Sacrifice, Politics and Animal Imagery in the Oresteia

In this paper I explore how sacrifice and politics, two central aspects of the Oresteia, are presented through animal imagery and how they are indissolubly linked. In the first section I discuss how the animal imagery attributed to Cassandra constructs a semantic parallelism between her and Iphigenia, the two of them being the only innocent victims in the bloody circle of this trilogy. In the second section I examine how animals are linked to governments and how the quantitative, temporal, and spatial arrangement of animal imagery reveals their sequence.

Animal imagery is a significant aspect of the Oresteia, both stylistically important and thematically meaningful. 1 It appears in the first lines of the Agamemnon (ἄγκαθεν, κυνὸς δίκην, 3) but we soon realise its symbolic intention. 2 The omen of the eagles (49-57) and the fable of the lion cub (717-31) are the most polyvalent and discussed images of the trilogy; at first glance, both refer to the abduction of Helen and its consequences, * I wish to express my gratitude to Angus Bowie and the anonymous reviewer for their substantial contribution. 1 See Fowler 1967: 29-39, 56-58, and 68-69 for the three tragedies, respectively. A useful but incomplete catalogue, including only apparent allusions, is Earp 1948: 104. For a complete catalogue, see Appendix. 2 In that first occasion, the animal metaphor has no special semiology, except (perhaps) for 'triggering pre-existing associations between κυνός and δίκη(ν), and of preparing the way for their further development in the trilogy', Wilson 2006: 193. ἄγκαθεν only reoccurs in Eum. 80, but this is too far to claim a connection and it clearly has a different meaning (holding 'in the arms' instead of standing 'on the elbows'). Rose 1958 ad loc. maintains that the actor is not actually bending on his elbows like a dog, but this is based on misreading ἄγκαθεν as a form of ἀνέκαθεν (after Mazon).
Dimitrios Kanellakis 'Sacrifice, Politics and Animal Imagery in the Oresteia' C&M 68 (2020) 37-69. but many more layers are readable, so that all characters can be involved. 3 In discussing the omen of the eagles in particular, Ferrari articulates how to deal with such complex imagery: 'Instead of trying to reconcile at all costs the opening metaphor with what follows, or take refuge in a broad notion of polysemy […] a cunning mind, on the other hand, would realise that the true meaning of the utterance lies beneath the surface. The awareness that there is a hidden story in which the troubling elements fit to perfection is the first step towards understanding'. 4 From a quantitative perspective, the number of lines occupied by animal imagery is over 7% of the Agamemnon, and 2% of the Choephori and of the Eumenides (a proportion which is still higher than in Aeschylus' other tragedies). Within this imagery, the eagle and the lion prevail in the first play (50% of relevant lines), the snake in the second (40%), whereas the Eumenides has more balanced references. The animals cited, domestic and wild, represent all parts of the natural space (from the sea and land to the sky), almost all animal classes (with the exception of amphibians) and all sizes, putting a whole ecosystem before us. The vast majority of the animal references appear in similes, metaphors, personifications, proverbial expressions and passages superficially referring to actual animals but having a symbolic purpose (dreams, fables or adages). Thus, the animal imagery metonymically presents, or better organises, the abstract concepts of the trilogy: revenge, sacrifice, antagonism, cannibalism, punishment etc. Only a few literal uses exist, almost all of which are located in the end of the Eumenides, signifying the definitive separation of the human and bestial element, from the domination of the civic law. 5 3 Knox 1952 andPeradotto 1969 remain the most illuminating readings on the lioncub and eagle images, respectively. Van Dijk 1997: 171-76 andErp Taalman Kip 1996: 122-23 and 136 n. 2 alone deny the polysemy of each of these images, the former on textual grounds (saying that the fable of the lion-cub can only refer to Helen and illustrate, more abstractly, the vicious circle of impiety) and the latter on grounds of dramatic economy (saying that the audience does not know yet the role of Iphigenia's sacrifice to correlate it with the omen of the eagles). 4 Ferrari 1997: 30. 5 For the assimilation of human and bestial element in the trilogy, see Peradotto 1969: 264;Rosenmeyer 1982: 138-41;Moreau 1985: 61-99, 267-91;Heath 1999b. In their symbolic usage, there is no one-to-one analogy between animals and characters. The same character 'transforms' itself, i.e. is attached to properties of different animals throughout individual plays and the trilogy as a whole. In the first tragedy for instance, 'Agamemnon is a vulture (Ag. 49), eagle (112-37), hound (135, 896), horse (218), bull (1126), and lion (1259; cf. 824 ff.). Clytemnestra, as one might expect, displays tremendous versatility: 6 a watchdog and bitch (607, 1093, 1228cf. Ch. 420), cow (1125), serpent (1233), lioness (1258), crow (1472-74), spider (1492), and hen (1671). Even a minor character like Aegisthus changes from lion (1224) to wolf (1259) to cock (1671) only to end up a decapitated serpent (Ch. 1046-47)'. 7 Conversely, an animal can stand to symbolise for many characters, with the dog being attached to most of them (the watchman, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, Cassandra, Chorus, Electra, Erinyes). 8 In this paper, advocating the symbolic dimensions of the animal imagery in the Oresteia, I will discuss how sacrifice and politics, two central aspects of the trilogy, are presented through animals and how they are indissolubly linked.

SACRIFICE 9
The Oresteia is full of deaths, all of which are violent. Agamemnon's murder by Clytemnestra (with Aegisthus' support) and Aegisthus' and Clytemnestra's murder by Orestes are all motivated by revenge. The victims 6 That this versatility is 'tremendous' might seem an overstatement given that Agamemnon is resembled to almost the same number of animals, and given that he remains on stage for a short time. However, 'tremendous' should be understood here in terms of intensity rather than number: the tradition of comparing women to animals entailed fixed types of women (Semonides 7) or static hybrids (Sirens, Chimaera, Lamia, Harpies, Echidna etc.), but here we have the dynamic compilation of the worst qualities of all animals. 7 Heath 1999b: 30. 8 For a catalogue, by animal, see Thumiger 2008. Especially for the dog, see Raeburn &Thomas 2011: lxvi-lxix andSaayman 1993. 9 For an overall discussion on the imagery of sacrifice, see Zeitlin 1965 andLebeck 1971: 32-36, 60-3. in each case are guilty of dreadful deeds, so their murders seem somehow vindicated: Clytemnestra kills in the name of her daughter Iphigenia (Ag. 1432(Ag. -36, 1521, Aegisthus in the name of his father Thyestes (Ag. 1578-86), and Orestes in the name of his father Agamemnon . In contrast to this complexity, which causes both disgust and sympathy for the killers, the only unquestionably unfair and pitiful murders are Iphigenia's and Cassandra's, for both victims are innocent (indeed, the only innocents in this bloody circle). 10 Because of that very innocence and the fact that their murders are described in religious terms, as will be shown, these deaths are differentiated from all the others: they are sacrifices. In the following sections I am discussing how the animal imagery attributed to Cassandra constructs a semantic parallelism between her and Iphigenia.
a. Reversing the mythical background (nightingale) Shortly before Cassandra is sacrificed, the chorus sarcastically attaches to her the mythological nightingale simile. Procne was transformed by the gods into a nightingale, crying for her son Itys, whom she had killed as a revenge on her husband Tereus for raping her sister Philomela.
Cassandra is now accused of selfishly and ostentatiously crying for herself. The hapax legomenon φρενομανής, the rare θεοφόρητος and the oxymoron νόμον ἄνομον fit the mythic context, but also the offensive intentions of the chorus. Beyond the accumulation of insults (φρενομανής, 10 Zeitlin 1966: 29: 'Iphigenia was one motive for Clytemnestra's action. Cassandra was another. But Cassandra, like Iphigenia, was Agamemnon's victim. She was also the victim of Apollo, of Paris and Troy, of the entire war'. One could add Thyestes' eating his children (Ag. 1242-43, Ch. 1068, but his action was unconscious. θεοφόρητος, ἀκόρετος etc.), the repetition of Ἴτυν and the alliteration of φ parody her lamentation. Cassandra, in turn, objects to the comparison, for there is no magical escape for her, as there was for Procne.
ΚΑ. ἰὼ ἰὼ λιγείας βίος ἀηδόνος· 1146 περέβαλον γάρ οἱ πτεροφόρον δέμας θεοὶ γλυκύν τ᾽ αἰῶνα κλαυμάτων ἄτερ· ἐμοὶ δὲ μίμνει σχισμὸς ἀμφήκει δορί. κλαυμάτων ἄτερ seems unsuitable for Procne's fortune, for her song as a nightingale was regarded to be a lament for Itys. One option would be to understand κλαύματα as troubles or misfortunes (LSJ II); indeed, in this sense, Procne gains a bird-life without further troubles. But in a context about Procne, κλαύματα is inevitably perceived as weeping. Given that, we could say that Cassandra here undermines the myth, saying that the bird is not actually crying, in order to emphasise her own very real, very human lament. Alternatively, 'she views the [nightingale's] lifetime of song as "sweet" precisely because it is alive. However lugubrious this song may be its sound implies the ongoing fact of living'. 11 In either case, ἐμοὶ δέ must bring a striking antithesis, and for that purpose Procne's tragedy has to be blunt. Cassandra's fortune is what Procne's would have been, had not she been transfigured: σχισμός, and indeed with δορί. 12 Therefore, Cassandra is not a fake Procne, as the chorus implies, but another Procne; one with a worse ending.
The inescapability from murder also characterises Iphigenia. Cassandra does not escape murder by being transfigured into a nightingale by the gods as Procne did; and Iphigenia (in Aeschylus' version) did not escape sacrifice by being replaced by a deer by Artemis. 13 Thus, in both cases, the poet reverses the mythic tradition to construct a tragic 11 Nooter 2017: 142. 12  The parallels are striking: the animals, though different (χιμαίρας, 14 βοτοῦ ~ βοός), are equally domestic and sacrificial; both must remain silent (φυλακᾷ, βίᾳ χαλινῶν, ἀναύδῳ ~ μακρὰν ἔτεινας); the place of murder is the same, an altar (ὕπερθε βωμοῦ ~ πρὸς βωμόν); the killing method is the same, slaughter (ἔθυσεν ~ πληγῆς, αἱμάτων εὐθνησίμων ἀποῤῥυέντων); there is involvement of a divine element in the procedure (μετ' εὐχάν ~ θεηλάτου); in the core of the similes, the verbal structure is similar (δίκαν χιμαίρας ὕπερθε βωμοῦ ~ βοὸς δίκην πρὸς βωμόν). All these converge to turn both murders to sacrificial rituals: they are sacrifices organised by Agamemnon and Clytemnestra respectively, and executed with most reverence on their part. And as humans have replaced animals in these rituals, sacredness becomes shamelessness.
The swan fits Cassandra in many ways. Firstly, for its link with Apollo, which is already testified to in Pindar and Bacchylides. 15 Cassandra reveals she flirted with Apollo in order to learn prophesy: μάντις μ᾽ Ἀπόλλων τῷδ᾽ ἐπέστησεν τέλει … ξυναινέσασα Λοξίαν ἐψευσάμην (1202-8). 16 Secondly, for its prophetic mourning; this is the earliest testimony in Greek literature of the concept of the swan's song before its death. 17 Cassandra also forecasts her murder (κτενεῖ με τὴν τάλαιναν, 1260) in a way that resembles a song: τὰ δ᾽ ἐπίφοβα δυσφάτῳ κλαγγᾷ | μελοτυπεῖς ὁμοῦ τ᾽ ὀρθίοις ἐν νόμοις (1052-53). Thirdly, for its admittedly enchanting beauty: it is even comparable to Helen's beauty (Eur. Or. 1386); as for Cassandra, already in Homer she is Πριάμοιο θυγατρῶν εἶδος ἀρίστην (Il. 13.365). Therefore, on multiple levels, the correlation of the woman with this bird is clear.
What surprises here is the use of the swan simile by Clytemnestra; from her perspective, how is it justified that her enemy is compared to such a beautiful bird? The progression of Clytemnestra's emotions, as reflected in her speech, is telling: until 1403 she is upset and angry, because she is thinking of her husband's adultery. Her anger is expressed through an accumulation of invectives, compound words and ribaldry (λυμαντήριος, αἰχμάλωτος, τερασκόπος, κοινόλεκτρος, θεσφατηλόγος, ξύνευνος). But abruptly (ἄτιμα δ' οὐκ ἐπραξάτην) she reverts to the present: both Agamemnon and his 'mistress' are dead, as she desired. From now on we have neither insults nor irony; 18 in serenity, she treats her 15 Pind. Pae. 3.10-14; Bacchyl. Dithyr. 16.5-7; Hom. Hymn 21.1. Also see: τοιάδε κύκνοι … πτεροῖς κρέκοντες ἴακχον Ἀπόλλω (Ar. Av. 769-72); ἀλλ᾽ ἅτε οἶμαι τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος ὄντες, μαντικοί τέ εἰσι καὶ προειδότες τὰ ἐν Ἅιδου ἀγαθὰ ᾄδουσι (Pl. Phd. 85b). For Apollo and the swan, see Krappe 1942 andAhí 1982. 16 The version in Apollod. 3.12.5 is roughly the same. 17 The concept must probably be ascribed to a previous written (but lost) or oral tradition, rather than be considered as Aeschylus' invention. Harris 2012 argues in favour of the oral tradition. 18 As for φιλήτωρ in 1446, I doubt that this is supposed to be an insult about Cassandra being the dominant partner and Agamemnon unmanly, as per Raeburn & Thomas 2011 and Sommerstein 2008 n. 308 ad loc. φιλήτωρ is an extremely rare word (attested only here and once in Aristotle, in the classical era) and its only association with the active sexual role is made by Strabo, who claims to cite Ephorus, who spoke about how the Cretans used the word -i.e. nothing reliable or relevant.
enemies -now victims-with tenderness (note the alliteration of λ). Cassandra thus becomes a swan in her eyes, a pleasant image, just because she is a swan's corpse. The sexual atmosphere (γυναικός, μείλιγμα, κοινόλεκτρος, ξύνευνος, ἰσοτριβής) shockingly becomes necrophiliac; death and pleasure become inextricable. The view of the two corpses is explicitly linked with orgasm for the killer (εὐνῆς παροψώνημα, χλιδῇ). 19 Therefore, the swan-simile and the whole tenderness are anything but the poet's voice, expressing sympathy for Cassandra. 20 It is the murderer's voice which, with gruesome calmness, rejoices in lyric and erotic terms over the corpses. An explanation of her reaction, and a partial justification of her deed, has been prepared earlier, expressed also in terms of beauty and tenderness. Clytemnestra essentially gets revenge for her daughter's sacrifice. Iphigenia has been described in movingly affectionate words by the chorus (στόματός τε καλλιπρῴρου, 235; πρέπουσα τὼς ἐν γραφαῖς, 242) and by her mother (φιλτάτην ἐμοὶ ὠδῖν', 1417). Thus, Cassandra's beautiful swan-corpse becomes for Clytemnestra the repayment for her daughter's lost beauty. And the mourning of the mistress-swan is the repayment for the laudable song of the virgin Iphigenia: XΟ. ἔμελψεν, ἁγνᾷ δ᾽ ἀταύρωτος αὐδᾷ πατρὸς 245 φίλου τριτόσπονδον εὔποτμον παιῶνα φίλως ἐτίμα.
Back in the happy days, Iphigenia used to sing the paean -a genre associated with Apollo -for the entertainment of her father. Now Cassandra is singing a swan song -which is also associated with Apollo -for the entertainment of Clytemnestra. The paean is a genre that 'hovers between triumph and disaster, anxiety and jubilation, expressing man's dependence on the gods and his hopes and fears regarding their beneficence' 21 (1007). Their function is discussed in the end.

POLITICS
There is no doubt that the political element is more evident and explicit in the Eumenides. Yet it is anything but absent in the preceding tragedies.
In fact, it is this gradual preparation that enables a coherent political interpretation, which suggests 'that the political developments of the last play are not something "stitched on the outside" of the trilogy'. 23 The Oresteia can be read as a constitutional progression, from the fall of kingship to the rise of democracy: Agamemnon, the hereditary ruler, is forcibly overthrown by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus; popular discontent rises until Orestes, whom the people support, comes to liberate them from the tyrants, but again, by unlawful means; in this crisis, a legislator (Athena) comes to establish a democratic state. In this section I will discuss how the animal imagery contributes to the construction of this political progression throughout the trilogy. Specifically, I examine how  ver 1957;Podlecki 1966: 63-100;Cole 1977;Calder 1981;Sommerstein 1989: 25-32;Sommerstein 1993;Schaps 1993;Bowie 1993;Meier 1993: 102-37;Griffith 1995;Goldhill 2000. animals are linked to governments and how the quantitative, temporal, and spatial arrangement of animal imagery reveals their sequence.

a. Kingship
Agamemnon is mostly likened to an eagle (49-57, 111-19, 138) and a lion (827,1224,, because these animals are regarded as the kings of the animal kingdom, the aerial and the terrestrial respectively. 24 They also bear connotations of strength, wealth, and divinity, which supplement the royal metaphor: the eagle is linked to Zeus (the latter transformed the legendary king of Attica, Periphas, into an eagle); 25 the lion is linked to the demi-god Hercules and was the emblem of the Lydian dynasty of Pelops. 26 By extension, these animals stand for kingship generally. The first extensive animal images of the trilogy, the vulture simile (49-59) and the corresponding omen of the eagles (111-38) As for the difference of the two bird species (αἰγυπιῶν ~ αἰετῶν), the poet manages to make it rather unnoticeable, moving from one to the other gradually: the vulture (49) develops into a warlike bird (112), then king of birds (113) and finally an eagle (138). 27 I thus take for granted the unity of the images, regarding the vulture as a metonymy for the eagle, or vice versa. What is important in this complex, for our purpose, is the kinglike qualities of the eagles coming forward: their divinity is implied with ὕπατοι, 'highest, uppermost', an epithet attached to Zeus, 28 and (here) to Apollo and Pan as well, and with μετοίκων, 'co-residents of gods'. Their strength is given both as an acoustic image (ἐκ θυμοῦ κλάζοντες, γόον ὀξυβόαν) and by their mauling of the hare. Agamemnon especially is the κελαινός one (μελανάετος), whom Aristotle describes as the strongest and 'hare-killer'. 29 Finally, the birds' royalty is directly expressed by the striking chiasmus οἰωνῶν βασιλεὺς βασιλεῦσι νεῶν. Thus, their linking to the kings is more than a typical stylistic option, since in that case a short simile would be enough; it is a metonymic description of kingship. The lion imagery, in turn, illuminates the contrast of kingship with the forthcoming tyranny. With this meaning, it first emerges in 825-28, where Agamemnon compares the Greek army (led by himself) to a lion, 30 eating raw flesh, which jumped over and sucked the tyrannical blood of Troy: 31 ἵππου νεοσσός, ἀσπιδηφόρος λεώς, 825 πήδημ᾽ ὀρούσας ἀμφὶ Πλειάδων δύσιν· ὑπερθορὼν δὲ πύργον ὠμηστὴς λέων ἅδην ἔλειξεν αἵματος τυραννικοῦ.
The significance of this image is that it expressly establishes a political status for the lion metaphor (specifically the lion's supremacy over tyranny), which will be exploited later, with reference to interior politics. This exploitation comes when Cassandra, prophesying Agamemnon's and her own murder, vividly describes Clytemnestra's adultery with a lion love-triangle: ἐκ τῶνδε ποινάς φημι βουλεύειν τινὰ λέοντ' ἄναλκιν ἐν λέχει στρωφώμενον οἰκουρόν, οἴμοι, τῷ μολόντι δεσπότῃ 1225 ἐμῷ· ……………………………………… αὕτη δίπους λέαινα συγκοιμωμένη λύκῳ, λέοντος εὐγενοῦς ἀπουσίᾳ, 30 Agamemnon is already known as a lion from Il. 11.113-19. 31 It is well known that τύραννος means an absolute ruler without necessarily entailing negative connotations, but within the network of references in the play (e.g. 1355, 1365) the hostile tone is clear; Fraenkel ad loc. Moreover, the very form of the adjective in this passage (-ικός, first attested here) may have been chosen precisely to denote deviation from a proper kind of ruling. Seaford 2003: 100-1: 'Aegisthus' and Clytemnestra's tyrannical coup involves in fact all three of our tyrannical practices: killing family, power through money, and the abuse (or perversion) of ritual'. For the blood-drinking imagery, see Fowler 1991: 99: 'Τhe power of the juxtaposition of the creatures and the blood throughout the Oresteia lies in the fact that it is not completely metaphorical. The human beings who drink blood do, almost literally, become their own Erinyes'.

κτενεῖ με τὴν τάλαιναν· 1260
Aegisthus is firstly called a cowardly lion (almost an oxymoron), roaming in bed (instead of the wild), and guarding the house (a feminine or servile role). 32 The proper lion is Agamemnon, whose juxtaposition with the fake one is striking (λύκῳ, λέοντος). That Aegisthus 'suddenly' becomes a wolf is not some negligence of the poet, but a more accurate retelling; in other words, calling him a lion was just a euphemism, which no longer stands, after the comparison with the real lion. 33 Note that Clytemnestra is also a paradoxical beast, a two-footed lioness. 34

b. Uprising
The overthrow of Agamemnon is repeated once more early in the Choephori, again through an animal metaphor.
If the Agamemnon presents the tyrannical overthrowing of the King, in the Choephoroi the operation of this lawless deviation is described. The snake imagery (which is the dominant imagery in this play) 37 illuminates how tyranny works, that is, with recurring seditions through murder and 35 It was known that eagles ate snakes (Il. 12.200-7, Arist. HA 609a4-5) but also that snakes devoured eggs and fledglings from the eagles' nests. 36 Mostly in historiography and oratory, but also cf. Pers. 714; Eur. IA 366; Supp. 749; Ar.
Lys. 32; Eccl. 552. In Eum. πρᾶγμα in singular means 'a legal case ' (470, 575, 630). 37 On the snake imagery, see Whallon 1958;Dumortier 1975: 88-100;Petrounias 1976: 162-73;Sancassano 1997: 159-84;Heath 1999a. popular usurpation; and as Greek history itself shows, the 'successor' tyrant was often the former's kin. Thus, it is essential to accept that 'The killing of Agamemnon and of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are both acts of stasis… The king's death is pitiful and fearful because it represents the inversion or destruction of so many social values. The same applies, though on a smaller scale, to the death of Clytemnestra. She is, though her husband's murderer and a usurper, still the mother killed by her son'. 38 Although Orestes cannot be called a tyrant, his means are equally unlawful and for that reason he turns out to be a snake, just like Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. The conflict among kin through the snake imagery emerges in Clytemnestra's dream and its fulfilment: ΧΟ. τεκεῖν δράκοντ᾽ ἔδοξεν, ὡς αὐτὴ λέγει … 527 ἐν σπαργάνοισι παιδὸς ὁρμίσαι δίκην … 529 αὐτὴ προσέσχε μαστὸν ἐν τὠνείρατι … 531 ὥστ᾽ ἐν γάλακτι θρόμβον αἵματος σπάσαι. 533 ΟΡ. … κρίνω δέ τοί νιν ὥστε συγκόλλως ἔχειν. εἰ γὰρ τὸν αὐτὸν χῶρον ἐκλιπὼν ἐμοὶ οὕφις †επᾶσα σπαργανηπλείζετο † καὶ μαστὸν ἀμφέχασκ᾽ ἐμὸν θρεπτήριον, 545 θρόμβῳ τ᾽ ἔμειξεν αἵματος φίλον γάλα, ἡ δ᾽ ἀμφὶ τάρβει τῷδ᾽ ἐπῴμωξεν πάθει, δεῖ τοί νιν, ὡς ἔθρεψεν ἔκπαγλον τέρας, θανεῖν βιαίως· ἐκδρακοντωθεὶς δ᾽ ἐγὼ κτείνω νιν, ὡς τοὔνειρον ἐννέπει τόδε. 550 The hapax ἐκδρακοντωθείς is momentous: now Orestes 'transforms himself into a snake, victim of a snake, and snake-killer'. 39 It is important that Orestes himself perceives Clytemnestra as a snake (δεινῆς ἐχίδνης, 249; μύραινά γ᾽ εἴτ᾽ ἔχιδν᾽ ἔφυ, 994) and that he identifies himself with the 38 Macleod 1982: 130, 142. 39 Heath 1999b snake of the dream, since 'the matricidal act requires him to shed something of his humanity'. 40 At the same time, the passage emphasises the kinship (τεκεῖν, παιδός, μαστὸν θρεπτήριον, φίλον γάλα etc.) between him and Clytemnestra, or better, between the two snakes. Whereas in the Agamemnon we had eagles eating hares, or lions eating sheep, we now have a snake killing another snake. This cannibalistic conception classifies tyranny (which is clearly indicated by θανεῖν βιαίως) as doubly unnatural: among the inhuman polities, this is the most corrupt. 41 From Clytemnestra's perspective, only after Aegisthus' murder does she understand her dream; tragically, it was not a dream but a prophesy, and the snake was Orestes: οἲ ᾽γώ, τεκοῦσα τόνδ᾽ ὄφιν ἐθρεψάμην (928) Goldhill 1986: 30: 'the triumph of the established civic discourse'; Griffith 1995: 64: 'an idealized triumph of legal process over vendetta and blood-feud, the instantiation of a new kind of divine justice on earth, or the crude reassertion of male domination in the home, in the city, and on Mount Olympus'. For Heath 1999b: 17-18 with n. 2, the end of the trilogy marks 'the rise of the polis' as opposed to 'the pre-polis arena', but only in a footnote does he explain that in his study the term polis 'refers to the mature polis, the functioning, democratic institutions that a contemporary of Aeschylus would associate with Athens'. 46 When Athena says κρίνασα δ᾽ ἀστῶν τῶν ἐμῶν τὰ βέλτατα (487), it is not a personal, despotic decision but a democratic election, for Athena stands metonymically for the Athenians; Areopagus' judges were the outgoing, elected ἄρχοντες, coming from the higher financial classes -hence βέλτατα. Of course, after 487 BC, the archons where selected by lot rather than election (Arist. Ath. Pol. 43.5), but the trilogy is set in a mythological past. Whether Aeschylus wanted to oppose to this reformation is not clear, but we should remember that the Oresteia was written thirty years later. Sommerstein (ad loc.) rejects any political significance in these lines.
Moving to the animal presentation of this political transition, in the Eumenides no animal prevails as an image overall or is symbolically linked to democracy, in contrast to the preceding tragedies and polities. This is not to say that the political aspect of the animal imagery-system now collapses; it is exactly this discrepancy that completes this 'system', through antithesis. Firstly, the distribution of the animal imagery in this tragedy is telling: the majority of bestial images are gathered in the first third of the play, whereas they become rarer after Athena's entrance. Secondly, what changes with Athena is the function of the imagery: it was symbolic in the first half, usually attached to Orestes (111, 246: fawn, 147: beast, 326: hare) and the Erinyes (128: snake, 131, 246: hound, 197: hated flock), but now animals are used literally, and metaphors and similes almost disappear. The only example of metaphorical use of animal imagery in the later part of the Eumenides is when Athena denounces a potential civil war, comparing it to fighting cocks. 'Cockfight gave expression to oligarchic aspirations and democratic fears by translating a competition between equals into a vivid demonstration of domination and enslavement'. 48 This simile is doubly appropriate here, because the bird is domestic (like civil war is internal) and rather seedy-looking (οὐκ ἔρως): 49 μήτ᾽ †ἐξελοῦσ᾽ † ὡς καρδίαν ἀλεκτόρων ἐν τοῖς ἐμοῖς ἀστοῖσιν ἱδρύσῃς Ἄρη ἐμφύλιόν τε καὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους θρασύν. θυραῖος ἔστω πόλεμος, οὐ μόλις παρών, 47 As a 'mediator', Solon introduced some 'most democratic' reforms (Ath. Pol. 9.1) and refused to become a tyrant (Solon fr. 34; Ath. Pol. 6.3; Plut. Sol. 15.1). Similar to the diallaktēs is the title aisymnētēs, traditionally ascribed to Pittacus. For Aristotle, this is a kind of monarchy that resembles tyranny in being despotic, but kingship in being elective and constitutional (Pol. 1285a, 29-30). See McGlew 1993: 79-81, 94-96. 48 Csapo 1993 ἐν ᾧ τις ἔσται δεινὸς εὐκλείας ἔρως· 865 ἐνοικίου δ᾽ ὄρνιθος οὐ λέγω μάχην.
In all other cases, in the later part of the Eumenides, animals are just animals. So it is in Orestes' purification sacrifice, σφαγαὶ καθαιμάξωσι νεοθήλου βοτοῦ (450), in Athena's wishes for her citizens' prosperity, καρπόν τε γαίας καὶ βοτῶν ἐπίρρυτον (907) and μῆλὰ εὐθενοῦντα (943), and of course, in her celebratory offerings (1006). In fact, it is here only in the trilogy that animals refer to real animals. 50 This stylistic shift in the animal imagery, from density to rarity and from symbolism to literalism, is meaningful for a political reading: no animal stands for democracy or for its personification, Athena, because in contrast to kingship and uprising, this constitution alone preserves human coexistence. And as a parenthetical warning for the future, civil war within democracy is characterised in the same terms (i.e. in bestial terms) as kingship and tyranny.
Other scholars interpret this shift as a movement from vendetta to law courts, from lawlessness to δίκη, from amorality to morality, from matriarchy to patriarchy, or from pre-polis to polis, rather than from kingship to democracy. 51 Especially the connection of the animal imagery with δίκη might seem inevitable, given the similes κυνὸς δίκην, δίκαν χιμαίρας, βοὸς δίκην, κύκνου δίκη, λαγὼ δίκην etc. 52 The specific 50 For Dolgert 2012, the Oresteia does not show (to us moderns) a progression from brutality to civilization, because sacrificing animals is no less problematic or political than sacrificing people. He clarifies that the problem is with 'contemporary theorists' who are 'explicitly praising the Greek tragedies in light of their use of the Greek ritual of blood sacrifice' (269). Indeed, we cannot ascribe such animal-rights concerns to the ancient Greeks -and therefore I confine this interpretation to the footnotes. Nevertheless, his argument still contains a fallacy, that 'the Furies themselves are sacrificed' (269), a reading which is only based on 'textual polyvalence ' and 'textual ambiguity' (277-78) and no serious classicist, to my knowledge, has proposed -Dolgert himself is a political scientist. 51 See above at footnote 45, for the conclusion of Eum. in general; and for the progression of the animal imagery in particular, see Peradotto 1969: 246 n. 32;Heath 1999b: 42-43;Macleod 1982: 138 (on natural imagery, more generally). 52 Introducing comparisons with δίκην ('like', 'in the manner of') is decidedly Aeschylean and overwhelmingly represented in the Oresteia, in which ten of the twentyfour comparisons of this form involve animals (Wilson 2006: 188-90). Wilson argues political reading which I propose here -only as an additional interpretation -is promoted by the fact that the temporal arrangement of the imagery throughout the trilogy is historically consistent: the polities/animals in the trilogy succeed each other in a linear progression that reflects the evolution of Athenian history. Thus, after the fall of Agamemnon/kingship, the lion disappears; there is no reference to it in the Choephori and only a random one (non-symbolic) in the Eumenides. 53 In the same way, the snake imagery/uprising which prevails in the Choephori is fading away in the Eumenides. The narrative of the plays is explanatory: kingship (Agamemnon, lion, eagle) is located in the first tragedy and is set in the past, brought up by the chorus as a flashback; uprising (Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, Orestes, snakes) emerges at the end of the Agamemnon and is developed in the second tragedy, which is set in the present; democracy (Athena, non-animal) is gradually established in the Eumenides and is set in the future (ἔσται δὲ καὶ τὸ λοιπὸν Αἰγέως στρατῷ | αἰεὶ δικαστῶν τοῦτο βουλευτήριον. 683-4). The link with the theme of sacrifice now becomes evident. Iphigenia's sacrifice is located in the past (narrated as a flashback) and executed by Agamemnon: she is the victim of kingship. Cassandra's sacrifice is located in the present and executed by Clytemnestra: she is the victim of tyranny. Eventually, Athena's offerings are a holy sacrifice for the future, which closes definitely a circle of shameless murders; σφαγίων τῶνδ᾽ (1006) is an emphatic formalisation of the establishment of normality, of democracy. Exploiting artfully the animal imagery and the theme of sacrifice in the Oresteia, Aeschylus offers a poetic expression of the historic evolution of governments and praises democracy. The other option is a bestial society, or a human jungle.
that, even though the δίκην-similes decrease in the course of the trilogy and thus contribute to the general progress from bestial to human justice, the remembrance of the initial use of δίκη(ν) undermines the happy end. This is a compelling argument, but its verbal premises are rather weak: the connection between the adverbial δίκην and δίκη as justice seems like a pun conceived in English -'just like a dog' and 'just like a dog'. I am more inclined towards Garvie 1986 ad 195: 'it is going too far to connect this with the general δίκη-motif of the trilogy'. For the ambiguities of δίκη in the trilogy, see Goldhill 1986: 33-56. 53 λέοντος ἄντρον αἱματορρόφου | οἰκεῖν τοιαύτας εἰκός , said by Apollo for the Erinyes.
This animalistic conception of political progress can be seen in dialogue with the tale of Prometheus and Epimetheus in Plato's Protagoras. There, the human being, alone among all other species, has been given the political virtue (comprising shame and justice) in order to live in security and prosperity. This is presented as the final of three stages of development (322b-c), just like in the Oresteia: first, 'there were no cities; so they [humans] begun to be destroyed by the wild beasts'; subsequently, 'when they came together, they treated each other with injustice, not possessing the art of running a city, so they scattered and began to be destroyed once again'; finally, 'Zeus… sent Hermes bringing conscience and justice to mankind, to be the principles of organization of cities and the bonds of friendship'. 54 One can easily see some correspondence between these three stages and the kingship-tyranny-democracy pattern of the Oresteia, such as: (a) the disastrous consequences of the first two conditions and the rightfulness of the third one; (b) the self-destructive nature of the second condition where humans destroy each other; (c) the intervention of the gods for the establishment of the rightful; and (d) the need to separate humans from animals. Of course, it is hard to argue for a direct influence between the two texts, given their temporal distance (the Oresteia was composed in 458 and Protagoras in the 380s with a dramatic date in the 430s) and their individual political focus (pre-civic to civic organisation in the Protagoras and different forms of civic organisation in the Oresteia). However, given the prevalence of animal imagery in political philosophy in general, as also exemplified by Aristotle's statement ὁ ἄνθρωπος φύσει πολιτικὸν ζῶον, it becomes evident that Aeschylus' political imagery has intentional philosophical reflections.