DET JUR I D I S K E FAKULT ET

KBENHAV N S U N I V E R S I T E T

Synopsis
Name of student: Victoria Macovei
KU ID: mpn666
Course title: Law and Literature
Synopsis title: Sacrifice for Justice in Antigone and Agamemnon
Name of the lecturer: Russell Lowe Dees, Ditlev Tamm
Handover date: 01.02.2016

No. of characters: 12.049

Sacrifice for Justice in Antigone and Agamemnon

Greek tragedies show us the way people used to live and to organize their
societies some 25 hundred years ago. But most important, they show us the rising of
human souls, first glimmers of courage, rebelliousness, devotion etc. I dont think we
can find bad characters in Greek tragedies. From each of them we find something to
learn or to follow. In this short paper, I will try to analyze the reason behind the actions
of the personages in two Greek tragedies, Antigone and Agamemnon. What was their
personal interest? What did they follow? I will show that all of the homicides were not
just simple horrific crimes; they were sacrifices in order to acquire the highest ideal in
any society Justice.
I chose this topic because it is commonly accepted that the central theme of
Greek tragedies is one that originates from sacrifice that is also a meal, in the sense
that the sacrificial victim is hunted and eaten like an animal. Thus, Agamemnons
sacrifice of Iphigenia and Clytemnestras sacrifice of Agamemnon are examples of
sacrifices that are also meals: they designate totemic sacrifices that express tribal
sociality, but do not put an end to violence and social conflict. On the contrary, tragedies
show how these bad sacrifices give rise to the kind old conflict that is constitutive of
tribal or primary socialty, namely, what Hegel calls the conflict around honor (Miguel
Vatter, The Republic of the Living, Fordham University Press, New York 2014, pp. 30).
Its outcome is inevitably a war between clans of families. These sacrifices, which set off
the tragedy, are failed attempts at pacification.
The subject of sacrifice is omnipresent in almost every Greek tragedy. Moreover,
the sacrifice is the climax of almost any tragedy. The word itself tragedos means
according to some scholars, "song at the sacrifice of a goat. (Walter Burkert, Greek
Tragedy and Sacrificial Ritual p. 88).The Greek sacrificial rites represent in vivid detail
human aversion to killing and the feelings of guilt and remorse caused by the shedding
of blood. In Greek tragedies most sacrifices are voluntarily done. We should recall at
least Antigone, Iphigenia, who in the end accepts her deaths, or Cassandra. Everyone
who takes part at the rite is guilty and innocent at the same time. They are both loved
and hated. This is the marvelousness of Greek tragedies. All participate, but one stands
at their head, the sacrificer, the pater familias or the king. To him belongs the vitae
necisque potestas, and he demonstrates this power of his in the sacrifice. (Walter
Burkert, Greek Tragedy and Sacrificial Ritual p. 91)

The price of sacrifice in Antigone

To say that Antigone sacrifices herself for her brothers soul to rest in peace
would be like to say nothing. In the play, Antigone sacrifices for much more than that.
She gives her life in change for her Gods, and her believes to what is right. The
decision brings her into a sharp conflict between divine law and the commands of her
King. Her sacrifice is voluntary, and she accepts the consequences right away (If it
means death, It will not be the worst of deaths death without honor. 81).
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In fact, Polynices represents just the object of the sacrifice in a situation when
one has to obey other rules than those dictated by the society. Just like in the holy ritual
of sacrificing an animal, the victim has only a representative function; he is used for the
fulfillment and discharge of an inevitable threat in the human soul which is really
directed against man. In Antigone, the threat which prejudices the human race is the
pride and autocracy of an emperor, portrayed here as Creon. Moreover, I consider also
a threat the blind following of written rules (which are also made by humans) as a way
of reaching the absolute Justice!
Antigone has two climaxes: the first is the sacrifice of Antigone, and the second is
the melancholic survival of Creon. Sophocles didnt by coincidence chose a virgin young
woman to represent the sacrifice in the play; this is the sign of challenge by women of a
patriarchal society, so descriptive for those times. On the other side, Creon claims the
role of the representative of the polis, while Antigone foregrounds the importance of the
family.
For Creon, his family is the cost that he has to pay for the lesson that Antigone
taught him. The difference in his case is, however, that the sacrifice is not voluntary as
in the case of the other personages of these two tragedies. Creon becomes this way the
sacrifice of his own vanity and the sacrificer of his family.
By this bloody way, Creon goes through a learning process which costs him
much; through pain and loss he draws several conclusions:
- that any ruler, even if he is given the duty to rule the country by gods, is still no more
than a human being, and has no access to absolute truth (Haimon to Creon You are not
in a position to know everything 548; Do not believe that you alone can be right./The
man who maintains that only he has the power/To reason correctly, the gift to speak, to
soul/A man like that, when you know him, turns out empty. 565; How dreadful it is
when the right judge judges wrong! 270). Even a good ruler as he considers himself can
judge wrong;
- that autocracy, results to be as dangerous as anarchy, which he hates so much
(Anarchy, anarchy! Show me a greater evil! 534) because even a good ruler as he
might consider himself, makes mistakes when not listening to anybody but his inner self
(Teiresias: Think: all men make mistakes 804. My own blind heart has brought me/
From darkness to final darkness. Here you see/ The father murdering, the murdered
son/And all my civic wisdom! 990);
- finally, several scholars from the feministic school might argue that Creon learned that
women, in spite of the patriarchal Greek society (We are only women, / We cannot fight
with men, Antigone! 46; Lets lose to a man, at least! Is a woman stronger than we?
540) can also be agents of justice and of punishment for those who exceed their
powers. There is a precarious conflict between the rule of law and emancipation of
Antigone here.

Motivating Agamemnons sacrifices

In Agamemnon, the sacrificial ritual runs like a leitmotive (Walter Burkert, Greek
Tragedy and Sacrificial Ritual, pp.119). The choral song begins with the portrait of the
two eagles tearing in pieces the pregnant hare, (the eagle pair [] loathes their banquet
on the quivering hare); followed by the goddess' demand for "another sacrifice" (She
craves, alas! to see a second life/ Shed forth, a curst unhallowed sacrifice-).
The plot begins in the tragedy Iphigenia at Aulius, Agamemnon becomes the
"sacrificer" of his own daughter, which is just the beginning of a long row of murders.
This is another lesson that Greek tragedies teach us, both in Antigone and in
Agamemnon, one murder follows another, one evil generates more. The sacrifice of
Iphigenia could unlikely lead us to the idea that it was committed in the name of Justice,
but it is still an interesting point to stop over.
Aeschylus describes the murder of Iphigenia in such colors and with such sharp
words, that it undermines the audience's sympathy for Agamemnon, "Her supplications
and her cries of father / were nothing, nor the child's lamentation / to kings passioned
for battle/ Pouring then to the ground her saffron mantle / she struck the sacrificers with
/ the eyes' arrows of pity
It is true that Artemis demanded her death if the fleet was to sail to Troy, but how
fair and understandable it was that Agamemnon killed his eldest child, his virgin
daughter to win a war and to recover a single woman? At this point we can draw a
parallel between Agamemnon and Creon, both powerful rulers who fight for their
political power and legitimacy. The sacrifice of Troy and Iphigenia, the justice of Zeus
and the appeasement of Artemis clash. And Agamemnon is pinned between them, the
man whose justice leads to further crime (The Oresteia. Aeschylus, Introductory Essay,
Notes and Glossary by Robert Fagles and W.B.Stanford, pp.11). The decision of
Agamemnon was a political one, and in this case the sacrifice wasnt done for justice
but, what means more for a king, for his state. His choice might be seen as a proof of
devotion towards his people and country.
By sacrificing his most beloved child, he knows that he will have maintained the
respect of his people and army while installing fear in any competitor. Just like Creon
Do you want me to show myself weak before the people? Or to break my sworn word?
No, and I will not - 518 Agamemnon has the very worried about what his people will
think of. He therefore takes Iphigenia as a casualty in a war where many more would
have died if he didnt sacrifice her. By not sacrificing his daughter he would have
brought shame on his family, demonstrated before his troops his unwillingness to make
personal sacrifice, and make his people appear weak in the eyes of enemy. In these
lights, to me, he appears as the most devoted and loyal ruler one could ever wish to
have!
However, a mother could never understand such behavior towards her child, and
this is why Agamemnons ritual slaying of their common daughter Iphigenia becomes
the triggering event for Clytemnestras violence. She dies like an animal, like a goat,
(My daughter's life as that of sheep or goat,) - goat for sacrifice - blindfolded, a hand
put over her mouth to stop her screams. Just like in Antigone, Clytemnestra, committing
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the vengeance of her daughter, becomes herself the agent of Dike, Justice. This leads
us to the idea that Agamemnon was her own object of sacrifice in order to acquire that
Justice. Agamemnon was sacrificed for the peace of her and her daughters soul.
The ritual of Clytemnestra slaying Agamemnon is committed by no coincidence
with the same perversion and violence and cold-bloodiness as the sacrifice of Iphigenia.
Clytemnestras slaying of her husband displays as excess of violence. Instead of
celebrating his homecoming with a bath, she offers him a bath of blood. When the news
comes of Agamemnon's victory and imminent return, Clytemnestra prepares a great
sacrifice to celebrate his husbands victorious homecoming (Yet on each shrine I set the
sacrifice). In the palace herds of sheep stand ready.
Yet instead of the smell of sacrifice, Cassandra scents and predicts murder (O
aweless soul! the woman slays her lord). Later Clytemnestra boasts that she has slain
her husband "for Ate and Erinys," that is, as a sacrifice. Then she tries to disclaim
responsibility: the Alastor of Atreus himself has killed, or rather sacrificed, Agamemnon,
has slain him as the full grown victim after the young animals. Even so, at the great
sacrificial festivals, first the lesser, then the full grown victims fell (Walter Burkert, Greek
Tragedy and Sacrificial Ritual, pp.120).
Clytemnestra is often given the bloody burden of this crime. One might find her
guilty, because murdering a husband is a crime as serious as murdering a daughter.
But again we encounter here the beauty of Greek tragedies where nobody is fully guilty
or innocent. If we take the matter neutrally, we shall find that she is not altogether
responsible for this murder. Her vengeance can be justified on several grounds,
because the things that contributed most in killing Agamemnon are the hereditary guilt,
Agamemnons murder of Iphigenia and not lastly, pride. It is Agamemnon and his fate
which are mostly responsible for his tragedy in the play Agamemnon. Clytemnestra is
another prototype of woman in Greek tragedies who is the agent of Justice. By
murdering Agamemnon, she becomes the executioner of her daughters executioner.
But apart from this hereditary guilt, Agamemnons own wrongdoing is also no
less responsible for his downfall. When Agamemnon found himself faced with a fearful
dilemma, he made the wrong choice- to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia at Aulis. Fate
always confronts man with a choice, and if man chooses wrongly the sin in his.
Agamemnon chooses wrongly, so the sin in his.
In his Agamemnon Aeschylus gives us a different kind of justice, which can be
called the Avenging justice, the successful and triumphant wrongdoing by the strong
against the helpless finally, becomes intolerable to the gods. The shedder of much
blood does not escape the eyes of the gods and the wrath and power of the house of
Atreus are no defense against the indignant pity of the gods. So, to pay for the sin of
slaying Iphigenia Agamemnon must die- the slayer must be slain (The Agamemnon for
students, David Raeburn, Oliver Thomas, OUP Oxford 2011).
Besides these arguments, there are other grounds on which the Clytemnestras
murder can be considered with sympathy. We can look at Clytemnestra from two
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different perspectives namely, as a mother and as an individual woman. When we

consider Clytemnestra as a mother, it becomes our duty to defend her. She appears at
her superhuman height when she comes forth with the bodies of Agamemnon and
Cassandra. She confesses her former deception with no shame or compunction. And in
the impassioned clash with the chorus these plausible words come out of ClytemnestraHis daughter, blossom of my womb,/ He gave unto a deadly doom,/ Iphigenia, child of
tears! /And as he wrought, even so he fares./ Nor be his vaunt too loud in hell; /For by
the sword his sin he wrought, /And by the sword himself is brought / Among the dead to
dwell.
Clytemnestras defense is a mothers defense. Her defense is convincing, as
such a cold-blooded murder can be compensated only by another cold-blooded murder.
Agamemnon not only slew their daughter, but also violated her motherly feelings, the
strongest in the world. Following this logic, we can rightly say that the penalty matches
the deed and that Justice was archived by slaughtering Agamemnon.
We should look at Clytemnestra also from another perspective, that of a Grecian
woman, which, like Antigone, is a free woman, often compared to a man, with a lot of
individuality and courage to listen to her inner voice. But Agamemnon, the muddleheaded king gave little heed to this facet of Clytemnestra. Agamemnon cheated
Clytemnestra when he had taken Iphigenia from her bosom by giving her a false
promise. So when her individuality is at stake, Clytemnestra takes up the weapon for
Agamemnon. She appears as a monster for violating her womanness and motherly
feelings. (Agamemnon_2 Essay on www.josbd.com)