The Oresteia is a tragedy about murder, revenge, and familial strife – Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, has just returned victorious after a campaign of pillage, rape, and murder in Troy. He returns with a prize: Cassandra, his soon-to-be sex slave. He does not, however, return with his daughter who fell victim to human sacrifice. Over the course of Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers, and Eumenides, Cassandra and Agamemnon are murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra. And, soon after, Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus are murdered by her son Orestes as revenge. This series of events is murderous, revengeful, and familial, but it is also about the act of sex, and more specifically, rape. The use of sexual symbols throughout Oresteia paints Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers, and Eumenides as a graphic trilogy: one in which the major events and dynamics, including familial relations, war, and revenge, relate to sexual desire and dominion.
The setting of the Oresteia is based on the pillage of the Trojan War. Returning as a conqueror, Agamemnon has undoubtedly stolen land, killed his enemies, and raped their women. This inextricability among violence, sex and death, victor and victim set the tone and carries homeward as a stain on Agamemnon. Agamemnon’s decision to force himself and his army upon his enemies and to take what belongs to others, is not only penetrative but inherently reflective of a rape. The violence that comes with war is also phallic-like. When Clytemnestra discusses the wounds Agamemnon faced in battle, she claimed that he had “more holes in him to count than a net”[1]. The act of stabbing is sexual. The phallic sword knifes into the body. Thus, in the tragedy’s setting, the act of penetration, has 'set the stage’ that the protagonists walk on.
When Agamemnon brings home his sex-slave, Cassandra, the concept of rape is examined both literally and metaphorically. Cassandra exemplifies sex, even before her arrival at Agamemnon’s home. The chosen victim of Apollo’s sexual desires, Cassandra was bestowed the gift of prophecy in exchange for sex. When she accepted this gift then later denied his advances, he changed its conditions, allowing that no one would believe her prophecies. Thus, Cassandra is already a sex object in Greek mythology; her purpose has been to entice the men around her. As Agamemnon described her: “This woman has come with me as a gift from the army, the choice flower”[2]. But Cassandra’s sexual existence is metaphorical as well. When Cassandra steps out with Agamemnon, the chorus says: “[Cassandra has] been captured, caught in a deadly net”[3]. This symbolism of the net is notable, only a few lines earlier Clytemnestra refers to Agamemnon as a net after war. Hence, Cassandra is caught in the net of Agamemnon. To be caught (or to be kidnapped), further pushes the sentiment of rape throughout the play. Cassandra is the sex object of the tragedy.
Flowing from Cassandra’s presence, a waterfall of sexual catastrophe cascades downward. Clytemnestra immediately plans to murder her husband Agamemnon and Cassandra. Whether this is revenge for her daughter’s sacrifice, or his betrayal of her with Cassandra, Clytemnestra stabs Agamemnon, and he cries out: “Ah me, I am struck down, a deep and deadly blow!”[4]. The way in which Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon is significant: she “[staked] around him an endless net” before stabbing him[5]. This is perhaps the most important “rape” in the Oresteia. Here, the net, already established as a tool of power and dominance in Cassandra’s capture, is wrapped around Agamemnon’s head. This is justice: Agamenon, who once wrapped his net around Cassandra as a way of capturing and penetrating her, now faces this same entrapment. Clytemnestra’s final act of stabbing him (the ultimate penetration), robs Agamemnon of his dignity. Additionally, his description as “slumped in a silver bathtub […] enveloped from head to foot in a richly embroidered (but now blood-stained) robe” further emphasizes the degradation of identity and dignity[6]. Stripped naked, exposed in his most vulnerable condition, Agamemnon dies with no power over the women in his life – from victimizer to victim.
The waterfall continues: Orestes stabs his mother in a fit of rage over his father’s death. Moments before Clytemnestra is knifed by her son, she yells out: “This is the snake I bore and nourished”[7]. A snake, like a blade, is phallic is nature. Clytemnestra’s choice of diction here is notable; she endows her son with a phallic identity, reflecting her own murder as a sexual act. When Orestes tries to justify the murder of Clytemnestra, he claims it as a way of “pay[ing] for degrading [his] father”[8]. By saying this, Orestes reveals a sentiment: he feels his father has been robbed of his dignity. To degrade is to humiliate, to steal, and in this context, to take advantage of. Agamemnon was penetrated with a knife while naked. Thus, Orestes has taken it upon himself to (almost incestuously) reduce his mother as she did his father: in the symbolic form of a snake, he stabs her with a knife.
Oresteia is a trilogy of plays describing lust, revenge, and myth. But, on a different level, it is about the role of sex in the cycle of life and death. Much of the play can be reduced to the more graphic side of sex (penetration and rape) and its relation to murder. Aeschylus has included sexual symbolism and imagery throughout his plays as a way of reflecting the circle of life. Ultimately, sex, life, and death are all interconnected. Oresteia is a work that both illustrates and distorts this circle, providing a commentary on the interconnectedness and simplicity of human nature.
Bibliography
Aeschylus, and Alan H. Sommerstein. Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers.Eumenides. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
[1] Aeschylus and Alan H. Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers. Eumenides (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), [Page 100]
[2] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 111]
[3] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 123]
[4] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 165]
[5] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 169]
[6] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 167]
[7] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 333]
[8] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 269]