O horizonte legal da “Oresteia”: o crime de homicídio e a fundação do tribunal do Areópago

Abstract

Orestes's trial in the court of the Areopagus obliged Aeschylus to articulate very different realities: the legacy of myth and earlier literary traciition, as they referred to the saga of Orestes; Attic constitutional history and the legal traditions current in the Athens of his own day and a consciousness of certain recent political measures, like the reforms of Ephialtes and the murder of which he was a victim, hardly the norm for democratic standards. These factors, allied with the demands of the dramatic phenomenon itself, led him to introduce new ways of dealing with the myth and to alter some historical and procedural details. He did this, however, with clear objectives in mind; to link the end. of Orestes's wanderings to the foundation of the Areopagus, the most esteemed of Athenian courts. By examining the competencies which Athena attributed to the court, it seems reasonable to suggest that Aeschylus agreed with Ephialtes's measures. It is not necessary, however, to view this altitude as the sign of a marked politicai ideology. The analysis of the historical and legal context of this dramatic production helps us to understand this reality and reinforces another one, the most important: the timelessness of the civilizational principles developed throughout this trilogy.