of the Furies
as a bunch of mad women might be considered as strictly linked to Apollo’s dis-
course on marriage, and on the social status of a woman (with children) as wife
of her husband (Eum. 211– 224).²³⁸ For Apollo, a god who is entirely on the side of
the Father and his law, the Furies, in their defence of maternal blood ties, can
hardly represent an instance of knowledge.²³⁹ Yet, Apollo’s discourse seems to
proceed towards a simplification of what knowledge is supposed to be. The Fur-
ies teach human beings the law of the pathei mathos or of σωφρονεῖν ὑπὸ στένει
by sending to murderers a song with no lyre (Eum. 331– 333: ὕμνος ἐξ Ἐρινύων/
δέσμιος φρενῶν, ἀφόρ-/μικτος = Ag. 990 – 991: τὸν δ’ ἄνευ λύρας ὅμως ὑμνωιδεῖ/
θρῆνον), i. e. a chant of insanity (Eum. 329: τόδε μέλος, παρακοπά), of derange-
ment and of mind-destruction (Eum. 330: παραφορὰ φρενοδαλής). If I am not
completely wrong, it is like saying that murderers might reach a stage of knowl-
edge by losing control over their minds. Whereas Apollo defines the Self through
identity, and therefore through the exclusion of insanity from the activities of the
logos, the Furies, according to their use of the verb σωφρονεῖν, refrain from a
fixed sense of identity (Self as the Same) and handle differences (Self as the
Other). We might even say that in Aeschylus madness is compulsory, as the Fur-
ies’ understanding of sophronein and the case of Agamemnon’s dilemma illus-
trate (cf. ch. 1, I. 5); or at least, as revealed by the condition of Orestes after
the matricide, a compulsion towards the danger of losing one’s mind. In this
sense, the tragic thought does not define logos as the governing instance of
the mind, and therefore, Greek tragedy does not conceive logos in opposition
 On passage 211– 224 and the meaning of ὅρκος, φρουρουμένη and οἶδα, cf. Kells (1961).
 For the Erinyes as defender of maternal blood ties, cf. Eum. 208: ἀλλ’ ἔστιν ἡμῖν τοῦτο
προστεταγμένον; 210: τοὺς μητραλοίας ἐκ δόμων ἐλαύνομεν; 261– 263: αἷμα μητρῶιον χαμαὶ/
δυσαγκόμιστον, παπαῖ,/τὸ διερὸν πέδοι χύμενον οἴχεται; 545: πρὸς τάδε τις τοκέων σέβας εὖ
προτίων; 652– 654: πῶς γὰρ τὸ φεύγειν τοῦδ’ ὑπερδικεῖς ὅρα/τὸ μητρὸς αἷμ’ ὅμαιμον ἐκχέας
πέδοι/ἔπειτ’ ἐν Ἄργει δώματ’ οἰκήσει πατρός.

Eumenides 153
to madness.²⁴⁰ Following this interpretation, ‘das Denken in Gegensätzen’, as

Reinhardt (1949: 150) labels the Aeschylean way of thinking, does not feature
the Furies’ discourse on sophronein. The Furies are not the opposite of Apollo
and his logos; the logos of Apollo does not exclude the knowledge coming
from the Furies. Rather, the knowledge of the Furies is a legitimate aspect of
the logos itself. Indeed, as the law of pathei mathos originates from Zeus
(Ag. 176 – 178), the lesson that the Furies impose on murderers emanates from
the same god too:
Eum. 334– 335: τοῦτο γὰρ λάχος διαν-

ταία Μοῖρ’ ἐπέ-
κλωσεν ἐμπέδως ἔχειν
According to these remarks, we can detect a difference between Apollo’s and Cly-
temnestra’s assertion that the Erinyes are a force of evil:
Apollo – Eum. 71: κακῶν δ’ ἕκατι κἀγένοντ’ …

Clytemnestra – Eum. 125: τί σοι πέπρωται πρᾶγμα πλὴν τεύχειν κακά;
For Clytemnestra, the Erinyes do harm, since this is the task allotted to them by
Moira. Accordingly, Clytemnestra’s use of the word κακά occurs within the frame-
work of ‘knowledge through suffering’ as a divine law coming from Zeus. In-
stead, when the word κακῶν is used by Apollo, there is no hint of the fact
that the Erinyes do evil as a means to impart knowledge to human beings. Keep-
ing silent about the Olympian origins of the Erinyes’ activity of doing harm,
Apollo seems to undermine their authority of knowledge, logos and truth. Yet,
Apollo’s discursive strategy appears too simple. As Orestes’ acquittal in dubio
pro reo shows, the clash between Apollo’s positions and the claims of the Erinyes
does not conclude with the acknowledgement of the father figure as the origin of
life and logos. Thus, we might notice that part of the discourse of Eumenides pla-
ces a) the origin of knowledge in suffering, and b) the origin of life and knowl-
edge in motherhood.²⁴¹ That said, I distance myself from a whole tradition of
 Cf. Foucault (1961: iii): ‘Les grecs avaient rapport à quelque chose qu’ils appelaient ὕβρις …
Mais le Logos grec n’avaient pas de contraire’. Cf. also Derrida (1963) in his essay ‘Cogito et
histoire de la folie’.
 Cf. Derrida quoted after Lyotard (1990: 278): ‘Maternité … Place pour la pensée, dès lors que
ne décidant de rien, elle suspend. Qu’appelle-t-on pensée en latin? “Etre en suspens” (pendere),
en souffrance (Cf. La fine del pensiero, Agamben)’. Cf. also Fouque (1994: 286): ‘Le mot muet de
chair qui a hanté toute ma grosesse … déclenche la rêverie autour des pensées latantes d’une
généalogie femelle, d’une généalogie de la pensée’.

154 Eumenides
studies on the opposition of sex/gender (nature/culture), which essentially as-

sumes that ‘la confezione del corpo della madre sia separabile dai suoi signifi-
cati culturali. Cioè, che la madre non pensi’.²⁴² Such studies, at least on the Ore-
steia, have dismissed the body of the mother, and it is not by chance that they
insist on the depiction of Clytemnestra as a woman whose mind is darkened.
However, as I have argued with my remarks on Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appro-
priation of the verb σωφρονεῖν in Ag. 1425, with my analysis of Electra’s rhetoric
of appropriation of the words εὔφρων and σώφρων in Cho. 88 and 140, and as I
finally hope to have clarified with my discussion of Orestes’ logos in Choephoroi,
as well as with the discussion of the Erinyes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the verb
σωφρονεῖν, in the Oresteia the discourse on Clytemnestra’s motherhood does not
confirm the validity of these dichotomies. Rather, it compels us to question hiér-
archies violentes (Derrida).
So far, I have discussed the implications of the act of seeing the Furies, and
of the interrelation between seeing them and knowing them. To conclude, there
is a further aspect to outline. I start with the beautiful and delicate Corbett lec-
ture delivered by Henrichs on 26. 11. 09 at Cambridge University: ‘The Epiphanic
Moment: Sight and Insight in Ancient Greek Encounters with the Divine’. Hen-
richs argues that revelation (φαίνεσθαι), sight (ἰδεῖν) and recognition (γιγνώσ-
κειν) structure the epiphanic moment. As key-examples of this understanding
of epiphany as a divine revelation through sight and insight, he quotes the ap-
pearance of Athena in Il. 1. 194– 200 and Od. 16. 155 – 163, the manifestation of
Dionysos in h. Bacch. 1– 4, 6 – 10, 14– 18, and, finally, the omen of the eagles
and its interpretation by Calchas in Ag. 104– 125. In all these passages the vo-
cabulary of epiphany (φαίνεσθαι, ἰδεῖν, ὁρᾶν, νοεῖν, γιγνώσκειν) clearly supports
the idea that epiphany ‘occurs in both myth and cult when a god reveals his
presence or manifests his power to a mortal or group of mortals, who “see” or
“recognize” the god’.²⁴³ Now, in Homer and in the parodos of Agamemnon the
encounter with the divine entails the certainty of recognition (I see you = I rec-
ognize you; I know who you are). However, in the case of the Furies in Eume-
nides, there is no place for both seeing and recognizing, as two simultaneous
 Cf. Muraro (2006: 132 n. 1).

 Cf. Henrichs’ entry for epiphany in OCD. See also Redfield (1975: 176): ‘When Eurycleia
recognizes the scar, Penelope fails to notice, for “Athena turned aside her noos” (ixi. 479). Noos
is linked to recognition and responsive understanding: we might say that vision takes in the look
of a thing, noos its meaning. Ideein and noesai are not, therefore, two separate acts; rather, the
noos further forms perceiving consciousness so that what is perceived is a world of recognized
meanings’. On this topic, cf. also Lesher (2009: 14– 17); for epiphany in graeco-roman art, cf.
Platt (2011).

Eumenides 155
acts, one implying the other. The Pythia, as we have seen, does not know what
she is looking at, as she sees the Furies; and the same goes for Athena as well:²⁴⁴
Eum. 406 – 408: καινὴν δ’ ὁρῶσα τήνδ’ ὁμιλίαν χθονὸς

ταρβῶ μὲν οὐδέν, θαῦμα δ’ ὄμμασιν πάρα.
τίνες ποτ’ ἐστέ; …
Eum. 410 – 412: … ὁμοῖαι δ’ οὐδενὶ σπαρτῶν γένει,
οὔτ’ ἐν θεαῖσι πρὸς θεῶν ὁρώμεναις,
οὔτ’ οὖν βροτείοις ἐμφερεῖς μορφώμασιν
Eum. 932– 933: ὅ γε μὴν κύρσας βαρέων τούτων
οὐκ οἶδεν ὅθεν πληγαὶ βιότου
These passages suggest the idea that, unlike the Homeric gods, the Furies do not
exist only to the extent that they are seen by someone; on the contrary, they exist
whether they are perceived or not. This allows me to conclude that in order to see
the Furies and be able to recognize them one requires an awareness of pain that
is associated with acts of violence. This is the reason why Athena sees the Furies
without being able to recognize them: only the one who has committed murder
can. Thus, Athena’s awareness is absolutely different from Orestes’ – and the rea-
son is that only by experiencing violence and pain does human knowledge be-
come attainable. In this regard, Aeschylus’ poetry remains profoundly Homeric.
The idea that humans have to suffer in order to achieve knowledge is clear, in the
opening of the Odyssey:
Od. 3 – 4: πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω

πολλὰ δ’ ὅ γ’ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν
In what follows, I further discuss the suffering that the Erinyes dispense to
human beings, focusing on the relation between the vengeful actions of the Fur-
ies and their memory.
2 The Erinyes, their painful memory and female genealogy
As Athena asserts during her exchange with them, while they are lamenting the
violation of their old privileges, the Erinyes are ancient goddesses endowed with
wisdom:
 Obviously, the audience, unlike the Pythia and Athena, sees the Furies. Thus, we might
notice a gap between the sight of violence in theatre and the sight of violence by the characters
in the play. On Athena seeing the Furies, cf. the beautiful pages of Easterling (2008: 227– 230); on
the Furies being revealed to the spectators, cf. Brown (1982: 26 – 28) and Whallon (1995).

156 Eumenides
Eum. 849 – 850: καὶ τῶι μὲν εἶ σὺ κάρτ’ ἐμοῦ σοφωτέρα,

φρονεῖν δὲ κἀμοὶ Ζεὺς ἔδωκεν οὐ κακῶς
Here, when Athena appeals to the Furies’ wisdom (σοφωτέρα), she might be try-
ing simply to soothe their anger or perhaps to call attention to their authority as
goddesses of wisdom (Eum. 838 = Eum. 871: ἐμὲ παλαιόφρονα). After all, as Som-
merstein comments on line 838, age and wisdom are indeed correlated. Relying
on Sommerstein, we presume that Athena conceives an ancient wisdom originat-
ing from the vengeful power of the mother figure. Being endowed with this dan-
gerous and maternal wisdom, the Erinyes may act as protectors of the city of Ath-
ens, or as its potential destroyers. In what follows, I elaborate on how the text of
Eumenides supports this reading.
The idea of a wisdom proceeding from the Erinyes is stated elsewhere in the
trilogy. The chorus in Choephoroi describes them as βυσσόφρων, or deep-think-
ing (Cho. 651). In Eumenides, as we have already seen, the Furies assert that they
dispense knowledge through suffering (Eum. 521: σωφρονεῖν ὑπὸ στένει). Fur-
ther, they claim that they govern the ἐκ δ’ ὑγιείας φρενῶν (Eum. 535 – 536) or, ac-
cording to Sommerstein (ad loc.), sophrosune. Here, two points are particularly
relevant:
– in Eum. 535 – 536, the Furies’ mind and their sophronein are mentioned, as in
Eum. 513 – 521, in close connection with the respect owed to parents
(Eum. 545: πρὸς τάδε τις τοκέων σέβας εὖ προτίων); in Cho. 651, the Furies’
mind is closely related to the necessity to take revenge for the shed of ma-
ternal blood (Cho. 649 – 651: αἱμάτων παλαιτέρων τίνειν μύσος … Ἐρινύς);²⁴⁵
– any behaviour marked by the Furies’ sophronein is a consequence of the rev-
erence due to the unalterable dictates of dike (Cho. 646: Δίκας δ’ ἐρείδεται
πυθμήν; Eum. 543: κύριον μένει τέλος).
Being agents responsible for the prohibition to shed parental and maternal blood
and, accordingly, for the defence of dike and sophrosune, the Erinyes act as pro-
tectors of the city of Athens. On the contrary, in case of a violation of this pro-
hibition, they act as the destructive vengeful forces of the mother figure. Follow-
ing this line of interpretation, the Erinyes’ admonition to conduct a life according
to the Delphic doctrine of ‘nothing to excess’ (Eum. 529: παντὶ μέσωι τὸ κράτος
θεὸς ὤπασεν) seems to be based precisely on the notion that the ordered justice
of life in a civic community is a reflection of the ordered justice of life in the fam-
 For αἱμάτων παλαιτέρων as expression for matricide, cf. Loraux (1990a: 252). For this
connection in passage 513 – 521, cf. p. 151.

Eumenides 157
ily. From where, then, are we supposed to begin? I propose to start with the Eri-
nyes and their memory.
The Erinyes, ancient goddesses of wisdom, are κακῶν μνήμονες or mindful
of committed wrong acts (Eum. 382– 383). Two explanations for the presentation
of the Furies as κακῶν μνήμονες can be put forward.²⁴⁶ Like Zeus, they are μάρ-
τυρες ὀρθαί or upright witnesses (Eum. 318). The act of witnessing is closely re-
lated, as the case of the Muses demonstrates, to the function of remembering the
past. Furthermore, they may not forget evil, since justice needs time to set its
laws in motion (Ag. 58 – 59: ὑστερόποινον…Ἐρινύν). Yet, the memory of the Furies
is something more than just an activity of recalling the past. As has often been
observed, by remembering past evil, their memory eliminates the dividing barrier
between the present and the past. Obviously, in the case of the Furies, ruling out
that barrier is like ruling out the dividing line between life and death. From this
perspective, the riddle of the dead killing the living, or the living killing the dead
in Cho. 886 (τὸν ζῶντα καίνειν τοὺς τεθνηκότας λέγω), sounds like rephrasing
the Erinyes’ agency of reversing present evil into past evil, and vice versa: blur-
ring the borderline between the present and the past, the Furies’ memory marks
time in tautological cycles, letting past events become present (Ag. 67– 68: ἔστι δ’
ὅπηι νῦν/ἔστι), according to what has been allotted (Ag. 68: τελεῖται δ’ ἐς τὸ
πεπρωμένον).²⁴⁷ Thus, the memory of the Erinyes guards the knowledge of the
telos, which is unknown to mortals.
This characterization of the Erinyes as supernatural beings, who do not for-
get evil, and grant wisdom and knowledge, takes us back to the Zeus hymn in the
parodos of Agamemnon. Just as the wisdom coming from the Furies is tied up
with memory, suffering and pain, so the wisdom and knowledge coming from
Zeus is a legacy of a recollection of past suffering:
Ag. 176 – 181: τὸν φρονεῖν βροτοὺς ὁδώ-

σαντα, τὸν πάθει μάθος
θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν·
στάζει δ’ ἀνθ’ ὕπνου πρὸ καρδίας
 In what follows, I follow Simondon (1982: 224– 225).

 For a reading of verses 67– 68 as a tautology, cf. LSN: 15: ‘Here the language is again
tautologous, a summation of the present which merely asserts its existence in terms of itself,
juxtaposed to an expression of the future which joins a sense of “end” (not forgetting the
religious overtone of teleitai) to its own fated moment, that is, which simply asserts the teleology
of teleitai!’. For an association of these verses with the Erinyes and their memory, cf. Simondon
(1982: 233 – 234). For general remarks on blurring the borderline between past and present in the
Agamemnon, cf. Grethlein (2013: 88 – 94).

158 Eumenides
μνησιπήμων πόνος· καὶ παρ’ ἄ-

κοντας ἦλθε σωφρονεῖν
Quite recently, Wians, in his beautiful pages on knowledge in Agamemnon, has

alluded to a certain pessimism in the Aeschylean idea of acquiring knowledge
through past sufferings.²⁴⁸ Personally, I do not perceive any poetic hopelessness
in the formulation of the pathei mathos doctrine in Agamemnon and Eumenides. I
would rather emphasise a different point that has been neglected by scholars, as
far as I know. The question would be: is there a connection between the memory
of the Furies (along with the suffering, the wisdom and the knowledge inherent
in it) and the chance of an ordered life in the community of Athens, as expressed
by the Furies in?
Eum. 520 – 525 ξυμφέρει

σωφρονεῖν ὑπὸ στένει.
τίς δὲ μηδὲν †ἐν φάει†
καρδίαν †ἀνατρέφων†
ἢ βροτός πόλις θ’ ὁμοί-
ως ἔτ’ ἂν σέβοι Δίκαν;
It has been observed that the word στένος in Eum. 521 does not refer to pain, but
to compulsion: in the case of the Athenian state machinery, it is hard to imagine
that the acquisition of sophronein has to pass through a process of suffering and
pain.²⁴⁹ I do not necessarily concur with the critics on this remark. In my opin-
ion, we can easily assume that the city of Athens, in order to preserve civic life,
has to protect itself from pain. A look at Loraux’s research on stasis invites us to
opt for this interpretation.
In the book ‘La cité divisée. L’oubli dans la mémoire d’Athènes’, Loraux asks
why, in the famous lines 858 to 866, towards the end of Eumenides, we find a
reference to civil war.²⁵⁰ A possible reason lies in the representation of stasis
in the Oresteia as violence that is engendered inside the family by the Erinyes’
 Cf. Wians (2009: 182– 194), who labels Aeschylean thought as ‘poetic pessimism’. Wians
maintains that Aeschylus’ poetry is essentially pessimistic since humans are not in the position
to understand the events they are involved in. However, Clytemnestra understands her dream
quite well, and, after the murder of Agamemnon, she seems to understand the necessity to find a
way out of the use of violence (cf. pp. 79–80).
 Cf. e. g. Di Benedetto (1999: 102–103).
 Cf. Loraux (1997: 34– 35). The primary literary model for the Aeschylean representation on
stasis is Homer (Od. 24, 473 – 486).

Eumenides 159
wrath (Ag. 1117– 1120), as well as in the conceptualisation of the polis as a com-
munity that includes all families. Since the origin of violence is inter-familial and
the city represents the whole of all families, the Erinyes’ wrath, which strikes the
life in the family, is meant to strike as well life in the polis with a series of mutual
crimes. Therefore, when Athena soothes the Furies’ wrath and assigns them the
duty to preserve her city from evil and from the suffering of civil discord, the
memory of the Furies ‘dispensera préventivement les citoyens d’avoir à se “rap-
peler les maux” qu’ils se sont infligés dans la stasis’.²⁵¹ As Loraux suggests, the
Erinyes’ memory works as ‘oubli du politique comme tel’: they cast the shadows
of civil discord, a basic element of the political functioning of the polis in itself,
into a moment of repression, negation and forgetting.²⁵² We can also add some
remarks on the memory of the Furies in its relation to stasis. Their memory re-
minds the citizens of Athens of the dangers that may arise from maternal venge-
ful wrath.²⁵³ Indeed, the Furies express their grudge for the abuse of their ancient
laws (specifically, of the duty to respect the inviolability of the mother’s body giv-
ing life) and threaten the city of Athens with stasis (Eum. 778 – 792 = 808 – 822;
837– 846), when Athena decrees the acquittal of Orestes. It is legitimate to
argue that the preservation of the community life in the polis would never
imply the disrespect for the rights of the mother figure. Again, I contend that Ae-
schylus’ poetry is not based on separations and exclusions. Precisely because
the respect for the inviolability of the mother’s body is a necessary condition
for maintaining the delicate balance of the political order in the polis, the painful
memory of the Erinyes protects the city of Athens by redeeming female geneal-
ogy from oblivion.
In what follows, I hope to demonstrate that the characters’ rhetoric of appro-
priation of keywords such as φίλος, ἐχθρός, μήτηρ, πατήρ, τρέφειν and τίκτειν
supports the analysis I have put forward in this section.
 Cf. Loraux (1980: 237). For a detailed discussion of the Greek vocabulary of stasis and the
natural interrelation between violence in the family and violence in the polis, cf. Loraux (1987).
 Cf. Loraux (1997: 38 – 40; quotation p. 38).
 In Agamemnon as well maternal revenge requires maternal memory (Ag. 155). On this line
and the semantic correspondences between Ag. 155 (οἰκονόμος δολία, μνάμων Μῆνις
τεκνόποινος) and Eum. 382– 383 (κακῶν τε μνήμονες), cf. pp. 40–42.

160 Eumenides
3 The legitimacy of words
The juridical controversy among the Furies, Athena, Apollo and Orestes concerns
the blood shed by the mother:²⁵⁴
Eum. 612– 613: ἀλλ’ εἰ δικαίως εἴτε μὴ τῆι σῆι φρενὶ

δοκῶ, τόδ’ αἷμα κρῖνον, ὡς τούτοις φράσω
Eum. 681– 682: κλύοιτ’ ἂν ἤδη θεσμόν, Ἀττικὸς λεώς,
πρώτας δίκας κρίνοντες αἵματος χυτοῦ
In these lines, according to Orestes and Athena, the enforcement of dike depends
on maternal blood. Therefore, the conditions for the possibility of democratic
justice are isomorphic with a process of normalisation of the mother’s blood
and its reproductive power.²⁵⁵ Yet, to value maternal blood means much more
in Eumenides. I assume that, in order to define the blood of the mother, we
have to opt for an interpretation of the origins as coming from the mother
and/or from the father figure, along with the play of differences that this entails.
Accordingly, I maintain that defining maternal blood is like engaging in an irre-
solvable conflict regarding the authorisation of genealogy and power as mater-
nal and/or paternal. Just as the Odyssey’s inquiries into the term ἀνήρ are not
over by the return of Odysseus to Ithaca, and by the enactment of peace con-
tracts, in Eumenides too the search for a definition of the words πατήρ and
 We might recognize in the phrase ‘τόδ’ αἷμα κρῖνον’ the rhetorical topos of the definition of
the nature of the deed disputed at the trial (orismos). On this topos and Orestes’ trial, cf. Glau
(1998: 312). On the lawsuit between Apollo and the Furies, cf. Eum. 224: δίκας δὲ Παλλὰς τῶνδ’
ἐποπτεύσει θεά; 243: αὐτοῦ φυλάσσων ἀναμένω τέλος δίκης; 433: κρῖνε δ’ εὐθεῖαν δίκην; 434:
αἰτίας τέλος; 468: σὺ δ’ εἰ δικαίως εἴτε μὴ κρῖνον δίκην; 472: φόνου διαιρεῖν ὀξυμηνίτου δίκας;
483: φόνων δικαστὰς ὁρκίων αἰδουμένους; 573: καὶ τούσδ’, ὅπως ἂν εὖ καταγνωσθῆι δίκη; 581:
τήνδε κύρωσον δίκην; 582: ὑμῶν ὁ μῦθος, εἰσάγω δὲ τὴν δίκην; 639: ὅσπερ τέτακται τήνδε
κυρῶσαι δίκην; 709: διαγνῶναι δίκην; 729: σύ τοι τάχ’ οὐκ ἔχουσα τῆς δίκης τέλος; 734: λοισθίαν
κρῖναι δίκην.
 I do not share the critical view according to which the biological bias of Apollo and Athena
does not have a central importance in the play’s discourse on dike in relation to Orestes’
matricide. Cf. Dover (1957: 236): ‘Athena’s somewhat illogical reason for voting in favour of
Orestes’ and, quite recently, Leâo (2010: 53): ‘In any case, the most important thing, in my
opinion, is the fact that the physiological argument used by Apollo … does not carry determining
weight in the dispute. Orestes is acquitted of matricide, in the first instance, on exceptional
grounds and through the special grace of the protecting divinity of Athens, in this way putting an
end to the continuous succession of assassinations and installing a newer form of application of
justice. This is why the trilogy does not conclude with the acquittal of Orestes, but rather with
the efforts Athena makes to integrate the Erinyes into this budding order’. On critics interpreting
the argument of Athena as an illogical and/or frivolous argument, cf. Hester (1981: 266 with n. 2).

Eumenides 161
ἀνήρ is not concluded with the acknowledgement of Agamemnon as the only ge-
netic parent of his children and as the head of the Atreid household. Read this
way, the tragic discourse of Eumenides seems to indicate that ‘the paradox of
Orestes’ desire for vengeance with regard to the emotive term τοκεύς, the need
for redefinition of that term’ (LSN: 144) risks turning into a tragic aporia.
We might advance some objections to this line of argumentation. The play
ends:
1) with the acquittal of Orestes;
2) with the Furies promising the city of Athens rightful prosperity and civil con-
cord, according to a life in respect of sophrosune (Eum. 996 – 1002);
3) with the Furies being acknowledged their new civic status as metoikoi, and
therefore being included in the civic life of the city of Athenes (Eum. 1011,
1018, 1028 – 1031);²⁵⁶
4) with the triumphant procession of torchbearers who wish for a time of peace
and prosperity for the city of Athens (Eum. 1032– 1047).
Yet, the Aeschylean trilogy is not a utopian play: it does not stage a success, rath-
er the conflict that is inherent in the enforcement of the law of dike. ²⁵⁷ Indeed,
 At line 1028 it is not clear if the Furies or the propompoi wear the purple clothes, typical for
the metoikoi. I follow Headlam (1906: 272– 274); Bowie (1993: 27) and Bacon (2001: 54) who
argues that the Furies are wearing them. For further bibliography, cf. Bacon (2001: 54 n. 14).
Arguing for the inclusion of the Furies in the civic life of the city of Athens, I differ from Dolgert
(2012: 271, 277– 278) who maintains that they are excluded and expelled from public life. Dol-
gert’s analysis is based on the meaning of θάλαμος in Eum. 1004, p. 278: ‘But this word, normally
translated as chamber, thalamos, has a number of different meanings, including bridal chamber,
grave, and netherworld … Athena may thus be saying that she will lead the Furies to their grave,
to Hades, which implies that the Furies are being killed or at least buried alive’. This is obviously
not the case: θάλαμος (cf. Sommerstein ad loc.) is terminus tecnicus for the adobe of chthonic
dieties. On the incorporation of the Furies into the civic life of Athens, cf. Rechenauer (2001: 88 –
92).
 On the enforcement of the law of dike in Greek tragedy, cf. Wohl (2009: 137) on Antigone:
‘Tragedy, in staging the conflict of laws as an aporia, a conflict without resolution, itself be-
comes the enactment of justice … But the justice it enacts is itself aporetic. It cannot be fixed or
localized in a simple moral’. Surprisingly, Wohl brilliantly challenges a reading of Antigone
which reduces the discourse of the play to a simple moral, but follows this reading for the
Oresteia. Cf. Wohl (2009: 124 with n. 11): ‘This is a depressingly familiar strategy in Greek tragedy:
otherwise irresolvable conflicts can be resolved by charting them onto gender difference, with its
unambiguous and seemingly incontrovertible hierarchy of male over female. … The end of the
Oresteia is the most notorious example; there, the traumatic legal and political crises of the first
two plays are finally resolved by appeal to the manifest priority of the father over the mother’. I
suspect that Wohl takes this critical path because she does not consider the characterisation of
Clytemnestra in her role as mother and the discursive struggle in the Aeschylean trilogy for the

162 Eumenides
Orestes is acquitted in dubio pro reo and the Furies, despite their appeasement,
remain Furies (cf. section four below). Yet, we should notice that Clytemnestra
does not attend the trial. Why, then, should we take the confrontation between
Apollo and the Furies as an inexhaustible judicial dispute on maternal or pater-
nal authority of birth and origins? For the following reasons:
1) Clytemnestra does not attend the trial because she has been killed already;
2) the Furies act as her legitimate voice (Eum. 131– 139);
3) Orestes’, Apollo’s, Athena’s and the Erinyes’ rhetoric of appropriation of
words such as φίλος, ἐχθρός, μήτηρ, πατήρ, τρέφειν and τίκτειν in their ex-
cited dispute on the role of mother and father pinpoints substantial differen-
ces among their discourses on genealogy and authority. Given that Orestes is
acquitted in dubio pro reo, these differences make us wonder whether we
have to assign the authority of birth and origins to the father figure and/
or to the mother figure.²⁵⁸
Let us begin with a discussion of Apollo’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word

πατήρ. Apollo uses this word right at the beginning of the play, while he prom-
ises his help to Orestes, and asks Hermes to support the matricidal son:²⁵⁹
Eum. 89: σὺ δ’, αὐτάδελφον αἷμα καὶ κοινοῦ πατρός
Here, the word πατήρ indicates a blood relative. Therefore, it hints at fatherhood
as a bond of consanguinity between father and children. Now, for Apollo consan-
guinity with the father suppresses consanguinity with the mother. We do not
have to search long for textual support to this view. When Apollo speaks of Cly-
temnestra’s maternal body, that body does not tie up mother and children in a
validation of the repudiation of her maternal power. In other words, reading Aeschylus, she
forgets the mother figure, the mother-child bond, and accordingly, Orestes’ acquittal in dubio pro
reo. For scholars who do not read the Oresteia as utopian play, cf. Euben (1982: 31); Porter (2005:
302 with n. 5).
 On this dispute as discourse, i. e. as logos, cf. Eum. 201: τοσοῦτο μῆκος ἔκτεινον λόγου, 215:
ἄτιμος τῶιδ’ ἀπέρριπται λόγωι, 227: τιμὰς σὺ μὴ σύντεμνε τὰς ἐμὰς λόγωι, 303: οὐδ’ ἀντιφωνεῖς,
ἀλλ’ ἀποπτύεις λόγους, 420: μάθοιμ’ ἂν, εἰ λέγοι τις ἐμφανῆ λόγον, 428: δυοῖν παρόντοιν ἥμισυς
λόγου πάρα, 583: ἐξ ἀρχῆς λέγων, 590: οὐ κειμένωι πω τόνδε κομπάζεις λόγον, 592: λέγω, 642:
πῶς ταῦτα τούτοις οὐκ ἐναντίως λέγεις, 662: τεκμήριον δὲ τοῦδέ σοι δείξω λόγου, 675: ψῆφον
δικαίαν, ὡς ἅλις λελεγμένων, 710: εἴρηται λόγος.
 On Apollo first speech I shall mention the brilliant article of Pelliccia (1993: 69 – 103) who
discusses at great length the oracular character of Apollo’s language (in particular in regard to
οὔτοι προδώσω in line 64 and μέμνησο in line 88). On οὔτοι προδώσω, cf. also Vogt (1998: 42).

Eumenides 163
bond of consanguinity. Rather, it becomes for Apollo (as for the characters in
Choephoroi) an object to be destroyed:²⁶⁰
Eum. 84: καὶ γὰρ κτανεῖν σ’ ἔπεισα μητρῶιον δέμας

Eum. 579 – 580: … αἰτίαν δ’ ἔχω
τῆς τοῦδε μητρὸς τοῦ φόνου …
Similarly, in Apollo’s speech in defence of Orestes (Eum. 660 – 666), the god’s
rhetoric of appropriation of the verbs τρέφειν and τίκτειν and the word πατήρ
links consanguinity to the father and not to the mother. The father – as Apollo
maintains – gives life (Eum. 660: τίκτει δ’ ὁ θρώισκων; 666: ἀλλ’ οἷον ἔρνος
οὔτις ἂν τέκοι θεά) and Athena’s case provides an incontrovertible proof for
this discourse:
Eum. 662: τεκμήριον δὲ τοῦδέ σοι δείξω λόγου

Eum. 664: μάρτυς πάρεστι παῖς Ὀλυμπίου Διός
Indeed, she has not been nourished by the blood of her mother’s womb:
Eum. 665: οὐκ ἐν σκότοισι νηδύος τεθραμμένη
According to Apollo, the father’s genealogical authority of birth eliminates the

consanguinity with the mother. For this reason, it legitimises the definition of
blood ties as based both on the law of the father-tokeus and on the mother’s po-
sition in the family as wife of the children’s father.²⁶¹ The text supports this read-
ing. In this regard, passage 622– 637 is particularly interesting. The Erinyes speak
lines 622– 624 to Apollo and Orestes, during their exchange about paternal and
maternal consanguinity, immediately before the jurors cast their votes. Here, the
Erinyes use the words μήτηρ and πατήρ to refer to the killing of Agamemnon as
the violent action of a mother against a father:
 Note that Apollo, the god who seeks to destroy the mother, is also the god who has taken
control over the oracle of Delphi, breaking the maternal genealogy in the succession of its power
(Eum. 1– 18). As son and prophetic interpreter of his father Zeus (Eum. 19), Apollo maintains that
his oracles have always been ordered by Zeus father (Eum. 616 – 618). This is why, according to
him, to defend the matricidal son is like obeying the will of Zeus (Eum. 620 – 621; cf. as well
Eum. 640). In sharp opposition to Apollo’s defence of the will/oracles of the father/his father, we
find the Erinyes’ definition of Apollo’s oracular power as a violation of justice (Eum. 162– 168).
On passage 162– 168, cf. Pattoni (1994: 101 ff.).
 Cf. Millett (1971: 114): ‘Apollo legislates, finding Clytemnestra, in taking the life of Aga-
memnon, husband king and father, guilty of a very grave crime indeed’.

164 Eumenides
Eum. 623 – 624: …τὸν πατρὸς φόνον

πράξαντα μητρὸς μηδαμοῦ τιμὰς νέμειν;
Yet, Apollo corrects the Furies, arguing that Clytemnestra is the wife of her noble
husband, the victorious king in Troy:
Eum. 625 – 627: οὐ γάρ τι ταὐτὸν, ἄνδρα γενναῖον θανεῖν

διοσδότοις σκήπτροισι τιμαλφούμενον,
καὶ ταῦτα πρὸς γυναικός …
Eum. 631: ἀπὸ στρατείας γάρ νιν, ἠμποληκότα
Eum. 636 – 637: ἀνδρὸς μὲν ὑμῖν οὗτος εἴρηται μόρος
τοῦ παντοσέμνου, τοῦ στρατηλάτου νεῶν
Orestes follows Apollo’s line of argumentation on the social definition of the

mother figure as the wife of her husband, and on the validation of power as ex-
clusively paternal. In exactly the same way as in Choephoroi (cf. ch. 2. II, 1– 2), for
Orestes Clytemnestra is not his mother giving life, but a wife who killed the child-
ren’s father. Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the words ἀνήρ and πατήρ in
Eum. 602 (ἀνδροκτονοῦσα πατέρ’ ἐμὸν κατέκτανε), in the exchange with the Fur-
ies after Apollo’s entrance on stage, seems clear enough to me on this point: by
killing Agamemnon, Clytemnestra has killed the children’s father (πατέρ’ ἐμὸν),
i. e. her husband and the man with power (ἀνδρο…). I would push the similarities
between Orestes’ and Apollo’s discourses even further. Right at the beginning of
the play, in his first speech, Apollo’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word ἐχθρός
in Eum. 66 (ἐχθροῖσι τοῖς σοῖς οὐ γενήσομαι πέπων) seems to echo Orestes’ and
Electra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word φίλος (cf. ch. 2, II. 1). The Furies
are labelled as echthroi, since their rebellion against the violation of the female
genealogical rights is for Apollo an illegitimate act against the law of the Father
and philos.
Following this line of argumentation, closure can partially be found only by
Apollo’s divine authority (Orestes is acquitted in dubio pro reo), because only di-
vine authority can mediate the relation between the mother’s body, as the bio-
logical source of life, and the laws of social organisation through marriage.
Lines 658 – 659 of Apollo’s famous speech on paternal genealogy point in this di-
rection as well:
οὐκ ἔστι μήτηρ ἡ κεκλημένη τέκνου

τοκεύς, τροφὸς δὲ κύματος νεοσπόρου
Here, as Apollo speaks about the mother’s agency of giving life, claiming that a
mother is not the one to be called (ἡ κεκλημένη) the genetic parent of the child

Eumenides 165
(τέκνου τοκεύς), motherhood is turned into the symbolic construct of a patriar-

chal discourse, established by all instances of the law of the Father engraved in a
maternal body: an empty vessel whose function is the reproduction of the fa-
ther’s children and the perpetuation of the community of the fathers (τροφὸς
δὲ κύματος νεοσπόρου).²⁶² However, this very idea of suppressing what is a mat-
ter of fact, namely that the community of the fathers needs the mother’s body in
order to reproduce itself, is nothing more than a pure speculation. In fact, when
Apollo denies the biological power of the mother, he makes use of an optative.
There could be – he says – a father without a mother:
Eum. 663: πατὴρ μὲν ἂν γείναιτ’ ἄνευ μητρός …
Obviously, the opposite is true: there cannot be a father without a mother. Again,
we see how the play’s discourse of separation and exclusion of the mother’s
functions (not the woman giving life, but the wife of her husband for whom
she has borne children) inevitably implies a discourse of inclusion (woman
with a child = wife of the husband and the children’s father and mother giving
life).
In her speech in defence of Orestes, Athena is re-enacting the biological bias
of Apollo against the mother’s reproductive power. Following Athena, genealog-
ical authority belongs to the father figure. Therefore, Clytemnestra’s maternal
role in the family’s system has to be identified with that of the wife of her hus-
band and ruler of the house:
Eum. 736 – 740: μήτηρ γὰρ οὔτις ἐστὶν ἥ μ’ ἐγείνατο,

τὸ δ’ ἄρσεν αἰνῶ πάντα, πλὴν γάμου τυχεῖν,
ἅπαντι θυμῶι, κάρτα δ’ εἰμὶ τοῦ πατρός.
οὕτω γυναικὸς οὐ προτιμήσω μόρον
ἄνδρα κτανούσης δωμάτων ἐπίσκοπον
In linking the pair μήτηρ-πατήρ (Eum. 736 – 738: μήτηρ γὰρ οὔτις ἐστὶν … κάρτα
δ’ εἰμὶ τοῦ πατρός) with the pair ἀνήρ-γυνή (Eum. 739 – 740: γυναικὸς οὐ προτι-
μήσω μόρον/ ἄνδρα κτανούσης δωμάτων ἐπίσκοπον), the Greek οὕτω in
Eum. 739 gives good reason to accept Athena’s equation between mother and
wife of the husband and of the man with power. Yet, her discourse of exclusion
risks failing as well. As Loraux (1985: 64) has lucidly shown, Athena, as a virgin
 Cf. Zeitlin (1978: 168), and for similar critical positions duBois (1988: 70 – 71); Bacon (2001:
56 n. 19). On Apollo’s bias and its relation to the presocratic medical tradition, cf. e. g. Blass
(1936); Peretti (1956); Rösler (1970: 77– 87); Kember (1973); Hester (1981: 266 – 267); Kraus (1983:
201– 202); Föllinger (1996: 49); Bonnard (2004: 119 – 144).

166 Eumenides
and warlike goddess, resembles Iphigeneia, and recalls the connection between
the young girl and the world of war. Thus, Athena’s praise of fatherhood seems to
be still haunted by the memories of the father’s warlike violence and of the
mother’s relationship with her daughter. Some questions arise. Is Athena entirely
on the side of the father? Does her discourse on the father figure have the power
to suppress de facto maternal genealogy?
However, if we abide by Athena’s rhetoric of appropriation of the keywords
μήτηρ, πατήρ, γυνή and ἀνήρ, and with her representation of the mother as the
wife of the husband, further remarks seem possible. Athena praises the male in
all respects, except where marriage is concerned:
Eum. 737: τὸ δ’ ἄρσεν αἰνῶ πάντα, πλὴν γάμου τυχεῖν
Line 737 has been explained in several ways. Podlecki (ad loc.) maintains that
Athena refuses marriage because she is a virgin. Sommerstein (ad loc.), following
Goldhill (LSN: 259, 280), refers to her liminal position of androgynous goddess in
regard to gender relations, and beyond them. These interpretations seem to be
corroborated by a further remark: Athena refuses marriage, since as a goddess
she seems ‘to have “immortal blood” and to be “bloodless” ’.²⁶³ As I argued in
the chapter on Choephoroi (cf. 2. II, 1), in the human world, marriage defines
the mother’s position in the social organization of the family as mother of the
father’s children, therefore symbolising the maternal blood being expropriated
of its reproductive agency, as well as that same agency being transferred from
women to men. Gods get married too, and humans, cherishing the joys of mar-
riage, reiterate a divine praxis that guarantees a just life in the community of the
fathers. Yet, as the case of Athena shows, a goddess might accept the authority of
paternal genealogy and, at the same time, refuse marriage: for a divine being
which seems ‘to have “immortal blood” and to be “bloodless” ’, power relations
are not based on real blood, or on the denial of the power of mother’s blood to
give life. Therefore, Athena’s rejection of marriage may emphasize her liminal po-
sition precisely by outlining the fundamental difference between human and di-
 On the absence of real blood in divine bodies, cf. Vernant (1989: 26): ‘In the human body,
blood is life. But when it gushes out of a wound … then blood means death. Because the gods
are alive, there is undoubtedly blood in their bodies. Yet, even when it trickles from an open
wound, this divine blood cannot tip the scales toward the side of death. A blood that flows, but
that does not mean the loss of life … in short, a “immortal blood”, ambroton haima – is it still
blood? Since the gods bleed, one must admit that their bodies have blood in them, but it must be
immediately added that this is so only on the condition that this blood is not really blood, since
death … is not present in it. Letting blood that is not blood, the gods simultaneously appear to
have “immortal blood” and to be “bloodless” ’.

Eumenides 167
vine body (having real blood or not) and between human and divine power re-
lations (paternal genealogy with or without marriage).
Orestes appropriates the words μήτηρ, τίκτειν and φίλος exactly as his de-
fenders do. For him, the name of Clytemnestra is synonymous with mother giv-
ing life:
Eum. 463: ἔκτεινα τὴν τεκοῦσαν …
Yet, we do not have to wait long for Orestes’ repudiation of Clytemnestra’s ma-
ternal agency of giving life. In Eum. 606, during his exchange with the Furies
on the issue of consanguinity with the mother, he asks them if he is truly of
the same blood as his mother or not:
ἐγὼ δὲ μητρὸς τῆς ἐμῆς ἐν αἵματι;
What Orestes does not question, as he confesses to having killed his mother, is
his own view of Clytemnestra as an unreasonable being. In Eum. 459 – 460 he de-
scribes his mother as a κελαινόφρων μήτηρ, an expression usually translated as
‘black-hearted’, ‘black of heart’, ‘black-souled’ (cf. Sommerstein, Podlecki ad
loc.), and therefore an expression that tends to associate Clytemnestra with
the Erinyes, who are repeatedly described as daughters of the mother-night
(Eum. 321– 322, 745, 844, 877, 1033). However, there is more to the Greek κελαι-
νόφρων and to this association of Clytemnestra with the mother-night. The ad-
jective κελαινόφρων is a composite of the terms κελαινόν and φρήν, and the lat-
ter, as we know, designates not only the soul or the heart but the mind as well. It
is important to bear in mind this meaning. Clytemnestra’s characterisation as a
black-minded mother reminds us of the image of the mother-night, and of the
implied image of a cheerful and reasonable mother in Ag. 265 (μητρὸς εὐφρόνης
with the pun μητρὸς εὐφρόνος), which we discussed in the chapter on Agamem-
non (p. 34):
ἕως γένοιτο μητρὸς εὐφρόνης πάρα
Now, when Orestes refers to his mother by using the phrase ‘κελαινόφρων
μήτηρ’, he seems to be re-appropriating the word μήτηρ and the maternal
image in Ag. 265. As for Cassandra, for the nurse and, to a certain extent, for
Electra (cf. pp. 48 – 49, 85 – 86, 122– 124), for Orestes as well the word μήτηρ ap-
plies not to a reasonable and kind being, but to a creature whose mind is dark-
ened and misused.

168 Eumenides
Unlike Apollo, Athena and Orestes, the Furies do not frame a discourse that
instantiates the Father as the origin of birth and power, and that defines blood
ties and power relations as based on the law of the Father. Instead, they chal-
lenge such discourse on the supposed supremacy of father over mother:
Eum. 640: πατρὸς προτιμᾶι Ζεὺς μόρον τῶι σῶι λόγωι
As Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words φίλος, ὠδίς, τρέφειν

and τίκτειν in Agamemnon and Choephoroi indicates, also the Erinyes’ rhetoric
of appropriation of the words τρέφειν, μήτηρ, φίλος, αἷμα, τίκτειν and related
terms draws attention to the role of the mother as the condition of life, to the
consanguinity between mother and child and to the importance of the maternal
blood as the element that binds together mother and child in an inviolable bond
of philia:
Eum. 230 and 261: … αἷμα μητρῶιον …

Eum. 271: … τοκέας φίλους
Eum. 304: ἐμοὶ τραφείς …
Eum. 514: … τεκοῦσα νεοπαθὴς
Eum. 605: οὐκ ἦν ὅμαιμος φωτὸς ὃν κατέκτανεν
Eum. 607– 608: πῶς γάρ σ’ ἔθρεψεν ἐντός, ὦ μιαιφόνε,
ζώνης; ἀπεύχηι μητρὸς αἷμα φίλτατον
Eum. 653: τὸ μητρὸς αἷμ’ ὅμαιμον …
Line 514, in the second stasimon, is revealing of Clytemnestra’s function as a

mother-tokeus. The Furies use the participle τεκοῦσα in sharp opposition to
their own use of the word πατήρ in Eum. 513:
… τις τάχ’ ἂν πατὴρ
Clearly, according to them, the power of tiktein or giving life also belongs to the
mother. As the Furies’ usage of the words τρέφειν, μήτηρ, φίλος, τίκτειν, αἷμα
and related terms shows, their discourse on the mother-child relation seems to
elucidate the fundamental differences between being a mother and being a fa-
ther. I would like to summarise the criteria for these differences. Quoting Irigaray
(2000: 151):
– whether one can conceive a living being in one’s own body or not;
– whether one procreates within oneself, or outside oneself;
– whether one can nourish another living being from one’s own body, or only
through one’s own labour.

Eumenides 169
In the next section, I turn to the Erinyes’ incorporation into Athens’ city life. My
contention is that the narrative of Athena’s persuasion and of the appeasement
of the Furies’ anger does not endorse the authoritative validity of the male model
of justice. On the contrary, it demonstrates that the justice of Athena, who is en-
tirely on the father’s side, necessitates the Erinyes’ dike as well. In this particular
regard, as Sourvinou-Inwood (2003: 236) has aptly observed, Eumenides invites
the reader to wonder how ‘the Erinyes would be dealt with’. Accordingly, I also
contend that questioning dike in Eumenides leads to questioning the authorisa-
tion of blood ties and power relations as based merely on the law of the Father.
4 Athena’s persuasion, the Erinyes and/or Eumenides
Così vanno le cose così devono andare

chi c’é c’é e chi non c’é non c’é, chi é stato é stato e chi
stato non é
Consorzio Suonatori Indipendenti
In consideration of my remarks in sections two and three of this chapter, can we

assert that Eumenides expresses the anxieties of a myth of matriarchy, and that it
promotes a patriarchal discourse whose misogyny is counteracted by the institu-
tion of the Erinyes’ cult?²⁶⁴ When, towards the end of the play, the Furies express
their benign auspices for the city of Athens (Eum. 956 – 967), their wish for vir-
gins to have husbands places the function of women into a patriarchal model
according to which the female becomes a woman only through and by marriage:
Eum. 959 – 960: νεανίδων δ’ ἐπηράτων

ἀνδροτυχεῖς βιότους δότε …
In this sense, the domestication of the Furies by Athena seems to privilege the
defence of paternal consanguinity and social bonds through marriage and patri-
lineal heritage. A denial of maternal blood kinship is promoted in favour of the
civic self- reproduction of the polis (mother = wife of the husband and father).²⁶⁵
 Cf. Burian and Shapiro (2003: 22– 24).

 Cf. Johnston (1999: 261– 264). However, I differ from Johnston insofar as she does not
consider that the validation of blood ties as paternal grounds the definition of the father figure
as the origin of birth and power in the family and in society. As I hope to have shown in the
previous two chapters, it is not simply the repudiation of motherhood and maternal consan-
guinity that authorises social kinship and the power of the father figure. Rather, it is precisely
the suppression of maternal consanguinity and the related re-definition of consanguinity as

170 Eumenides
Nonetheless, do the Furies truly renounce defending the inviolability of maternal

consanguinity? To answer this question, we have to consider the dramatic situa-
tion that follows Athena’s appeasement of the Furies through persuasion. After
having been propitiated by Athena, the Erinyes promise to desist from stirring
up civil dissension (Eum. 976 – 986). Yet, as the goddess reports, they will not ac-
tually cease to punish the faults of ancestors and to wield power, in order to fulfil
the rule of dike and therefore to pursue wrongdoers:²⁶⁶
Eum. 910: τῶν δυσσεβούντων δ’ ἐκφορωτέρα πέλοις²⁶⁷

Eum. 934– 935: τὰ γὰρ ἐκ προτέρων ἀπλακήματά νιν
πρὸς τάσδ’ ἀπάγει …
Eum. 952– 955: περί τ’ ἀνθρώπων φανέρ’ ὡς τελέως
διαπράσσουσιν, τοῖς μὲν ἀοιδάς,
τοῖς δ’ αὖ δακρύων
βίον ἀμβλωπὸν παρέχουσαι
Moreover, as Rabinowitz (1981: 184) has noticed, in her attempt to persuade the
Furies to abandon their vengeful violence (Eum. 794: ἐμοὶ πίθεσθε μὴ βαρυ-
στόνως φέρειν; 885: ἀλλ’ εἰ μὲν ἁγνόν ἐστί σοι Πειθοῦς σέβας), Athena only
talks about the acts they are not supposed to perpetrate, without mentioning
the fact that they will not actually reiterate those actions:
paternal that validates the position of Agamemnon as genetic father and subject of power (in the
family: genitor, husband; in society: head of the family, king and warrior). Accordingly, I also
differ from Zakin (2009: 184) who reads the conflict between Apollo and the Furies as a conflict
of maternal blood kinship over paternal social kinship, but omits that Apollo’s discourse on
paternal social kinship (mother = wife of the husband and father) is grounded a) in a discourse
on paternal consanguinity, i. e. in the definition of the father figure as the only genetic parent
and the sole origin of life and b) in the repudiation of maternal consanguinity (cf. pp. 163 – 166):
‘Whereas Apollo privileges “married love” (217) over either “kindred blood” (213) or the “right of
nature” (218), the Erinyes had allied themselves with the “motherblood” that drives them (230),
invoking not only kinship but also one transmitted through the maternal line’. On maternal
consanguinity and maternal power in the family system, cf. Clytemnestra’s discourse on mo-
therhood at pp. 24– 27.
 Cf. Burian and Shapiro (2003: 20 – 21); Easterling (2008: 232– 233), with further bibliogra-
phy.
 I read δυσσεβούντων δ’ as in M. Therefore, I take ἐκφορωτέρα in the meaning of ‘more
ready to weed out’. Sommerstein corrects τῶν δ’ εὐσεβούντων and argues that ἐκφορωτέρα in
the meaning of ‘to weed out’ does not fit the context of Athena’s speech, who, in this passage, is
talking about blessings. However, it seems important to retain δυσσεβούντων δ’ and to read
ἐκφορωτέρα as ‘to weed out’: it is clear evidence that Athena is aware of the power of the Furies
to curse wrongdoers and to benefit righteous men.

Eumenides 171
Eum. 800 – 802: ὑμεῖς δὲ μήτε τῆιδε γῆι βαρὺν κότον

σκήψητε, μὴ θυμοῦσθε, μηδ’ ἀκαρπίαν
τεύξητ’…
Eum. 829 – 831: ἀλλ’ οὐδὲν αὐτοῦ δεῖ. σὺ δ’ εὐπιθὴς ἐμοὶ
γλώσσης ματαίας μὴ ’κβάληις ἔπη χθονί,
καρπὸν φέροντα πάντα μὴ πράσσειν καλῶς
Eum. 887– 889: … εἰ δὲ μὴ θέλεις μένειν
οὐκ ἂν δικαίως τῆιδ’ ἐπιρρέποις πόλει
μῆνίν τιν’ ἢ κότον τιν’ ἢ βλάβην στρατῶι
If we agree that the power of Athena’s persuasion does not affect the Erinyes’
concern for justice – which is primarily to be conceived as the punishment of
inter-familial violence – we are finally in the position to conclude that fear and
respect for the inviolability of the mother-child relation, and in fact of any
blood tie, install the guarantee of an ordered and peaceful civic life in the city
of Athens. Thus, as Harris (1973: 156) pointed out, through the Furies’ incorpora-
tion into the community of Athens the justice of Zeus ‘has a mother’s face en-
graved upon it’.²⁶⁸ Harris’ remark illustrates a relevant fact: the ordered life in
the polis of Athens might depend strictly on the actions of female forces and
on acknowledging the respect that is due to the mother. How can we blindly
rely on an interpretation of Aeschylus’ poetry as mysogynist? What if we rather
read the Oresteia as a tragic play that emphasises the dangerous differences in-
herent to sex and gender relations? In what follows, I dwell at some length on
these issues.
It has been observed that the Oresteia, moving from Agamemnon to Eume-
nides, reaches its conclusion by settling the conflict between the sexes. The re-
lease from pain and misery is provided by Athena’s power of persuasion: the
words of the goddess transform the Furies, violent creatures who curse the
city of Athens and its habitants, into agents of lasting concord and social cohe-
sion.²⁶⁹ This emphasis on change and transformation raises some questions. Not
only will the Furies continue to carry out their punitive functions, as I have al-
ready discussed; it is also uncertain whether Athena’s persuasion would guaran-
 Cf. similarly Saxonhouse (2009: 56): ‘But Aeschylus does not ignore what is lost in this
process of building up the city. As the old gods protest their suppression, the powerful images of
the earlier plays in which the familial ties of birth could not so easily tossed aside remain’.
 Cf. Buxton (1982: 109): ‘In Eumenides, at last, frank and open peitho brings about re-
conciliation and soothes the hurts of the past’. Similarly, cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983: 168 – 169);
Seaford (1994: 105, 132, 386); Mitchell-Boyask (2009: 27– 33). On the critics’ emphasis on the
Furies’ change and transformation, cf. also Easterling (2008: 230 – 233), with further bibliogra-
phy.

172 Eumenides
tee a state of permanent civil concord or not. There is a crucial issue we have to
contemplate: in Athena’s persuasive language the boundaries between erotic
and rhetoric seduction are very blurred. Indeed, Athena’s persuasion proceeds
through the eyes; the power of her language is associated with enchantment
and bewitchment:²⁷⁰
Eum. 81– 82: … καὶ θελκτηρίους

μύθους ἔχοντες μηχανὰς εὑρήσομεν
Eum. 900: θέλξειν μ’ ἔοικας …
Eum. 970 – 971: … στέργω δ’ ὄμματα Πειθοῦς
ὅτι μοι γλῶσσαν καὶ στόμ’ ἐπώπα
To some extent, these passages seem to suggest a shift between the tricky and
dangerous human persuasion and Athena’s mellifluous way of speech
(Eum. 886: γλώσσης ἐμῆς μείλιγμα καὶ θελκτήριον). Certainly, in Agamemnon
persuasion is a ruinous and sinister force of destruction, the daughter of Ate
(Ag. 385 – 386: βιᾶται δ’ ἁ τάλαινα Πειθώ/ προβούλου παῖς ἄφερτος Ἄτας). Of
course, the same cannot be said of Athena’s political eloquence that does not op-
erate for the evil but for the good of the city. However, given that Athena’s resto-
ration of an ordered life in the polis is achieved through a shifting persuasion, we
shall perhaps ask ourselves if her divine thaumaturgic operation against the Fur-
ies would really last forever. But there is more to say.
As has been observed, Athena’s justice is enacted not only through language
(rhetorical persuasion), but also through political action (Eum. 927– 928: τάδ’
ἐγὼ προφρόνως τοῖσδε πολίταις/ πράσσω), namely through the foundation of
the court of the Areopagus:
Eum. 483 – 484: φόνων δικαστὰς ὁρκίων αἰδουμένους

θεσμόν, τὸν εἰς ἅπαντ’ ἐγὼ θήσω χρόνον
Eum. 704– 706: κερδῶν ἄθικτον τοῦτο βουλευτήριον,
αἰδοῖον, ὀξύθυμον, εὑδόντων ὕπερ
ἐγρηγορὸς φρούρημα γῆς καθίσταμαι
Considering that the court of the Areopagus is established once and for all, we
are in the position to say that institutional continuity is part of the solution of
the struggle in the Atreid family and in the polis of Athens. Yet, the Areopagus
 Cf. Goldhill (LSN: 213, 280); Pucci (1992: 521– 522); Rizzini (1999: 90 – 95 with n. 33); Re-
chenauer (2001: 67, 84– 86); Markovits (2009: 438). Relying on these scholars, I differ from
Kambitsis (1973) who reads the expression ‘ὄμματα Πειθοῦς’ merely as a proof that Athena’s
power of persuasion has succefully transformed the Furies from agents of evil into agents of
marriage and therefore into agents of social cohesion.

Eumenides 173
cannot enforce the rule of justice: with Orestes’ acquittal in dubio pro reo
(Eum. 741: ἰσόψηφος κριθῆι, 753: ἴσον γάρ ἐστι τἀρίθμημα τῶν πάλων, 795:
ἰσόψηφος δίκη), it seems rather to stand for a fracture at the very origin of the
democratic system, i. e. for a division marked by rhetorical dissension. As Loraux
(1990b: 91) poignantly remarks, Orestes’ acquittal in dubio pro reo reveals a ‘sit-
uation extrême où le compte des votes est le même de deux côtés, ce qui signifie
pur danger, … parce que le groupe des votants s’est divisé en deux, sans reste’.²⁷¹
Again, how does the realisation of Athena’s justice guarantee a state of perma-
nent civil concord, through the power of words and political action, as an-
nounced by the goddess to her citizens?
Eum. 927– 928: τάδ’ ἐγὼ προφρόνως τοῖσδε πολίταις

πράσσω …
Whereas Athena’s justice does not seem to establish a correspondence between

words and actions, the justice of the Erinyes is instead enacted by language, and
their words are action and realisation and, as such, true. In the speech Athena
delivers to the Furies, in order to smooth their anger, lines 829 – 830 are consis-
tent with this representation of the Furies’ justice:
… σὺ δ’ εὐπιθὴς ἐμοὶ
γλώσσης ματαίας μὴ ’κβάληις ἔπη χθονί
 Cf. also Loraux (1979: 3): ‘Aux origines, la démocratie est rupture’. In this reading, the jurors
are 10 or 12; that means that 5 (or 6) vote for and 5 (or 6) vote against Orestes, and Athena adds
her vote in favour of Orestes. Whether Athena determines with her vote the equality of the votes
or not is a much discussed topic in the scholarship. On the so called calculus Minervae, cf. e. g.
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1914: 183 – 185); Friedman and Gassel (1951: 431– 432); Costa (1962:
26); Thomson (1966: 55 – 56); Gagarin (1975); Vellacott (1977: 120); Hester (1981); Winnington-
Ingram (1983: 124– 128 n. 110); Kraus (1983: 203 – 206); Conacher (1987: 164– 166); Meier (1988:
129); Podlecki (1989: 211– 213); Loraux (1990b: 103 – 106); Seaford (1995); Flashar (1997: 100, 105);
Käppel (1998: 266 – 268 with n. 134– 136); Vogt (1998: 43 – 44); Manuwald (2000: 80 – 81); Re-
chenauer (2001: 63 – 64); Porter (2005: 305 – 306 with n. 19); Saxonhouse (2009: 53 – 54); Leâo
(2010: 53); Lawrence (2013: 97). On Orestes’ acquittal in dubio pro reo and the danger of civic
discord inherent in it, cf. also Porter (2005: 306 – 307) who notes that only gods, not humans, are
persuaded by Athena: ‘In terms of “who controls the conversation” and “who is persuaded”, in
this play gods both do the controlling and, in the end, are the ones persuaded’. It is worth
commenting that the acquittal of Orestes in dubio pro reo brings back Orestes’ hesitation to kill
his mother on the stage. As Orestes does not know what he has to do (shall he kill his mother or
not? – Cho. 899), so the jurors are divided in their judgement pro or contra Orestes, i. e. pro or
contra the legitimacy of matricide as an act of dike. The division of the jurors poses Orestes’
question once more: shall I kill the mother or not?

174 Eumenides
Here, according to Athena, precisely the Furies’ words give rise to the violence of
relentless discord in the community of Athens.²⁷² Hence, we might come to a two-
fold conclusion:
1) Athena’s realisation of democratic dike, i. e. her τέλος δίκης (Eum. 243), de-
spite her discourse on institutional continuity, seems to be temporary, pre-
cisely because her order of justice is unable to set the destructive power of
the Furies’ justice aside. In fact, the Furies can obey to Athena (εὐπιθὴς
ἐμοί) – they do not have to;²⁷³
2) Athena’s realisation of justice is temporary, insofar as it cannot suppress the
power of the Furies and the authority of maternal genealogy as a key-factor
for an ordered life in the community of Athens.
A discussion of the similarities between the assertions of the Furies in the second
stasimon (Eum. 526 – 530) and the assertion of Athena in her last speech before
the casting of the votes (Eum. 696 – 697) might reinforce these conclusions. The
Furies, who defend the doctrine of the virtuous means (Eum. 529: παντὶ μέσωι
τὸ κράτος θεὸς ὤπασεν), refuse anarchy and despotism (Eum. 526 – 529: μήτ’
ἄναρκτον βίον/ μήτε δεσποτούμενον/ αἰνέσηις), as a way for humans to live to-
gether. Quite the same, as Kramer has aptly pointed out (1960: 33 – 34), Athena
suggests that the people of the city of Athens shall live in a system that is neither
anarchic nor despotic:
Eum. 696 – 697: τὸ μήτ’ ἄναρχον μήτε δεσποτούμενον

ἀστοῖς περιστέλλουσι βουλεύω σέβειν
Mirroring the model of justice envisioned by Athena, the Erinyes become the
ministers of her dike. Above all that, they truly guarantee her order of justice.
As Athena states, a necessary condition of living together in justice, free from an-
archy and despotism, is the reverence for what arouses fear:²⁷⁴
 On the Erinyes’ words as actions and realisation, cf. Neustadt (1929: 248); Detienne (1967:
58 – 60). Athena is aware that the Erinyes are goddesses of realisation. Indeed, consider her
attempt to question it in Eum. 430: κλύειν δίκαιος μᾶλλον ἢ πρᾶξαι θέλεις.
 Similarly, cf. Kramer (1960: 34– 35): ‘In Aeschylean myth the major powers at work in the
feudal realm of retribution – Zeus, the Furies and the Fates, Persuasion, Dike, Nemesis – are at
work also to uphold Athena’s altar of right’.
 Similarly, cf. Cohen (1986: 139): ‘Thus, as Athena makes all too clear, fear (681– 710) and
force underline the transformation of the social order’. As Cohen, cf. Manuwald (2000: 81 with n.
24 and n. 25). Assuming that lines 698 – 699 refer to the Furies, I differ from Costa (1962: 29) who
glosses: ‘Moreover, the nature of the authority to be respected and feared has altered and

Eumenides 175
Eum. 698 – 699: καὶ μὴ τὸ δεινὸν πᾶν πόλεως ἔξω βαλεῖν·

τίς γὰρ δεδοικὼς μηδὲν ἔνδικος βροτῶν;
Again, we find the working of Athena’s justice to be strictly constrained by the

Furies’ punitive functions, along with the fear and the dangers inherent to
them. Athena’s justice would not even exist without the fear of the Erinyes
and their authority. This is the reason why they have not been defeated, as Athe-
na deliberately points out while trying to appease the Furies:
Eum. 795: οὐ γὰρ νενίκησθ’ …
Taking for granted that the Furies have not been either defeated, or transformed
by Athena’s persuasion or by her enactment of justice, how can we interpret their
contention that Athena has deceived them?
Eum. 845 – 846 = 879 – 880: ἀπό με γὰρ τιμᾶν δαναιᾶν θεῶν
δυσπάλαμοι παρ’ οὐδὲν ἦραν δόλοι
The Furies speaks this passage to Athena, when the goddess, after the votes have
been counted, tries to soothe their anger. The Furies’ use of the word δόλος
brings us back to the situation in Agamemnon and Choephoroi where deception
is embedded again and again in a discourse on the reproductive agency of moth-
er and father (cf. ch. 1, I. 4; 2, IV. 5). The Furies lament that they have been de-
ceived, as they realize they must lose their ancient privileges as a direct conse-
quence of Athena’s attempt to soothe their wrath through language:
Athena – Eum. 836: ἔχουσ’ ἐς αἰεὶ τόνδ’ ἐπαινέσεις λόγον

Furies – Eum. 845 – 846: ἀπό με γὰρ τιμᾶν δαναιᾶν θεῶν
δυσπάλαμοι παρ’ οὐδὲν ἦραν δόλοι
Given that the Furies’ ancient privileges consist of the defence of parental blood,
and, even more importantly, of the defence of the blood tie between mother and
child, Athena’s persuasive discourse or logos can be easily understood as a repu-
diation of the inviolability of the maternal blood and of its power to give life.
Read this way, the Furies’ contention that they have been deceived by Athena’s
logos indicates how difficult it is to use language for constructing a concept of
motherhood based on female biological powerlessness. Indeed, Athena’s persua-
sion is incapable of depriving the Furies of their punitive functions.
become more rational: it is the Areopagus as a legitimate power to punish wickedness which is
τὸ δεινόν, and not the Erinyes as inflictors of supernatural punishments’.

176 Eumenides
Saying that the Furies do not change, by the time they are incorporated in
the civic life of Athens, is like saying that they remain, as in Agamemnon, min-
isters of Zeus’ law of drasanta pathein or ‘who does, suffers’. Therefore, we
should consider if, moving from Agamemnon to Eumenides, it is plausible to
track an evolution in the order of justice established by Zeus. I turn to this ques-
tion in the next section.
5 Zeus, his Erinyes and the Trojan War
As has often been observed, Zeus’ justice works in Agamemnon through the pu-
nitive actions of the Furies:
Ag. 56 – 59: ἢ Πὰν ἢ Ζεὺς οἰωνόθροον

γόον ὀξυβόαν τῶνδε μετοίκων
ὑστερόποινον
πέμπει παραβᾶσιν Ἐρινύν
Ag. 461– 470: τῶν πολυκτόνων γὰρ οὐκ
ἄσκοποι θεοί· κελαι-
ναὶ δ’ Ἐρινύες χρόνωι
τυχηρὸν ὄντ’ ἄνευ δίκας
παλιντυχεῖ τριβᾶι βίου
τιθεῖσ’ ἀμαυρόν, ἐν δ’ ἀί-
στοις τελέθοντος οὔτις ἀλ-
κά·τὸ δ’ ὑπερκόπως κλύειν
εὖ βαρύ·βάλλεται γὰρ †ὄσ-
σοις† Διόθεν κεραυνός
Ag. 748 – 749: πομπᾶι Διὸς ξενίου,
νυμφόκλαυτος Ἐρινύς
As Winnington-Ingram (1983: 158 – 161) and Wians (2009: 190) have noticed, the
enactment of Zeus’ justice through the actions of the Erinyes is mentioned in
Agamemnon in close relation to the Trojan War. In Ag. 56 – 59 and 748 – 749,
the Erinyes are sent against Troy; in Ag. 463 – 470, they punish the bloodshed
in Troy. In regard to the representation of the Trojan War in Agamemnon, and
to its relation to the justice of Zeus, Zeus’ reason for allowing Agamemnon ulti-
mately to die, having originally sent him to Troy as an Erinys (Ag. 40 – 59) in
order to fulfil divine justice, has been debated at length. In response to this ques-
tion, scholars have called attention to the ambivalent nature of Zeus’ justice.²⁷⁵
 Cf. e. g. Lloyd-Jones (1956: 65 – 67); D-P (1957, xi-xvi); Grube (1970). For a detailed criticism
of the ambivalent nature of the justice of Zeus, cf. Golden (1961).

Eumenides 177
How do we take a stance on these critiques? Passage 461– 470 that I quoted be-
fore is revealing on this point. The chorus claims that the gods do not fail to turn
their punishing eyes against those who have killed too many. Further, it says that
the Erinyes will put to death those who have been fortunate even without justice,
and finally that all this descends from the order of Zeus’ justice. Seen this way,
Zeus is able on the one side to send the Atreid to Troy, and on the other to let him
die, all without appearing responsible for an inconsistent understanding of dike:
Agamemnon dies, since as a human being he fell for hybris, turning the respon-
sibility for the destruction and the many dead upon himself. We could perhaps
maintain that Agamemnon’s hybristic behaviour and, accordingly, the violence
of the war against Troy result from the justice of Zeus as well. However, why
would Zeus want human beings to transgress the laws of dike? And more impor-
tantly, what textual evidence do we have in support of this hypothesis? Lines
355 – 369 might be helpful. Here, the chorus reports that Zeus has caused total
ruin and subjugation for Troy’s inhabitants, without any regard of their status
and their age:
Ag. 355 – 361: ὦ Ζεῦ βασιλεῦ καὶ Νὺξ φιλία

μεγάλων κόσμων κτεάτειρα,
ἥτ’ ἐπὶ Τροίας πύργοις ἔβαλες
στεγανὸν δίκτυον ὡς μήτε μέγαν
μήτ’ οὖν νεαρῶν τιν’ ὑπερτελέσαι
μέγα δουλείας
γάγγαμον ἄτης παναλώτου
Further, the chorus claims that the origin of the violence can be traced back to
the power of Zeus’ stroke:
Ag. 367– 369: Διὸς πλαγὰν ἔχουσιν εἰπεῖν,

πάρεστιν τοῦτό γ’ ἐξιχνεῦσαι·
ἔπραξεν ὡς ἔκρανεν …
Relying on this passage, critics have often observed that the violent character of
Zeus’ justice applies as indiscriminately to wrongdoers as to their victims.²⁷⁶ Yet,
one can discern some shifts in this representation of Zeus’ justice. In the follow-
ing lines, the chorus abandons this rhetoric of explanation very quickly, realizing
that the wrongs committed in Troy were not the work of divine justice, but a con-
sequence of Agamemnon’s violent action (cf. p. 59, n. 102):
 Cf. Kitto (1956: 6 – 8); Lawrence (1976: 103); Cohen (1986: 133). On the violence of the justice
of Zeus, cf. also Willink (2004: 47– 49); Martina (2007).

178 Eumenides
Ag. 369 – 372: … οὐκ ἔφα τις

θεοὺς βροτῶν ἀξιοῦσθαι μέλειν
ὅσοις ἀθίκτων χάρις
πατοῖθ’·ὁ δ’ οὐκ εὐσεβής
Moreover, Calchas’ words in the parodos seem to suggest as well that Zeus does
not promote, but rather punishes the violence of the Trojan War. The prophet an-
nounces the coming victory of the Greeks in Troy (Ag. 126: χρόνωι μὲν ἀγρεῖ Πριά-
μου πόλιν ἅδε κέλευθος), delineating it as a result of the action of Moira (Ag. 130:
μοῖρα λαπάξει πρὸς τὸ βίαιον), and yet, at the same time, warning the Greek army
of future punitive actions of the gods:
Ag. 131– 134: οἶον μή τις ἄγα θεόθεν κνεφά-

σηι προτυπὲν στόμιον μέγα Τροίας
στρατωθέν …
We are finally in a position, then, to stress two main points in the representation
of the Trojan War in relation to the justice of Zeus:
– the chorus’ hints at the loss of many lives during the war should be read as a
critique of the military excesses of the Greek expedition. It does not suggest
that the old Argives conceive the justice of Zeus as an indiscriminate com-
pulsion;
– following the chorus’ discourse, Agamemnon’s victory is a glorious event,
but, according to the order of dike established by Zeus, also an ambivalent
act of gigantism that sooner or later will be punished by the Erinyes. As
Lloyd-Jones has lucidely observed (1971: 90): ‘In Aeschylus Zeus never pun-
ishes the guiltless’.
Now, it seems problematic to assume that the Oresteia’s discourse on Zeus’ con-
cept of justice moves from an older understanding of dike as punitive justice or
brute force of vengeance to the new characterisation as civic justice achieved by
political persuasion.²⁷⁷ Thus, in Agamemnon and in Eumenides the Erinyes are
represented as enforcers of Zeus’ justice, that is to say as agents responsible
for the violent punishment of the blood being shed. Undoubtedly, peitho in Eu-
menides represents the power of words that should guarantee, under the super-
vision of Zeus Agoraios, the continuity of the judicial institutions of the linguistic
community of Athens:
 For scholars holding to the idea of a progressive transformation of Zeus’ justice, cf. Porter
(2005: 301 n. 1).

Eumenides 179
Eum. 973 – 975: ἀλλ’ ἐκράτησε Ζεὺς ἀγοραῖος,

νικᾶι δ’ ἀγαθῶν
ἔρις ἡμετέρα διὰ παντός
Yet, the question remains: is this shift in the organisation of the system of justice
meant to be definitive and permanent? The language of Aeschylus seems to warn
us not to jump to hasty conclusions. Indeed, the plain similarities between the
Furies’ rhetoric of appropriation of words such as δίκη, τέλος and βία and the
use of the same expressions by the chorus of Agamemnon appear to indicate
that the level of stability of an order of justice ensured by a judicial apparatus
(the Areopagus) and its laws (the prohibition of shedding blood in stasis:
Eum. 858 – 863) can be easily subverted by the large margins of instability that
come along with a persuasive legal discussion (Athena is able to persuade the
Furies, but they still remain Furies). This is the reason why civic justice might
slide into a mechanism of justice by which the violence of wrongdoers is punish-
ed by further violence. The chance that the Furies would comply with the laws of
Athens informs the very impossibility to reach a perpetual understanding by
means of laws and political persuasion: despite and because of Athena’s persua-
sion (and of the power of Zeus Agoraios), the Furies are able to act as Furies. In
fact, violence in Eumenides does not function only as a disruptive force, com-
pletely outside the civic system, but also as a constructive element, even in
the innermost aspects of the life in a community: in the discourse of the play,
violence has the peculiarity of rejecting civic dialogue while, at the same time,
empowering the law, in order to safeguard peace through communication and
rhetorical persuasion. So, in representing violence as in and outside the linguis-
tic life of the community, the play’s discourse outlines the limits of an approach
to violence according to categories of exclusion and separation (civic order = no
violence). Now, let us turn to the language of the play again.
In Agamemnon, when the chorus uses adjectives and verbs related to the
word βία, most of the time it is referring to the violence of Zeus’ justice as com-
pulsion and punishment of evil:
Ag. 130: μοῖρα λαπάξει πρὸς τὸ βίαιον

Ag. 182: δαιμόνων δέ που χάρις βίαιος
Ag. 385: βιᾶται δ’ ἁ τάλαινα Πειθώ²⁷⁸
 With the hint to Zeus in Ag. 367: Διὸς πλαγὰν ἔχουσιν εἰπεῖν.

180 Eumenides
The concept of Zeus’ justice as compulsion is stressed clearly. The gods make
their move against those who have been impious, namely those who transgress
the laws of dike out of an excess of wealth:
Ag. 381– 384: οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἔπαλξις

πλούτου πρὸς Κόρον ἀνδρὶ
λακτίσαντι μέγαν Δίκας
βωμὸν εἰς ἀφάνειαν
These lines look forward to the second stasimon of Eumenides:

Eum. 538 – 544: ἐς τὸ πᾶν σοι λέγω,
βωμὸν αἴδεσαι Δίκας,
μηδέ νιν κέρδος ἰδὼν ἀθέωι ποδὶ λὰξ ἀτίσηις ποι-
νὰ γὰρ ἐπέσται.
κύριον μένει τέλος
Here, the Furies use the word δίκη in the same way the old men of Argos do, as
underlined by the repetition both of the expression ‘βωμὸν Δίκας’, and of the
image of injustice as a violent kick against dike itself. There are further similar-
ities between these two passages. According to the Furies’ use of the word τέλος,
justice always reaches its fulfilment (Eum. 544: κύριον μένει τέλος). According to
the Argive elders and their rhetoric of appropriation of the verb κραίνειν, the jus-
tice of Zeus is realisation (Ag. 369: ἔπραξεν ὡς ἔκρανεν). Now, this infallibility of
the Furies’ and Zeus’ justice seems to rely on its own immanence: as the chorus
says in Agamemnon, and the Furies later repeat by using the same verb (μίμνειν),
Zeus’ and the Furies’ justice never vanishes (Ag. 1563; μίμνει δὲ μίμνοντος ἐν
θρόνωι Διὸς; Eum. 381: μένει γὰρ).²⁷⁹
There is more to say. As Di Benedetto has noticed (1999, ad loc.), passage
1008 – 1017 in Agamemnon and passage 550 – 565 in Eumenides present a striking
parallelism as well. According to the chorus in Agamemnon, the justice of Zeus
hits those who own a huge fortune. Following the Furies, justice strikes a fortune
that has been amassed illicitly. As far as I am concerned, I find it important to
ask how we are supposed to place the Furies’ criticism of an exorbitant wealth,
first with Orestes’ assumption of the inherited paternal power in Eum. 455 – 458,
754– 758 and second with Athena’s praise of military success in Eum. 397– 401. I
turn to this question in the next section.
 Cf. Ag. 781: πᾶν δ’ ἐπὶ τέρμα νωμᾶι; 1485 – 1487: ὼ ἰή, διαὶ Διὸς/παναιτίου πανεργέτα/τί γὰρ
βροτοῖς ἄνευ Διὸς τελεῖται; Eum. 312– 320: εὐθυδίκαιοι δ’ οἰόμεθ’ εἶναι … αὐτῶι τελέως
ἐφάνημεν; 382: τε καὶ τέλειοι; 952–953: ὡς τελέως διαπράσσουσιν.

Eumenides 181
6 The son, the father and the war against Troy
With his discharge from the accusations of matricide, Orestes is consequently

recognized as head of the Atreid family and member of the city of Argos:
Eum. 754– 758: ὦ Παλλάς, ὦ σώσασα τοὺς ἐμοὺς δόμους,

γαίας πατρώιας ἐστερημένον σύ τοι
κατώικισάς με. καί τις Ἑλλήνων ἐρεῖ
‘Ἀργεῖος ἁνὴρ αὖθις, ἔν τε χρήμασιν
οἰκεῖ πατρώιοις …’
These lines deserve particular attention. Orestes’ retrieval of his own role of head
of the Atreid household is characterized in terms of a regained control over the
father’s patrimony. The expression ‘χρήμασιν πατρώιοις’ seems to imply a con-
nection to the criticism of the Trojan War as expressed in Agamemnon. As we
have seen in chapter 1, III. 1, when the chorus of Agamemnon uses words related
to the semantic field of wealth (Ag. 382: πλούτου, 471: ἄφθονον ὄλβον, 1008: χρη-
μάτων, 1012: πλησμονᾶς), it is giving voice to its own doubts about a fortune that
Agamemnon has amassed without compliance with the divine laws. Orestes’
rhetoric of appropriation of the word χρήμα, instead, is clearly constructing a
positive discourse on Agamemnon’s heroism, and his acquisition of an enor-
mous fortune.
The rehabilitation of Agamemnon’s heroic career, as a crucial step of a jour-
ney at the end of which the matricidal son will be able to redeem his own iden-
tity in the Atreid family and in the community of Argos, also seems to be the cen-
tral motif of line 455 – 458. In these lines, Orestes ascribes genealogical authority
of birth to his father Agamemnon, and puts paternal genealogy in close relation
to paternal military merits and success:
Eum. 455 – 458: Ἀργεῖός εἰμι, πατέρα δ’ ἱστορεῖς καλῶς,

Ἀγαμέμνον’, ἀνδρῶν ναυβατῶν ἁρμόστορα,
ξὺν ὧι σὺ †Τροίαν † ἄπολιν Ἰλίου πόλιν
ἔθηκας …
Here, what seems quite interesting to me is that the acknowledgement of Aga-

memnon’s genealogical power of birth and the praise of his warlike prestige
are immediately followed by a negative representation of Clytemnestra’s mind:
Eum. 459 – 460: … κελαινόφρων ἐμὴ

μήτηρ …

182 Eumenides
According to Orestes’ discourse, the acknowledgement of paternal authority goes

along with a criticism of the maternal mind. From lines 631– 632 we draw similar
conclusions. Apollo’s words on Agamemnon’s warlike venture are cautious. The
god challenges the significance of Agamemnon’s military value, as he says that
the Atreid has accomplished his military duties for the most part successfully:
Eum. 631– 632: ἀπὸ στρατείας γάρ νιν, ἠμποληκότα

τὰ πλεῖστ’ ἄμεινον …
Still, as for Orestes, for Apollo too Agamemnon’s toils are in sharp opposition to
Clytemnestra’s perverse mind. As a murderous woman who ought to kill the hero
of the Trojan War, Clytemnestra would never welcome Agamemnon with ‘sensi-
ble and kindly’ words (Eum. 632: εὔφροσιν δεδεγμένη). This pervasive irony in
Apollo’s use of the word εὔφρων allows us to remark that in Eumenides, as in
Choephoroi (cf. pp. 122– 124), the construction of Agamemnon as father under-
mines the perception of Clytemnestra as a reasonable being.
As in the case of Orestes, also in the case of Athena the words she uses in
relation to the sphere of wealth lead to a positive discourse on Agamemnon’s ac-
cumulation of a fortune during the war. Athena uses the word χρήματα in the
context of a speech which is meant to extol the value of the war against Troy.
She heard – says the goddess – a cry of help from the Scamander, as she was tak-
ing possession of the land that the Greeks gave to her as a part of the conquered
goods:
Eum. 397– 401: πρόσωθεν ἐξήκουσα κληδόνος βοὴν

ἀπὸ Σκαμάνδρου, γῆν καταφθατουμένη,
ἣν δῆτ’ Ἀχαιῶν ἄκτορές τε καὶ πρόμοι,
τῶν αἰχμαλώτων χρημάτων λάχος μέγα,
ἔνειμαν αὐτόπρεμνον ἐς τὸ πᾶν ἐμοί
Taking for granted that Orestes, Athena and Apollo appropriate the narrative of
the Trojan War as an argumentative strategy in favour of the justice of matricide,
it stands to reason that the people who did not vote for Orestes do not condone
the rehabilitation of Agamemnon’s warlike authority, which is causally linked to
matricide. This is like saying that a part of the jurors, with the silence of their
vote, refuses the patrilineal extremism of Athena’s and Apollo’s logos, destabiliz-
ing the patriarchal model of genealogy and power promoted by them.²⁸⁰ By vot-
 I am borrowing the expression ‘patrilinear extremism’ from Loraux (1990: 109): ‘extrémisme
patrilinéaire’. On the silence of the jurors and their civic dissent, cf. also the thoughtful remarks
of Gurd (2004: 106).

Eumenides 183
ing against the acquittal of Orestes, they seem in fact to turn their voting right
into an act of resistance against the power of Athena’s juridical persuasion.
This situation of division among the jury shows that, against Athena’s assertion
in Eum. 675 (ψῆφον δικαίαν, ὡς ἅλις λελεγμένων), words and their discourses do
not have the power to (re)shape the act of naming, and consequently power re-
lations between people (the father is…to mother; the mother is…to father, etc.): it
is always possible to vote/act against what is said to be just. In this sense, the
votes against Orestes underline once again the difficulty of changing things in
a enduring way, and of ensuring permanent freedom by means of language
(i. e., political persuasion). Put simply, the votes of the jury might deliver some
concrete evidence of a potentially dangerous disagreement within the juridical
system of the (divine) law of the Father. After all, it is safe to maintain that
the jurors’ disagreement with the order fixed by the justice of Athena replicates
a corresponding disagreement on the part of the Furies. Therefore, we might de-
tect the continuity in the Agamemnon’s and Eumenides’ discourse on power and
violence. In Agamemnon, we have seen that:
– according to the chorus’ and Clytemnestra’s discourses, the murder of Aga-
memnon is represented as a retaliation for the countless deaths in Troy, and
for the accumulation of an exorbitant wealth during the war (cf. ch. 1,
III. 1– 2);
– according to the chorus, the murder of Agamemnon represents a problematic
deed (cf. ch. 1, III. 5);
in Eumenides we have seen:

– the chorus’ criticism of an excessive wealth, the problematisation of Orestes’
acquittal, and therefore of the heroic career of Agamemnon, and also
Orestes’ retrieval of the king’s legitimate power;
– the acquittal of Orestes, in order to validate the heroic career of Agamem-
non, and the consent to Orestes regaining the legitimate power of Agamem-
non for himself (discourse of Apollo and Athena followed by half of the ju-
rors).
With the problematization of Orestes’ acquittal, Eumenides, like Agamemnon and

Choephoroi, dramatizes the failure to constitute the maternal subject of Clytem-
nestra through its experience of biological and political powerlessness (in the
family: wife of the husband and of the genetic father; in society: usurper of Aga-
memnon’s male power as king and warrior). In fact, in the trilogy, the characters’
attempt to validate a discourse on exclusion and separation based on Clytemnes-
tra’s female role as mother and wife wretchedly collapses. A question arises:
‘Who is Orestes?’. Surely, he is the legitimate son and heir of his father Agamem-

184 Eumenides
non, who has killed his mother to avenge his father’s murder; surely, he is not
only the son of Agamemnon, the genetic father and genitor, killed by Clytemnes-
tra, his wife and mother non-mother. Is Orestes also the son of his mother, then?
Because of such uncertainties over his origins (only son of his father? Son of his
mother? Son of mother and father?), Orestes remains in Eumenides, as in Aga-
memnon, an ἀλήτης, i. e. a nomadic subject:²⁸¹
Ag. 1282: φυγὰς δ’ ἀλήτης τῆσδε γῆς ἀπόξενος
It is through this depiction of Orestes as a nomadic subject, and through its abil-
ity to destabilize a discourse on blood ties and power relations as maternal and/
or paternal that Eumenides and the story of Orestes invite us to ‘ne jamais céder
sur ce point, tenir constamment en haleine un questionnement sur l’origine, les
fondements et les limites de notre appareil conceptuel, théorique ou normatif
autour de la justice’.²⁸²
A last question, in conclusion: who gets off in the trilogy? Nobody, I would
say. By taking into account the ephemeral nature of Athena’s justice, the depic-
tion of Orestes as a nomadic subject (from Agamemnon to Eumenides), as well as
the display of Zeus’ justice through the punitive actions of the Erinyes, and final-
ly the permanent problematization of a discourse on the father figure as condi-
tion of life and power, in the end we are left with the disturbing conjecture that
despite Orestes’ acquittal there might be no way out from violence.
7 Conclusions
My discussion in sections one to six has lead to the following conclusions:

1. in order to see the Furies, one has to know them; and for humans, the only
way to know them is to become a murderer;
2. violence, in the discourse of Eumenides, is something more than a destruc-
tive power:
 I take the expression ‘nomadic subject’ from Braidotti’s book title (1994). On an extended
analysis of this concept as referring to the post-modern subject as a subject without a linguistic,
national, cultural fixed identity, cf. esp. ch. 1.
 Cf. Derrida (1994: 45). Cf. also Verrall (1907: 11): ‘If we are thoroughly convinced that,
whatever principles or forms of justice we may adopt, we must allow, as men, for the possibility
of a case exactly balanced and therefore insoluble, – then we are ready for Aeschylean deve-
lopment. Compared with this, what we think of Apollo, or even of Orestes, is matter, for the
moment, of no moment at all’.

Eumenides 185
– according to their own rhetoric of appropriation of the verb σωφρονεῖν,

the Furies teach wisdom to human beings by making them experience
pain and suffering as a consequence of the use of violence;
– violence is both within (=condition of) and outside (=condition against)
the system of justice of the community of Athens: Athena’s justice is ach-
ieved through political persuasion and, as such, establishes the Furies’
agreement or disagreement from within the context of the laws of Athens
and, accordingly, it enacts their action as Furies or as Eumenides;
3. Eumenides functions as an open play: despite and because of Athena’s jus-
tice, the Furies do not cease to be Furies and to defend maternal genealogy;
4. a chronological reading of the trilogy seems problematic:
– as in the Agamemnon, in the Eumenides as well the Furies are agents of
Zeus’ justice, and as such they punish bloodshed;
– the Furies’ criticism of excessive wealth picks up the criticism of Aga-
memnon’s power expressed by the chorus in Agamemnon; despite Athe-
na’s, Apollo’s and Orestes’ rehabilitation of the king’s heroic career, his
paternal power is not undisputed;
5. according to the characters’ rhetoric of appropriation of keywords such as
μήτηρ, τρέφειν, τίκτειν, σωφρονεῖν and δίκη, the authority of birth belongs
to the father figure (Apollo’s, Athena’s, Orestes’ discourse) or to the mother
figure (Furies’ discourse). However, against the background of Orestes’ ac-
quittal in dubio pro reo, Eumenides destabilizes its own discourse on
blood ties and power relations, leaving the reader, like Choephoroi has
done before, with the disturbing question ‘Who is Orestes?’, and thereby pro-
voking a mise en abîme of the notion of dike in relation to the violence
against the mother;
6. despite Apollo’s and Athena’s positions on the role of the mother as wife of
her husband, democratic justice in Eumenides is not isomorphic with exog-
amous marriage, and with a process of normalisation of the reproductive
agency of maternal blood through the definition of the mother as wife of
her husband. Indeed, with the acquittal of Orestes in dubio pro reo, the
play problematizes the definition of the father figure as the origin of birth
and power according to the law of marriage (genitor, husband, head of the
family, king, warrior). Therefore, democratic justice is established in the nor-
malisation of the violence perpetrated against the mother, and against her
power to give life (acquittal from matricide) only insofar as it puts it into
question.

General conclusions
My stance is straightforward. I argue that each and every endeavour to repudiate
the biological motherhood of Clytemnestra – i. e. the blood connection with her
children – in order to justify matricide inevitably fails in the trilogy. In each of
the three plays, we notice the characters’ and the chorus’ attempt to deny the sta-
tus of Clytemnestra as a mother, by superimposing on her the portrayal of an
adulterous wife, usurper of Agamemnon’s male power, and therefore the
image of a mother non-mother, a female whose mind is darkened. Nevertheless,
Clytemnestra’s maternal function of giving and nurturing life can never be sup-
pressed; consequently, matricide is necessarily a problematic act.
With these observations in mind, I conclude that the Aschylean discourse on
motherhood and wifehood does not function by exclusion and separation (you
are a bad wife and a female tyrant, therefore you are not a mother); rather, it
functions by inclusion (you may be a bad wife and a female tyrant, but you
are a mother all the same).
Because of this difficulty in defining Clytemnestra throughout the whole tril-
ogy, and therefore in justifying matricide, the very notion of dike is destabilised
in relation to the paternal authority of Agamemnon; a situation obliging us to
ask ourselves whether kinship is actually maternal and/or paternal. In this
sense, the Aeschylean work does not just settle for a mere condemnation of
the female character of Clytemnestra, based on her words and actions. It rather
commits to the complicated task of dealing with her female authority as mother,
wife and queen to the reader. Hence, it is the story of Orestes that teaches us that
punishing a female act of violence against the law of the Father, and acquitting
the legitimate son who has taken revenge is a performance of dike. From this per-
spective, Clytemnestra is a bad mother and the adulterous wife and murderess of
Agamemnon. Yet, we learn something else as well from the narrative of the play:
that no justification of violence can ever be unconditional, on the part of both
the reader and the characters of the play. Therefore, we might say that the
story of Orestes informs us that:
– the maternal criticism of the father’s warlike and inter-familial violence on
the part of Clytemnestra and the Furies, as well as their claim to the inviol-
ability of the mother’s body and of the blood connection between mother
and child, are both necessary conditions in order to have peace and justice
in the context of family and society;
– maternal sophronein establishes (democratic) justice.
To put it simply, violence against women in the poetry of Aeschylus is un/justi-

fiable.

General conclusions 187
Having read the Oresteia as a play that promotes an inexhaustible discourse

of inclusion, it is my contention that it displays a conception of the Self in terms
of a constant and inescapable attention for and respect of the Other and of the
differences related to it. An Other whom it is our responsibility to appropriate
while reading Aeschylus.

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Index of Names and Subjects
adulterous wife 1, 4 f., 18, 21, 23, 28 f., 31, – genetic (parent) 1, 9, 19, 27, 47, 53, 89,
36 – 38, 40 f., 43 – 46, 49, 71 f., 186 100 – 101, 109, 120, 125, 137, 140, 147, 161,
adultery 2, 18 f., 23, 28, 36, 51, 54 170, 183 – 184
Aegisthus 2, 5, 14, 18 – 20, 23, 26 – 28, Foley 1, 4, 9, 11, 13 f., 19, 26, 34, 36, 41, 47,
30 f., 35 f., 38 f., 41, 43, 45, 48, 51 – 54, 52, 54, 58, 60, 63, 67
70 Fraenkel 2, 10, 16 f., 19, 24, 27, 30, 32 f., 37,
Alastor 2 f., 26 – 33, 35 39, 42, 49 f., 53, 66
anagnorisis 26, 56
Apollo 1, 4 – 9, 11 f., 14, 16 – 20, 22, 24, 27 – Garvie 3, 7, 15, 19, 23, 27, 30, 32, 37, 45,
29, 36 – 40, 47 – 49, 59 f., 64, 70 52 f., 58
Argos (dog) 53 genetrix 19
Athena 1, 4, 8 – 10, 13 – 17, 19 f., 22 – 29, 31, genitor 1, 8, 10, 13, 17, 24, 26, 38 f., 44
33, 35 – 40, 64, 70 Goldhill 1 – 7, 11, 13 – 16, 18 – 20, 22, 25 f.,
34, 37 – 40, 43, 46 f., 56, 58 f., 61 – 64
blood 1 – 3, 5 – 8, 10 – 14, 16 – 26, 28 f., 32 – – LSN 1, 5, 7, 11 – 13, 15, 19 f., 22, 24 – 27,
35, 38 f., 41 f., 44 – 46, 48 – 55, 57, 60, 33 f., 37 – 40, 46 f., 49, 56, 62 – 64
65 – 67, 71, 186
body 4 – 11, 13 f., 16, 18 – 22, 56, 60, 63 – Hall 5, 9
65, 186 homosporos 22
Cassandra 1 f., 4 f., 9, 16, 18, 21, 24, 28, Italie 5 f., 8, 10 f., 23, 38 – 40
30 f., 33 – 46, 60
consanguinity 7, 14, 16 – 18, 21 – 24, 28 f., Lebeck 7, 12, 27, 33 f., 39 f., 42, 48, 50, 54,
35, 37 f., 40, 45 f., 49 56, 66
Loraux 2, 5, 7 – 10, 12 – 15, 19 f., 22, 27, 33,
de Beauvoir 1 35, 37, 44, 58, 60, 63
dike 1, 5, 10, 14 f., 18, 23 f., 26 – 28, 31 f.,
34, 37, 39, 46, 49 – 51, 54, 64 f., 69, 186 marriage 6 – 10, 14 f., 17 – 21, 23, 26, 28,
Dindorf 86 f. 35 f., 39 – 41
dog 15 – 17, 37, 39, 44 f., 63 McClure 1, 4, 27, 43, 53 f., 56, 58, 60 f., 63,
dolos 19 f., 27 – 29, 35, 61, 64 66, 71
dream 1, 12, 28, 33, 50 – 52, 54, 56 – 65 milk 11 f., 17, 33, 50 – 55, 57, 65
mother 1 – 65, 69, 71, 186
echthros 1, 7, 9, 13, 18, 21 – 23, 25 f., 31, – genetic (parent) 44, 120, 164
37 – 39, 42, 45 – giving life (mother-tokeus) 2 – 4, 8, 10,
Erinys/Erinyes 34 – 35, 40 f., 60, 79, 88, 97, 12 – 14, 17 – 23, 37 f., 40, 44
100, 108, 133, 138, 143 f., 170 f. – mother-echthros 1 f., 5, 18, 21, 37 f., 43,
49, 65
Father 1 f., 6, 8, 18 f., 22 f., 26, 29, 37, 45, – mother-philos 1, 29, 34, 37, 39, 44
49, 54, 56, 59, 186 – non-mother 3 f., 18, 21, 23 f., 32, 36 – 38,
– father-tokeus 17 – 19, 23, 26, 50 46, 59, 71, 186
– father-tropheus 9 – 11, 14, 16 f., 26, 39 – nurturing life (mother-tropheus) 1 f., 4,
8 f., 26, 40, 49, 54, 186

Index of Names and Subjects 207
Penelope 5 f., 8, 24, 42, 59 trephein 1 – 5, 8 f., 11, 13, 17, 53, 57, 65
philia 2, 5, 7, 14 f., 17 – 19, 21 f., 28, 33, 35, Trojan War 7, 9, 12 – 14, 16 f., 30 – 32, 35 f.,
38, 41 f., 46, 49, 54 f. 46 – 51, 53 f., 56 – 62, 64 f., 67 – 70, 72
philos, philoi 6 f., 13 – 15, 18 f., 22 f., 25, 28, Tucker 32, 52 f.
35, 38 f., 43 – 46
ponos 11 – 13, 16 f., 20 Vernant 4, 6 f., 18, 20
Pylades 26, 31 f., 48 Verrall 32 f., 38, 52, 64
serpent 6, 50 – 53, 56 – 65 Winnington-Ingram 1, 3 f., 8 – 12, 15, 19, 21,

silence 5, 11 – 13, 16, 20, 31, 36 f., 41, 64 23, 25, 27 – 30, 33, 36, 45, 47 f., 50, 54,
Sommerstein 4 – 6, 10 – 12, 15, 19 – 21, 24, 57, 63
32, 34, 48, 50 Wohl 1, 7, 12, 15, 34, 41
sophronein 2, 6 f., 10, 12, 21, 23, 41, 71 f.,
186 Zeitlin 1 f., 7, 11 f., 14, 18 f., 21, 35, 37, 42 f.,
Strophius 23, 36 45 – 47, 50, 56, 58, 60
Zeus 7, 10 f., 15, 17, 25, 28, 30 – 35, 38 f.,
Telemachus 16, 36 45, 48 f., 51, 56, 70
tiktein 1, 3 f., 13, 22, 29, 53, 57, 65

Index Locorum
Aeschylus Ag. 215 15

Ag. 215 – 217 30
Ag. 1 112 Ag. 215 – 225 30
Ag. 2 – 3 53 Ag. 220 – 223 97
Ag. 11 68 Ag. 221 48
Ag. 18 – 19 53 Ag. 223 36
Ag. 26 – 27 49 Ag. 224 – 227 16
Ag. 36 21 Ag. 224 – 228 16
Ag. 40 – 59 176 Ag. 225 – 226 59
Ag. 40 – 62 57 Ag. 227 16; 51
Ag. 41 59 Ag. 228 21
Ag. 55 ff. 148 Ag. 229 15
Ag. 56 – 59 176 Ag. 230 60
Ag. 58 – 59 157 Ag. 231 16; 51
Ag. 59 60 Ag. 231 – 234 29; 51
Ag. 62 59 Ag. 232 20; 22; 51
Ag. 67 – 68 157 Ag. 237 21
Ag. 68 157 Ag. 238 15; 20
Ag. 72 – 82 68 Ag. 239 15; 51
Ag. 84 55; 67 Ag. 240 – 241 15
Ag. 104 – 159 154 Ag. 242 22
Ag. 111 – 112 60 Ag. 244 16
Ag. 114 54 Ag. 245 15 – 16
Ag. 119 54 Ag. 247 20 – 21
Ag. 122 – 130 21 Ag. 258 – 260 49; 67 – 68
Ag. 126 139; 178 Ag. 205 – 227 15
Ag. 130 178 – 179 Ag. 206 – 208 16
Ag. 131 – 134 178 Ag. 206 – 225 30
Ag. 135 54 Ag. 208 20; 25
Ag. 140 34 Ag. 263 34
Ag. 141 – 142 136 Ag. 265 10; 33 – 34; 85; 167
Ag. 150 – 155 40; 41 Ag. 268 70
Ag. 151 40 Ag. 274 – 275 72
Ag. 154 – 155 97 Ag. 276 70
Ag. 155 109; 159 Ag. 277 68; 72
Ag. 176 – 178 153 Ag. 279 34
Ag. 176 – 181 158 Ag. 280 – 316 35
Ag. 182 179 Ag. 312 68
Ag. 199 16 Ag. 316 10; 13
Ag. 209 – 210 20; 51 Ag. 320 – 350 60
Ag. 210 – 211 51 Ag. 338 – 344 61
Ag. 211 5 Ag. 346 60
Ag. 211 – 213 16 Ag. 348 68; 80 – 81
Ag. 214 – 217 28 Ag. 350 68

Index Locorum 209
Ag. 351 34; 63; 68 – 70 Ag. 534 – 535 77

Ag. 352 – 353 72 Ag. 543 73
Ag. 355 – 369 57; 177 Ag. 546 73
Ag. 367 179 Ag. 547 73
Ag. 369 – 372 178; 180 Ag. 548 73
Ag. 369 – 384 70 Ag. 548 – 550 73
Ag. 381 – 384 57; 180 Ag. 551 73
Ag. 381 – 386 59 Ag. 577 – 579 71
Ag. 382 181 Ag. 581 – 582 57; 76
Ag. 385 179 Ag. 582 73
Ag. 385 – 386 172 Ag. 583 71
Ag. 402 59 Ag. 583 – 584 74
Ag. 427 – 431 58 – 59 Ag. 587 – 589 71
Ag. 433 – 436 58 Ag. 590 – 596 71
Ag. 448 – 449 59; 61; 77 Ag. 592 81
Ag. 449 – 451 59; 64 Ag. 594 68
Ag. 449 – 456 114; 117 Ag. 599 64
Ag. 450 66 Ag. 600 10; 13; 24
Ag. 450 – 451 75 Ag. 600 – 614 72
Ag. 451 59; 66 Ag. 602 10; 13
Ag. 452 – 455 58 Ag. 602 – 604 10
Ag. 456 – 457 59; 64; 75 Ag. 603 13; 64
Ag. 461 – 471 57 Ag. 604 13
Ag. 461 ff. 148 Ag. 605 64
Ag. 461 – 462 57 Ag. 606 10; 13
Ag. 461 – 464 59 Ag. 606 – 608 24; 25; 26
Ag. 461 – 470 176; 177 Ag. 607 10
Ag. 461 – 474 70 Ag. 607 – 608 54; 68
Ag. 461 – 468 97 Ag. 609 – 610 26; 42
Ag. 463 – 470 176 Ag. 611 – 614 11
Ag. 464 59 Ag. 612 10; 68
Ag. 468 – 469 77 Ag. 613 – 614 68
Ag. 469 58 – 59 Ag. 615 73; 74
Ag. 469 – 471 58 Ag. 615 – 616 71; 73; 74; 81
Ag. 471 66; 181 Ag. 699 – 716 57
Ag. 475 – 487 57 Ag. 718 136
Ag. 479 – 487 70 Ag. 719 136
Ag. 483 71; 81 Ag. 724 54
Ag. 483 – 484 70; 71 Ag. 734 57
Ag. 483 – 485 68 Ag. 735 – 737 57
Ag. 483 – 487 70 Ag. 735 – 749 57
Ag. 491 145 Ag. 746 ff. 148
Ag. 522 – 532 71 Ag. 748 – 749 176
Ag. 524 – 526 57 Ag. 749 57
Ag. 524 – 528 76 Ag. 753 – 754 84
Ag. 530 74 Ag. 773 – 781 57
Ag. 531 – 532 78 Ag. 781 180

210 Index Locorum
Ag. 782 77 Ag. 1117 – 1120 159

Ag. 797 34 Ag. 1119 – 1120 148
Ag. 799 – 809 78 Ag. 1121 – 1122 51
Ag. 805 – 809 114; 117 Ag. 1125 – 1126 45
Ag. 806 25; 34 Ag. 1129 48
Ag. 813 – 816 76 Ag. 1167 – 1169 52
Ag. 819 – 820 76 Ag. 1179 50
Ag. 822 – 824 77 Ag. 1188 – 1193 39
Ag. 827 – 828 76 Ag. 1189 43
Ag. 832 – 833 74 Ag. 1190 97
Ag. 849 – 850 30; 34 Ag. 1192 ff. 148
Ag. 855 – 857 124 Ag. 1212 47
Ag. 861 – 862 60 Ag. 1219 – 1226 39
Ag. 861 – 876 60 – 61; 66 Ag. 122 – 131 21
Ag. 874 – 879 114; 117 Ag. 1227 – 1230 48
Ag. 877 ff. 117 Ag. 1228 54
Ag. 877 – 886 104 Ag. 1232 105
Ag. 887 – 894 60; 66 Ag. 1232 – 1233 105
Ag. 891 – 894 72 Ag. 1235 – 1236 46
Ag. 896 10; 24; 54 Ag. 1235 51 – 52
Ag. 898 19 Ag. 1235 – 1237 68
Ag. 906 – 907 65 Ag. 1241 47
Ag. 910 – 911 63; 76 Ag. 1258 – 1259 45
Ag. 912 – 913 68 Ag. 1272 52
Ag. 914 25; 55; 67 Ag. 1277 – 1278 51 – 52
Ag. 918 – 919 64 Ag. 1279 – 1280 45; 50
Ag. 925 64 Ag. 1281 47
Ag. 938 114; 117 Ag. 1282 150; 184
Ag. 940 41; 64 Ag. 1283 46
Ag. 941 41 Ag. 1286 – 1288 68
Ag. 942 41 Ag. 1297 – 1298 51
Ag. 943 68 Ag. 1318 45; 50
Ag. 946 – 952 75 Ag. 1318 – 1320 45
Ag. 958 – 960 76 Ag. 1331 – 1334 58
Ag. 960 75 Ag. 1331 – 1342 57
Ag. 966 – 967 48 Ag. 1335 – 1336 58; 78
Ag. 972 64 Ag. 1337 78
Ag. 973 65 Ag. 1338 – 1342 58; 78
Ag. 990 – 991 152 Ag. 1362 – 1365 95
Ag. 1008 – 1017 180 – 181 Ag. 1372 – 1373 124
Ag. 1047 72 Ag. 1372 – 1376 23
Ag. 1072 – 1330 45 Ag. 1372 ff. 50
Ag. 1095 – 1097 39 Ag. 1377 – 1378 40; 68
Ag. 1102 – 1103 46 Ag. 1379 35
Ag. 1109 45; 147 Ag. 1383 75
Ag. 1109 – 1111 45 Ag. 1388 – 1392 42; 135
Ag. 1117 – 1118 51; 52 Ag. 1390 – 1391 43

Index Locorum 211
Ag. 1391 – 1392 42 Ag. 1491 78

Ag. 1392 43 Ag. 1495 48
Ag. 1397 – 1418 11; 12 Ag. 1497 – 1500 12
Ag. 1399 – 1400 78 Ag. 1497 – 1504 11; 35
Ag. 1401 39; 68 Ag. 1498 – 1499 12; 38
Ag. 1401 – 1406 39; 78 Ag. 1499 39
Ag. 1405 10; 12 Ag. 1500 12
Ag. 1405 – 1406 40 Ag. 1505 – 1508 36 – 37; 39
Ag. 1405 – 1406 35 Ag. 1509 – 1511 53
Ag. 1412 ff. 11 Ag. 1515 78
Ag. 1414 12 Ag. 1519 48; 109
Ag. 1415 – 1416 29 Ag. 1521 – 1524 27
Ag. 1415 – 1418 85 Ag. 1521 – 1525 38
Ag. 1415 ff. 36 Ag. 1521 – 1529 63
Ag. 1417 10; 12; 19; 32 Ag. 1523 10
Ag. 1417 ff. 100 Ag. 1523 – 1524 28
Ag. 1417 – 1418 10; 16 – 18; 22; 31 – 32; Ag. 1524 28
46; 48; 121; 131 Ag. 1524 ff. 36
Ag. 1417 – 1425 31 – 32; 49 Ag. 1525 10; 11; 17; 18; 19; 48
Ag. 1420 – 1421 35 Ag. 1525 ff. 11
Ag. 1421 – 1425 32 Ag. 1527 – 1529 18; 28
Ag. 1423 – 1425 32 – 33; 68 Ag. 1533 – 1534 43
Ag. 1425 10; 31; 32; 33; 80; 151; Ag. 1535 49; 78; 81
154 Ag. 1535 – 1536 49; 78
Ag. 1426 – 1427 32 – 33 Ag. 1543 – 1544 49
Ag. 1428 149 Ag. 1544 12
Ag. 1429 50; 52; 127 Ag. 1544 – 1557 12
Ag. 1429 – 1430 50 Ag. 1545 – 1546 78
Ag. 1432 – 1433 40 Ag. 1547 78
Ag. 1432 10 Ag. 1551 – 1559 37
Ag. 1432 ff. 148 Ag. 1551 ff. 11
Ag. 1434 – 1436 11 Ag. 1551 ff. 36
Ag. 1438 – 1447 10 – 11 Ag. 1552 – 1553 35
Ag. 1452 78 Ag. 1555 – 1559 33; 79
Ag. 1453 – 1467 66 Ag. 1556 – 1557 12
Ag. 1454 37; 49 Ag. 1557 10
Ag. 1455 – 1461 37 Ag. 1560 – 1561 33; 37
Ag. 1460 – 1487 37 Ag. 1560 – 1564 79; 81
Ag. 1461 49 Ag. 1563 180
Ag. 1462 – 1463 78 Ag. 1563 – 1566 37
Ag. 1464 – 1465 66 Ag. 1567 – 1576 35
Ag. 1468 37 Ag. 1580 40
Ag. 1468 – 1471 38 Ag. 1580 ff. 148
Ag. 1475 – 1480 35; 38 Ag. 1587 – 1604 35
Ag. 1481 – 1482 37 Ag. 1604 36
Ag. 1485 – 1487 180 Ag. 1615 – 1616 52
Ag. 1486 – 1487 37 Ag. 1619 – 1620 32

212 Index Locorum
Ag. 1625 – 1627 49 Cho. 197 – 201 118

Ag. 1636 109 Cho. 198 – 200 103; 104
Ag. 1636 – 1637 36 Cho. 201 – 204 118
Ag. 1638 – 1640 95 Cho. 202 127
Ag. 1643 – 1646 49 Cho. 211 121
Ag. 1646 – 1648 78 Cho. 234 115; 130
Ag. 1654 11 Cho. 235 92
Ag. 1654 – 1656 35 Cho. 236 103
Ag. 1656 79 Cho. 237 92
Ag. 1658 80 Cho. 239 – 242 102 – 103
Ag. 1659 79 Cho. 244 106
Ag. 1661 79; 80 – 81 Cho. 246 – 251 91
Ag. 1673 95 Cho. 249 – 250 95
Cho. 250 91
Cho. 1 92 Cho. 251 91
Cho. 6 – 7 115 Cho. 255 – 256 96
Cho. 10 – 12 145 Cho. 260 127
Cho. 35 131 Cho. 262 – 264 95
Cho. 40 – 41 138 Cho. 267 95
Cho. 46 99 Cho. 269 – 296 127 – 128
Cho. 51 – 53 127 Cho. 277 95
Cho. 55 – 65 96 Cho. 281 127
Cho. 76 – 77 92 Cho. 283 ff. 148
Cho. 88 – 90 110; 111; 121 Cho. 297 – 299 128
Cho. 88 123; 154 Cho. 301 – 305 92
Cho. 90 111 Cho. 301 95
Cho. 91 – 97 111 Cho. 306 – 313 116
Cho. 100 106 Cho. 313 127
Cho. 110 106 Cho. 315 – 318 124; 125
Cho. 118 111 Cho. 321 115
Cho. 121 143 Cho. 329 – 330 119
Cho. 122 111 Cho. 330 115; 120
Cho. 126 92 Cho. 332 – 335 125
Cho. 132 – 134 101; 104 Cho. 345 – 349 92
Cho. 135 – 137 94 – 95 Cho. 354 – 360 94
Cho. 139 122 Cho. 354 – 355 94
Cho. 140 – 141 121;122 Cho. 355 – 360 94
Cho. 142 – 143 121 Cho. 363 – 364 92
Cho. 140 – 143 123 Cho. 377 95
Cho. 140 154 Cho. 385 120
Cho. 143 122 Cho. 386 – 389 115
Cho. 144 106 Cho. 398 127
Cho. 148 106 Cho. 402 – 404 138
Cho. 186 127 Cho. 407 – 408 95
Cho. 189 – 200 103 Cho. 419 119
Cho. 190 – 191 86 Cho. 421 – 422 102
Cho. 195 – 200 103 Cho. 422 119

Index Locorum 213
Cho. 430 – 435 92 Cho.556 – 557 109

Cho. 434 – 437 125 Cho. 559 109
Cho. 438 129 Cho. 572 92
Cho. 444 – 450 95 Cho. 577 – 578 43
Cho. 454 – 455 138 Cho. 585 – 590 127
Cho. 461 127 Cho. 591 – 592 127
Cho. 466 101 Cho. 599 – 600 99
Cho. 478 106 Cho. 608 100
Cho. 479 – 480 92 Cho. 626 – 627 95
Cho. 487 92 Cho. 627 92
Cho. 489 106; 125 Cho. 646 138; 156
Cho. 495 125 Cho. 646 – 651 138; 156
Cho. 497 106 Cho. 658 95
Cho. 499 106 Cho. 664 95
Cho. 503 103 Cho. 666 – 667 95; 117
Cho. 504 124 Cho. 672 – 673 95
Cho. 505 92 Cho. 674 107; 127
Cho. 512 – 513 139 Cho. 679 117
Cho. 515 139 Cho. 681 – 682 120
Cho. 521 139 Cho. 682 107
Cho. 523 – 539 131 Cho. 688 – 690 107 – 108; 127
Cho. 525 99 Cho. 691 – 699 125; 127
Cho. 527 – 528 139 Cho. 694 – 695 52; 126 – 127
Cho. 527 – 533 93; 138 Cho. 700 95
Cho. 527 137 Cho. 700 – 703 127
Cho. 528 139; 144 Cho. 705 127
Cho. 529 145 Cho. 708 127
Cho. 530 – 533 131 – 134 Cho. 717 126
Cho. 536 – 538 127 Cho. 726 108; 109
Cho. 537 95 Cho. 734 – 765 83
Cho. 541 – 549 138 Cho. 735 – 736 95
Cho. 541 145 Cho. 737 – 740 125
Cho. 542 143 Cho. 749 – 750 83 – 84; 90; 113; 114
Cho. 543 93; 136 Cho. 750 – 753 83
Cho. 543 – 545 144 Cho. 753 – 757 83 – 85
Cho. 543 – 546 93 Cho. 761 85
Cho. 545 114; 134 Cho. 762 113; 114
Cho. 545 – 546 114; 136 Cho. 764 11; 99
Cho. 546 134 Cho. 790 – 796 128
Cho. 547 134 Cho. 805 106
Cho. 548 136 Cho. 808 92
Cho. 548 – 550 137; 144 Cho. 825 – 826 106
Cho. 550 139; 144 Cho. 827 – 837 116
Cho. 552 106 Cho. 829 116
Cho. 553 139 Cho. 830 127
Cho. 554 143 Cho. 831 – 833 116
Cho. 556 92 Cho. 831 ff. 138

214 Index Locorum
Cho. 833 106 Cho. 955 109

Cho. 845 95 Cho. 973 ff. 50
Cho. 849 – 850 95 Cho. 973 – 974 95
Cho. 855 – 857 124 Cho. 974 106
Cho. 864 – 865 92 Cho. 975 – 976 99
Cho. 866 106 Cho. 983 – 989 117 – 118
Cho. 868 106 Cho. 991 99
Cho. 874 106 Cho. 991 – 993 104; 106
Cho. 884 106; 134 Cho. 992 – 999 100
Cho. 886 157 Cho. 994 105
Cho. 887 141; 142 Cho. 994 ff. 105
Cho. 888 142 Cho. 996 86
Cho. 889 129 Cho. 997 105
Cho. 892 144 Cho. 1009 127
Cho. 893 – 895 99 Cho. 1012 – 1013 75
Cho. 896 – 897 113 Cho. 1016 129
Cho. 896 – 898 83; 93; 113 – 114; 132; 142 Cho. 1017 119
Cho. 897 – 898 134 Cho. 1026 – 1028 105 – 106
Cho. 898 136 Cho. 1038 119; 143
Cho. 899 5; 112; 113; 117 – 118;140; Cho. 1048 – 1050 145
173 Cho. 1048 ff. 148
Cho. 900 – 902 112 Cho. 1050 150
Cho. 906 – 907 99 – 100; 104; 126 Cho. 1053 – 1054 143
Cho. 908 86 – 87; 92 – 93 Cho. 1054 46; 149
Cho. 909 106 Cho. 1061 – 1062 143; 150
Cho. 911 138 Cho. 1070 92
Cho. 913 87; 99; 117 Cho. 1072 92
Cho. 915 – 917 99
Cho. 918 96 Eum. 1 – 19 163
Cho. 919 92 – 93 Eum. 34 149
Cho. 919 – 921 94; 95; 97; 101 Eum. 40 99
Cho. 920 61; 66 Eum. 51 – 54 149
Cho. 921 92 Eum. 57 149
Cho. 922 138; 142 Eum. 64 162
Cho. 923 138 Eum. 66 164
Cho. 924 46 Eum. 67 152
Cho. 924 ff. 148 Eum. 69 148
Cho. 927 138 Eum. 71 153
Cho. 928 86 – 88; 92 – 93 Eum. 81 – 82 172
Cho. 929 131; 142 Eum. 84 163
Cho. 930 – 931 127 – 128 Eum. 88 – 89 162
Cho. 935 106 Eum. 100 130
Cho. 935 – 941 108 Eum. 102 150
Cho. 942 – 945 95 Eum. 103 134
Cho. 946 – 956 108 Eum. 122 150
Cho. 947 108; 109 Eum. 125 153
Cho. 949 – 952 128 Eum. 131 – 139 162

Index Locorum 215
Eum. 139 150 Eum. 427 150

Eum. 151 99 Eum. 428 162
Eum. 153 150 Eum. 430 174
Eum. 154 116 Eum. 433 – 444 160
Eum. 162 – 168 163 Eum. 455 – 458 180; 181
Eum. 184 43 Eum. 459 48
Eum. 201 162 Eum. 459 – 460 167; 181
Eum. 202 150 Eum. 463 150; 167
Eum. 203 128 Eum. 468 160
Eum. 208 152 Eum. 472 160
Eum. 210 148; 152 Eum. 483 160
Eum. 211 – 224 152 Eum. 483 – 484 172
Eum. 215 162 Eum. 48 – 49 149
Eum. 224 160 Eum. 491 – 492 130
Eum. 227 162 Eum. 493 150
Eum. 230 168 Eum. 496 – 498 148
Eum. 230 – 231 130 Eum. 511 – 521 151
Eum. 243 160; 174 Eum. 513 – 521 156; 168
Eum. 253 43 Eum. 520 – 525 158
Eum. 256 150 Eum. 521 151; 156; 158
Eum. 261 – 263 152; 168 Eum. 526 – 530 174
Eum. 268 150 Eum. 529 157; 174
Eum. 271 168 Eum. 535 – 536 156
Eum. 276 – 277 150 Eum. 538 – 544 180
Eum. 281 150 Eum. 543 156
Eum. 303 162 Eum. 544 180
Eum. 304 168 Eum. 545 152; 156
Eum. 312 – 320 180 Eum. 550 – 565 180
Eum. 316 – 320 148 Eum. 573 160
Eum. 318 157 Eum. 579 – 580 163
Eum. 321 – 322 148; 167 Eum. 581 160
Eum. 326 – 327 150 Eum. 582 160
Eum. 329 152 Eum. 583 162
Eum. 330 152 Eum. 587 150
Eum. 331 – 333 152 Eum. 590 162
Eum. 334 – 335 153 Eum. 592 162
Eum. 337 – 340 148 Eum. 595 150
Eum. 338 – 339 150 Eum. 598 124
Eum. 381 97; 180 Eum. 599 150
Eum. 382 159; 180 Eum. 602 164
Eum. 382 – 383 42; 157 Eum. 605 168
Eum. 397 – 401 180; 182 Eum. 606 88; 167
Eum. 406 – 408 155 Eum. 607 – 608 88; 93; 168
Eum. 408 148 Eum. 612 – 613 130; 160
Eum. 410 – 412 155 Eum. 615 109
Eum. 420 162 Eum. 616 – 618 163
Eum. 425 150 Eum.620 – 621 163

216 Index Locorum
Eum. 640 163 Eum. 858 – 866 158

Eum. 622 – 637 163 Eum. 871 156
Eum. 623 – 624 163; 164 Eum. 877 148; 167
Eum. 625 – 627 164 Eum. 879 – 880 175
Eum. 631 – 632 164; 182 Eum. 885 – 889 170 – 172
Eum. 636 – 637 164 Eum. 900 172
Eum. 639 160 Eum. 903 ff. 97
Eum. 640 168 Eum. 910 170
Eum. 642 162 Eum. 927 – 928 172 – 173
Eum. 647 – 648 124 Eum. 932 – 933 155
Eum. 652 – 654 152 Eum. 934 – 935 170
Eum. 653 168 Eum. 952 – 955 170
Eum. 654 92 Eum. 952 – 953 180
Eum. 657 ff. 88 – 89 Eum. 956 – 967 169
Eum. 658 – 659 164 Eum. 959 – 960 169
Eum. 660 – 666 20; 89 – 90; 140 – 141; Eum. 970 – 971 172
162 – 163; 165 Eum. 973 – 975 179
Eum. 675 162; 183 Eum. 976 – 986 170
Eum. 681 – 682 160 Eum. 992 – 995 34
Eum. 681 – 710 174 – 175 Eum. 996 – 1002 161
Eum. 709 160 Eum. 1011 161
Eum. 710 162 Eum. 1018 161
Eum. 729 160 Eum. 1028 – 1031 161
Eum. 734 160 Eum. 1032 – 1047 161
Eum. 736 – 740 165 – 166 Eum. 1033 148; 167
Eum. 739 – 740 25; 165
Eum. 741 172 Pers. 176 – 214 131
Eum. 745 148; 167 Pers. 317 76
Eum. 753 172 Pers. 768 – 772 34
Eum. 754 – 756 95
Eum. 754 – 758 180 – 181 Sept. 752 – 755 86
Eum. 778 – 792 159 Sept. 766 – 771 35
Eum. 785 130
Eum. 794 170 Supp. 376 – 378 34
Eum. 795 172; 175 Supp. 640 34
Eum. 800 – 802 170
Eum. 808 – 822 159 Aristotle
Eum. 815 130 HA 581 b1 – 2 29
Eum. 829 – 831 171 – 173 HA 609a4 – 5 91
Eum. 836 175 Po. 1450b3 – 4 5
Eum. 837 – 846 159 Po. 1450a15 – 18 6
Eum. 838 156
Eum. 844 148; 167 Diogenianus gramm.
Eum. 845 – 846 175 Paroemiae 4, 2 – 3, 1 32
Eum. 848 ff. 97
Eum. 849 – 850 156 Heraclitus
Eum. 858 – 863 179 B 94 DK 148

Index Locorum 217
Hesiod Od. 16, 73 – 75 15

Op. 803 ff. 148 Od. 16, 155 – 163 154
Th. 185 148 Od. 16, 332 – 337 68
Th. 590 – 60295 Od. 16, 418 – 447 117
Od. 17, 300 – 327 53
Hippocrates Od. 17, 475 148
Mul. 1. 1, L 8. 12 22 Od. 19, 524 – 525 15
Mul. 1. 6, L 8. 30 29 Od. 20, 14 – 16 25
Mul. 1. 24 – 25, L 8. 62 – 68 22 Od. 20, 33 – 35 14
Mul. 1. 72, L 8. 152 29 Od. 21, 412 148
Mul. 2. 113, L 8. 242 29 Od. 23, 97 124
Nat. Puer. 14 – 15, L 7. 492 – 497 22 Od. 23, 97 – 99 15
Od. 24, 191 – 202 14
Homer Od. 24, 196 – 198 123
Il. 1, 194 – 200 154 Od. 24, 199 14
Il. 9, 454 148
Il. 9, 454 – 456 148 h. Bacch., 1 – 4, 6 – 10, 14 – 18 154
Il. 9, 571 148
Il. 9, 571 ff. 148 Pindar
Il. 12, 200 ff. 91 Ol. I 56 – 57 58
Il. 15, 204 148 Ol. XIII 10 58
Il. 19, 86 ff. 148 P. II 25 – 29 58
Il. 21, 412 148
KN Fp 1. 8 148
Od. 2, 113 15 KN V 52 148
Od. 2, 130 – 131 110
Od. 2, 135 148 Solon
Od. 3, 266 – 272 14 Fr. 6, 3 – 4 W 58
Od. 3, 309 – 310 14
Od. 8, 521 – 531 61 Sophocles
Od. 11, 178 15 Aj. 1390 148
Od. 11, 280 148 Ph. 1440 – 1441 62
Od. 11, 435 – 439 59
Od. 11, 439 14 Theognis
Od. 13, 379 – 381 14 Thgn., 153 – 158 58
Od. 15, 231 ff. 148


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Giulia Maria Chesi

The Play of Words

Blood Ties and Power Relations

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

© 2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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 Agamemnon as father-tokeus and Clytemnestra as mother non-

General conclusions 186

Bibliographic References 188

Index of Names and Subjects 206

Index Locorum 208

The editions used are: Agamemnon, Denniston-Page (1957); Choephoroi, Garvie

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Aeschylus is the terror of systematizers

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we are not in the position to determine whether Clytemnestra either is or is not a

 Quote from Goldhill on Antigone (2012: 234).

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This discussion produces several considerations about how we commonly han-

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relations in family and society, looking at Orestes’ matricide and Clytemnestra’s

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In this section, I explore Clytemnestra’s representation of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice,

1 Clytemnestra or Iphigeneia’s mother and Agamemnon’s wife

A discussion of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, from the perspective of Clytemnestra’s

 Cf. Hirsch (1989: 4).

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These different levels of explanation conform to the status of a woman with a

οὐδ’ οἶδα τέρψιν οὐδ’ ἐπίψογον φάτιν

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Ag. 1397– 1398: τοσῶνδε κρατῆρ’ ἐν δόμοις κακῶν ὅδε

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Ag. 316: ἀνδρὸς παραγγείλαντος ἐκ Τροίας

Critics, however, have often dismissed the complexity of Clytemnestra’s self-rep-

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Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and wifehood can help us in two direc-

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The expression ‘μῆτερ ἐμή, δύσμητερ’ is particularly important in regard to my

2 Mother, daughter and sacrifice

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chorus – Ag. 224– 227: ἔτλα δ’ οὖν θυτὴρ γενέ-

Ag. 206 – 208: βαρεῖα μὲν κὴρ τὸ μὴ πιθέσθαι,

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Ag. 211– 213: … τί τῶνδ’ ἄνευ κακῶν;

In Ag. 1417– 1418, Clytemnestra enlightens us on the mechanisms of this conflict

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ἀλλ’ ἐμὸν ἐκ τοῦδ’ ἔρνος ἀερθὲν

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… μονογενὲς τέκνον πατρί

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Eum. 660 – 661: τίκτει δ’ ὁ θρώισκων, ἡ δ’ ἅπερ ξένωι ξένη

3 Iphigeneia’s silence and paternal violence

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animal violence of Iphigeneia’s silence is contagious. As Iphigeneia cannot

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