Did Orestes Have A Justified Killing

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A Justified Murder?
The Oresteia trilogy follows a series of murders among the family of Orestes. In the first play, Agamemnon, the blood of Orestes’ father, Agamemnon, and his father’s war prize, Casandra, spills at the hands of Orestes’ mother, Clytamnestra. Following suit, Orestes avenges his father’s cold-blooded murder in the second play, The Libation Bearer, by killing his mother and her lover, Aegisthus. The acts of revenge by Orestes come to a climax in the third and final play of the trilogy, The Eumenides. With a monumental trial between Orestes and the Furies, a question of justification arises. Did Orestes have a justified reason to commit matricide? Or did his actions reveal a dark, unjustified moment of kin murder? Orestes’ murder of his mother, Clytamnestra, is justified because of the gods’ interference throughout the Oresteia trilogy.
Two deities significantly impact the events …show more content…

Both Orestes and Apollo publicly state that Orestes’ motivation primarily came from Apollo. For Apollo confesses in the Eumenides, “I share responsibility for his mother’s execution.” (Eum. 585-86). Apollo takes partial blame for the murder of Clytamenstra, for it was Orestes’ fear of Apollo that drove him to commit matricide. While testifying to the jury, Apollo attempts to show that the murder of Clytamnestra and the murder of Agamemnon are completely inequivalent (Hall 260). Agamemnon, the champion of the Trojan War, came home victoriously from a ten-year campaign just to suffer a humiliating death at the hands of his wife. This same woman kills Argo’s king, yet doesn’t receive any punishment for her actions. Since Clytamnestra killed his father Agamemnon, Orestes has another reason to justify his actions. Apollo’s intervention as a witness give Orestes authority over what he says, since Apollo can never tell a lie (Eum.

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