Two Greek writers penned two different beautiful works. Hesiod wrote Works and Days, and his countryman, Aeschylus, wrote The Eumenides.
Works and Days is a compilation of advice in poetry form from Hesiod to his brother, Perses, on how to work and spend his days. The Eumenides is Aeschylus’ third and last play in his outstanding Oresteia Trilogy and depicts the protagonist, Orestes, running from the Furies, also called Eumenides, and their sanctions.
Both volumes have the same worldview of the existence of the gods of Mount Olympus. Both authors honor those gods, especially Zeus and his daughter, Justice, as carry-outers of ethical cause and effect.
In Hesiod’s Works and Days, he displayed blatant disrespect and hatred for all things court-related. He claimed the courts were stealing his inheritance and that the courts were overrun with bribery. He implored his brother, Perses, not to follow in the footsteps of the court’s decisions.
However, in the Third play of the Oresteia trilogy, The Eumenides, the author, Aeschylus, showed a deep respect and love for the courts of men. Orestes put himself wholly in the hands of the court to bestow judgment as they saw fit. Aeschylus even portrayed the gods as possessing a deep respect for the courts.
First, Apollo, a prophet god who orchestrated Orestes’ vow to kill his mother, knew Orestes would be judged by a court and fully approved. With much encouragement, Apollo dispatched Orestes on his way to Athens and the sanctuary of the goddess Athena.
Second, In Athens, Orestes meets Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare, who heard him and the Furies out. She declared,
“This is a serious matter, too complex
for any mortal man to think of judging.”
She announced she could not judge, nor could one man, yet a group of men could! Athena departed to assemble a court of humans, the wisest, finest men in Athens, to judge Orestes’ case. The gods knew this would be the outcome and supported it readily. But the Furies in The Eumenides carried quite the opposing view to the gods of Olympus.
In The Eumenides, The Furies were ferocious goddesses of the underworld who hunted down and executed revenge on those who swayed from “justice.” They hounded Orestes for killing his mother. Orestes killed his Mother, Clytaemnestra, because she had killed her husband, Agamemnon. After all, he sacrificed their daughter, Iphigenia. With his life on the line, Orestes went to court.
After the conclusion of Orestes’ case, where Orestes’ actions were declared justifiable, the Furies, instead of hounding Orestes further, turned their revenge on the city of Athens. They completely ignored Orestes from henceforth! That says something about the power of the jury’s decision.
In The Eumenides, the Furies described how all havoc would prevail if they did not inflict their bloody judgment upon humankind.
“If his legal action triumphs,
if now this matricide prevails,
then newly set divine decrees
will overthrow all order.
Mortals will at once believe
that everything’s permitted.”
This does occur when there is no authority. However, there can be immoral authority.
Notwithstanding, Athena offered the Furies a new path, a path where the Furies would be goddesses of Athens. They would execute control over everyone’s well-being or undoing based on who did or didn’t worship them. The Furies’ wrath was placated from Athens by Athena’s rich bribe of worship from the Athenian populace.
When Athena entered to assemble a court at the beginning of this scene, she commented on a lovely gift of land in Troy from the Greeks. This proved that Athena, too, could be bribed.
Works and Days stated that the courts are evil, sinful places full of bribery and deceit. But in The Eumenides, Athena assembled wise, honest men for the court. She described how the two parties, with witnesses and proof, would tell their stories and how the courts are sworn to justice and set in place forever. However, even with this, the courts in The Eumenides, the same as Works and Days’ court, can be bribed. This leads to very unethical causes and effects from human judgment.
The book and the play both express what is in authority: obey the jury. Hesiod, Aeschylus, and Athena proclaimed it, and Apollo, Orestes, and the Furies did it.
Once Athena and the Athenians enlisted the Furies, the Furies made a general statement of cause and effect about those who followed justice.
“For happiness will never fail
the man who follows justice,
freely and without constraint.
He’ll never be destroyed.
But the reckless man who goes too far,
who piles up riches for himself
in any way he can and disregards
all justice—I tell you this—
in time he’ll have to strike his sail,
as storming torments break his ship,
as his yardarm shatters. . . .
smashes on the reef,
the rock of Justice—he drowns,
unseen and unlamented.”
If Hesiod’s brother, Perses, followed Hesiod’s advice, he would not misuse the courts to obtain his brother’s inheritance. Perhaps Perses would be pleased? Hesiod would be, and thankful too! Perses would accumulate no self-destructive riches, and Hesiod would obtain the assurance of a just brother.
In both Works and Days and The Eumenides, Ethical cause and effect were granted by the gods, especially Justice, and those below the gods, like the Furies and human courts. Both show strong opinions about the reliability of the sanctions provided by the courts, but as with anything human, it can’t be perfect. Even if Hesiod despised the courts, and for justifiable reasons, ethical causes and effects did flow from them, as in the case of Orestes and the Furies.
Alena Coons 
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