GREEK TRAGEDY AND THE LAW: ATHENA’S COURT IN EUMENIDES AND THE MODERN JUDICIAL PROCESS

Abstract Eumenides is the third part of a trilogy of plays that depicts the perpetration and consequences of matricide. The old system of vengeance and violence is replaced by due processand justice, when Athena is appealed to, and she hence sets up the first court that operates on reason. However, the new system is plagued by its own set of problems: first that it still remains rooted in violence and, therefore, is to an extent no different from the primitive and violent way of resolving disputes. Secondly, Athena’s emphasis on reason manifests in the establishment of a set procedure, which as the play illustrates may not always lead to justice or the truth. Thirdly the foundation of the Athenian law is a gendered phenomenon. The scheme of the play is that the legal order, essentially male, displaces but then comes to include the female. This paper will examine these assertions and will also examine how the shortcomings that afflicted Athena’s Court and legal process haunt the modern legal system as well.