Week 3: The Oresteia

Reading:
Agamemnon
The Eumenides - Courtroom scene at Athens

A Little About The Author:
Aeschylus was the earliest of the three fathers of Greek tragedy (the other two being Euripides and Sophocles). He was born in about 525 BC near Athens. Only seven of his plays have survived.
Aeschylus fought at the Battle of Marathon against the Persians, and considered this to be his greatest achievement.

A Little About The History:
the Greek dark ages (1200-800BC) are the period of time from the time of the Dorian invasion to the rise of Greek city-states. they are marked by the destruction of many classical cities. At the end of the dark ages Mediterranean trade was picking back up, the art on iron working was much more refined, and the Greeks borrowed the Phoenician alphabet (this was the first true alphabet, previously languages used characters).
At the end of the dark ages the Greek city-states had started to form. It is important to understand that Greek history is not the story of a united nation, but rather several small, independent nations.
In 776 BC was the first ancient Greek Olympic Games. This was an attempt to make the Greek cities get along better, have some friendly competition. The games were held in Olympia, Greece.
By about 550 BC the Greek theatre was starting in Athens. This theatrical tradition is very important to Greek history. Everything in Greece was flourishing, the culture, technology, politics. Theatre is just one example of these developments.
One of Greece's most famous playwrights was Aeschylus.

A Little About The Reading:
This trilogy tells of what happened after Agamemnon returns home from Argos after the Trojan War. This is told in the first half of the reading. The second half of the reading is the final schene of Eumenides. In the space between these two readings Orestes returns to Argo after being gone for most of his life, avenges his father, and gets chased around a ton by the furies. The furies were Greek deities who avenge murder, particularly the murder of a parent. Legend is that they were born from the drops of blood of Cronos defeating his father Uranus. Orestes goes to Apollo, who sent him to avenge his father, and asks for protection. He is told to go to Athens and be on trial. This reading is the final court schene when the goddess Athena and 12 Athenian elders try Orestes.