Sexual and Political Conflict in the Oresteia

That there is sexual conflict in some sense in the Oresteia is obvious, since the basic pattern of action and retributive reaction (drasanti pathein) unfolds in the trilogy as an alternation of male and female agents: Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Orestes, and the Furies. This fact in itself might not be very significant, but, as we shall see, sexual conflict in the form of debate over male and female values occurs throughout the trilogy. Particularly notable are the concluding arguments of Apollo in Eumenides (625-28 and especially 657-66) and the reasons given by Athena for favoring Orestes' case (736-40), which are based almost entirely on sexual considerations, namely that the male is superior to the female. These arguments of Apollo and Athena strike most critics as quite irrelevant to the specific question of Orestes' guilt or to the larger question of justice which is allegedly being decided by the Areopagus. Various more or less implausible attempts have been made to account for the arguments by those critics who do not simply ignore the problem. But these sexual arguments form the climax of the debate before the court. This is the one argument by Apollo that the Furies cannot answer, and it is the only reason Athena gives for her decisive vote for acquittal. It seems hard to believe that at one of the most important moments of the trilogy Aeschylus would introduce a completely irrelevant argument and then let the most crucial decision in the trilogy be based on it.

In order to understand the full significance of this final argument for male superiority, we must examine all instances of and references to sexual conflict in the Oresteia. As we shall see, these are numerous. The first mention of Zeus' sending the Atreidae to Troy, for instance, describes the woes that will come to both the Greeks and the Trojans for the sake of a woman of many men (polyanoros amphi gynaikos, 62). Throughout Agamemnon we are repeatedly reminded that the war was fought for or on account of a woman (225-26, 402, 448, 823, 1453). Menelaus has lost his wife, and the Greeks have lost Helen, the ideal of feminine beauty; without her, all Aphrodite is gone (419). But in order to regain Helen and restore Menelaus' marriage they must sacrifice another woman, Iphigeneia, a daughter and innocent virgin, qualities that are emphasized in the poignant description of the scene at the altar (228-47). In short, Agamemnon's decision is to sacrifice one woman, his daughter, in order to regain another woman, Helen.

Before considering the reasons for and the significance of this decision in terms of sexual conflict, it will be helpful to pause briefly and consider the position and relative importance of women in Athens at this time. The evidence is not as abundant as we might wish, yet it is sufficient for us to see that the lives of free-born Athenian women in the fifth century were highly restricted and that, except for a few foreign residents (most notably Aspasia), women had no part in the glory of Greece's golden age. To borrow a phrase from what is still the best study of the condition of women in Western society, de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, we can say that the Greeks certainly saw their women as the Other, whether praising them, as Pericles does (Thucydides II.45.2), for their obscurity or condemning them for a multitude of faults, as Hippolytus and others do. The Athenian upper-class woman was expected to lead a private life, almost exclusively within her family; except for participation in a few festivals, any public activity by her would likely be condemned.

The basic family unit for the Greeks was the extended household, or oikos. All of the oikoswomen, children, slaves, and other property was thought of as belonging to the head, or kyrios, of the oikos. When a woman was married, she was merely transferred from the tutelage of one kyrios (normally her father) to another (her husband). The ultimate purpose of marriage was to beget male heirs who would preserve and continue the oikos (family and property). Women were primarily valued in terms of their ability to contribute to this end. Property was passed down to male heirs, and only in the absence of a male heir did a daughter become a significant factor in inheritance. Elaborate laws were developed to provide for the marriage of these heiresses to male relatives. A woman's main functions thus were to bear and raise young children and to tend to other domestic duties; other activities, at least for upper-class women, were severely limited. There was a strong prohibition against adultery, which was considered a violation of the purity of the husband's oikos. Of course there was no such prohibition for men, and prostitutes, mistresses, and the like were available to them. Clearly the oikos was a male-dominated institution, existing through and for its male kyrios. A woman's role was to serve the needs of her kyrios; in turn she was protected by him, though the protection might well take the form of further restriction.

Closely related to this family structure was the wide separation between men's and women's lives, which coincided with the general separation between the public and the domestic spheres in fifth-century Athens. Athenian men were expected to participate in public life and normally were out of the house for most of the day; their wives, on the other hand, normally stayed at home in the company of female relatives and slaves. Women probably did attend the dramatic productions, which took place during state festivals, but they did not normally join their husbands in entertaining or being entertained by friends. Any extrafamilial social life was thus a concern of men only; in particular, xenia (guest-friendship) was created by and for men; women did not participate.

Although we have no evidence directly from the women themselves, we can assume that such a separation of men's and women's lives led to their having separate concerns and values (as they still do in many respects today). Women would be more concerned with home and family and would feel especially close ties to their children, whereas men would be more concerned with and place higher value on public achievement and glory, and would value their children primarily as heirs. Certainly war was a male concern (cf. Iliad 6.490-93) and military glory a male value. We cannot say whether women had yet begun to challenge this value, as Medea does when she states (Medea 250-51) that she would rather face battle three times than childbirth once, or as the women in Lysistrata do when they take control of the normally male administration of the cities. But the hardships that war caused the single-yoked women at home are ... already suggested in Persae and are described at length by Clytemnestra (Ag. 855-94).

We find these specifically male or female concerns and values in the Oresteia (and in many other Greek dramas). For the most part male and female values are consistently adhered to by members of that sex and thus can be said to form two overall perspectives, one male and the other female. Not every issue, of course, can be divided along these lines, and not every sexual concern fits neatly into such a division; nonetheless, I think an examination of the whole trilogy in terms of sexual conflict will bring out an important aspect of the dramatic action. 

In these terms it is clear that, although Agamemnon's decision to kill his daughter is a difficult one (Ag. 206-11), it is the only course of action consistent with his role as representative of a strongly male point of view. From the beginning Agamemnon is presented as a king (42-44) and especially as a military leader (45-47) crying war (48), who will wage a war harmful to both Greeks and Trojans (63-67) for the sake of a woman (62). The rape of Helen by Paris was a violation of the male institution of xenia, presided over by Zeus Xenios, and is a direct violation of the rights of the husband, Menelaus, whose oikos is thereby damaged. Helen has in fact been stolen from the Atreidae (399-402), and as property she must be recovered. Not only must Agamemnon recover his lost property, but he and the army must also assess double damages (537), plundering and destroying Troy as punishment for the theft (cf., e.g., 128-29). 

The killing of Iphigeneia, on the other hand, which is recognized to be a crime and a religious pollution (miainn, 209), is a less important concern than the male military imperative to regain Helen and punish Troy. Hence Agamemnon decides not to be a deserter (liponaus, 212). In his basically male and militaristic set of values, the killing of his daughter is justified by the need to punish a more grievous crime against that set of values. This is not to say that the sacrifice is justified absolutely or ultimately; certainly in the opposing set of female values, represented most strongly by Clytemnestra, it clearly is not justified. Aeschylus makes clear the impiety and brutality of the act, but he also shows how someone like Agamemnon, who in certain respects does fit Fraenkel's description of a noble gentleman, could be induced through an unusual set of circumstances to commit a crime that under normal conditions would be unthinkable. We cannot necessarily say that the poet is condemning Agamemnon's male set of values, for these may be desirable in many ways. But he does show us that there is a danger, if these values are carried too far, that they will serve to justify actions that are clearly
undesirable.

The opposing female perspective in Agamemnon is clearly represented principally by Clytemnestra, who is no ordinary woman, as indicated by the first reference in the play to the rule of her woman's man-counseling expectant heart (11). We must bear in mind, however, that these and other references to Clytemnestra's masculinity are made by the male characters in the play, who consider it abnormal for any woman to display qualities that they (and many modern critics) feel belong more properly to men. And there is no doubt that Clytemnestra is more powerful and more intelligent than any of the men in the play. She demonstrates her power most convincingly in the brief dispute with Agamemnon about his walking on the tapestries (931-43), where she gains a clear victory over him in spite of the fact that (as he points out)  it is not a woman's part to desire battle (940; cf. 1236-37). And her intelligence is brought out most clearly in her exchanges with the chorus of Argive old men, who make several scornful remarks about her feminine intelligence (e.g., 479-87) but are proved wrong, as she later points out (590-92). Both her power and her intelligence are further emphasized by contrast with those of Aegisthus.

But, in spite of Clytemnestra's success in playing a role traditionally considered male, she represents the female point of view and certain clearly female values. During the first few hundred lines she is attending to sacrifices, which are a woman's concern (cf. Ag. 594-96). She then addresses the chorus with two long speeches, the second of which describes the situation at Troy on the night of the Argive victory, a topic considered by the chorus to be more appropriate to a man (351). But Clytemnestra's account is significantly different from what a man's would be. She begins with only a simple statement of the victory (320) and then describes the woes of the Trojan survivors, who are now slaves (326-29), before mentioning the rather limited joys of the victors (330-37). She follows this with a strong warning that they must behave properly and not seek to destroy what they should not or they will have trouble when they return (338-47). This view of the situation, with its concern for and understanding of the plight of the defeated survivors and its very limited sense of joy at the victory, can properly be called female, as Clytemnestra indicates by pointing out that it is the account of a woman (gynaikos ex emou klyeis, 348). This is especially clear in contrast to the herald's speeches announcing the victory (503-37, 551-82), for he mentions the suffering of the army (555-71) only in order to emphasize by contrast the joy of the victory. This joy is virtually unrestrained, and even the destruction of holy places at Troy is for him a matter for rejoicing rather than a cause for concern (527).

A more important concern for Clytemnestra is the trouble the departure of the expedition created for those who remained home in Argos. These woes are mentioned by the chorus (429-36) and then described at length by Clytemnestra in her speech to Agamemnon (855-94). Her list of the troubles  she had to endure as a woman left alone at home by her husband is often disregarded or dismissed as a clever piece of deceit, but, although the end of her speech is certainly deceitful and is admitted to be so later (1372-73), the description of her suffering contains probable truths and is never denied or challenged. Just as the absence of the army has been a general burden on the city (instead of men the houses receive only urns with ashes, 434-36), so Agamemnon's absence has been a particular hardship for Clytemnestra. Thus Agamemnon wrongs Clytemnestra as a mother by killing Iphigeneia, and he wrongs her as a wife by leaving her alone at home to suffer in his absence for ten years. His absence is an offense against marriage from a woman's point of view, committed in order to reaffïrm marriage from a man's point of view.

It is thus specifically as a woman that Clytemnestra is wronged, and in the pattern of reciprocity that dominates the trilogy this wrong must be redressed. The crime of man against woman is balanced by that of woman against man, the deceitful (and thus womanly) killing of Agamemnon, husband, ruler, and leader of the military forces. The male side, ori ginally wronged by the rape of Helen, went to an extreme of male military domination in order to avenge this wrong; now the balance has swung back to the other extreme, female domination of the male. The punishment of Troy could only be achieved at the expense of the female forces in Argos (represented specifically by Iphigeneia). Now these female forces gain such total domination that all males, Agamemnon, Aegisthus, and the chorus, are subordinated to Clytemnestra's power.

The domination of the female in Agamemnon is also represented, though to a lesser extent, by Cassandra, whose intellectual power clearly exceeds that of the chorus, though her power to affect her situation is no greater than theirs. But her knowledge and her powerlessness are important  in this context because they are expressly related to her sex: she obtained her prophetic power, we are told, by agreeing to submit sexually to Apollo, but by later refusing to honor her agreement she lost the real power of prophecy, the power to move someone else to action (1202-12). She is thus in an intermediate position; she stands neither with Clytemnestra nor with Agamemnon. Just as she was powerless to prevent the triumph of the latter at Troy, so she is now powerless to prevent the triumph of Clytemnestra, and she herself will be sacrificed in return for the earlier sacrifice of Iphigeneia (1277-78). But the knowledge that Cassandra acquired by almost yielding her virginity allows her to dominate the chorus with her vision, even if she cannot move them to
action.

It is in Cassandra's descriptions and prophecies of the crimes in the house that we hear for the first time of the earlier pair of crimes, those of Thyestes and Atreus, and these too fit into the pattern of sexual conflict. The first crime was Thyestes' adultery with his brother's wife (1192-93), and the retribution for this was Atreus' killing of Thyestes' children, whom he served up to Thyestes at a banquet (1217-22). The adultery is, of course, an offense against the male-dominated oikos, just as the theft of Helen is. The sacrilege of causing Thyestes to eat his children in return is an offense against the family and its religious taboos, a violation of female values, just as the sacrifice of Iphigeneia is. Thus both pairs of actions and retributive reactions (Iphigeneia's sacrifice being part of the punitive destruction of Troy) represent the same pattern of sexual conflict: an offense against male domination is followed by an excessive retributive act of masculine power that violates feminine values. The two masculine crimes, Agamemnon's war against Troy and sacrifice of his daughter and Atreus' killing and serving up of Thyestes' children, are in turn followed by the exaggerated dominance of female forces, the killing of Agamemnon by both Clytemnestra and the womanly Aegisthus.

The dispute between Clytemnestra and the chorus after the murder continues to develop this sexual theme. When she rejoices at the deed, the chorus rebuke her for exulting over her husband (1400), which she sees as a criticism of her specifically as a woman (1401; cf. 483-87, 592 ff.). She defends herself as fearless (1402) and in turn accuses the chorus of doing nothing about the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, the dearest product of my labor (1414-18). She then criticizes Agamemnon's sexual romiscuity (1438-39) in contrast to Aegisthus' faithfulness and loyalty (1436-37). The chorus in turn lament that Agamemnon, who suffered much on account of a woman (Helen), died at the hands of a woman (1453-54), another indication of the connected sexual aspect of the action. They continue, moreover, with a denunciation of Helen: from their point of view she was solely responsible for the war, and although Clytemnestra rightly reminds them that the blame is not Helen's alone (1464-67), they continue to blame both sisters for the daimn that has
settled on the house (1468-71).

One can see from these remarks that the audience is continually reminded of the sexual conflict that underlies Agamemnon's murder. This aspect is further brought out in the numerous references here and in the other two plays to the shameful and ignoble manner of his death (e.g., Ag. 1516-20). Clytemnestra used deceit, which is characteristic of women (as Aegisthus points out, 1636). This would be ignoble in any case, but it is especially disgraceful in the killing of a military man, who ought to die in battle. Agamemnon has already been presented as a military leader (cf. 1227, 1627), and throughout the next two plays he will be remembered as commander of the expedition. For such a man to die at the hands of a woman and in a womanly manner is the ultimate disgrace for the male forces in the trilogy.

Not surprisingly the cycle of action and reaction continues, and the female dominance in Agamemnon is balanced by an even stronger male dominance in Choephoroi. In this play all women are subordinate to men: the very title of the play, Libation Bearers, indicates a domestic function of women, and the chorus of these bearers are not only women but also slaves, presumably captured in war and taken from their fathers' homes (76-77). They strongly oppose Clytemnestra's rule over the house; they call her a godless woman (dystheos gyn, 46, 525), and they support Orestes' return as the proper (male) master of the house. Moreover, they sing one of the most vehemently antifeminine odes in Greek tragedy (585-651), in which they relate the stories of three well-known crimes committed by women (Althaea, Scylla, and the women of Lemnos), all of which are attributed to the unloving love that overpowers women (600). These stories are obviously introduced as mythological parallels to the crime of Clytemnestra, which is condemned in 623-28 and which leads the chorus to reflect, I honor the home and hearth not fired [by passion] and the woman's unventuresome temper (629-30). Thus the chorus of Choephoroi, both by their position as slaves and by their utterances, support the almost total male dominance in the play. 

The subordination of Electra to Orestes is another element in this strong male dominance in Choephoroi. Electra, as a woman, is powerless and can only sacrifice and pray for her brother to return. The relation between these two presents an obvious reversal of the relation between Clytemnestra and Aegisthus in Agamemnon. Indeed even Clytemnestra's domination of Aegisthus is reversed (to some extent at least) in Choephoroi, for in this play she presents herself as subordinate to Aegisthus. In her first words she says that she can offer the visitors household comforts (the obvious irony of her reference to hot baths is the poet's, not hers), but if their business requires further counsel, then it is a matter for men (668-73; cf. 734-37). Her quick recognition of Orestes (887) is evidence that she is still in fact more intelligent than Aegisthus, but she has nonetheless resumed the traditional female role; she recognizes Aegisthus as master of the house (716) and defers to him in any matters requiring deliberation.

Clytemnestra's attempt to resume her subordinate role does not, however, compensate for her excessive dominance in the earlier play, and Orestes is determined to exact vengeance and regain his rightful inheritance. He announces his determination to free the citizens, whom he praises as the conquerors of Troy, from the rule of these two women (302-4). He also determines to avenge Agamemnon, who died deprived of the honor he would have enjoyed if he had died at Troy (345-53; cf. 354-62). The killing of Agamemnon and the present rule of Clytemnestra (and Aegisthus) are thus seen as a stain on the honor of the men who conquered Troy as well as on Agamemnon's honor.

Orestes brushes off his mother's plea that she nursed him (896-98, 908), that she is a true woman in other words, by pointing to her many offenses against marriage from the male perspective: killing her husband, committing adultery, and casting out her son, the proper heir (906-7, 909, 913). When she brings up Agamemnon's follies (918), he replies, do not reproach him who toiled, you who sat inside [at home] (919). This remark makes clear the common view that a man's work (out of the house) is greater than a woman's, who sits at home, and that the greater burden shouldered by the man gives him greater rights. When Clytemnestra challenges this double standard by mentioning her own hardships (920), Orestes restates his position, saying, a man's toil nourishes women who sit at home (921), and this (it is implied) cancers any possible debt a man may owe for a woman's previous nourishment of him. The male is thus presented as the true nourisher and the female as dependent on him. The obvious conclusion of this belief in male superiority is that the wife's crime against her husband is more serious than the father's against his daughter or the son's against his mother.

As in the case of Agamemnon's killing of his daughter, a normally unthinkable deed is justified according to a set of male values that see the crime as less serious than a previous crime against those male values. Orestes' need to avenge his father, to regain his inheritance, and to restore the oikos is greater than the prohibition against matricide. It is true that Orestes appears to be a less extreme representative of the male point of view than his father. Although it may be misleading to compare the behavior of Orestes on stage with the chorus' report of Agamemnon's behavior, Agamemnon seems to di play considerably less reluctance in his crime than his son does. Orestes is continually aware of the impious nature of his deed, he acts only after much deliberation and persuasion, and he recognizes the need for some sort of payment (purification) for his act. Orestes' military leadership, moreover, is restricted to the alliance he offers Athens, and in this respect he scarcely resembles his father, the destroyer of Troy. Thus, in spite of the fact that Orestes, like Agamemnon, acts from male values and through his action establishes the dominance of male forces, his is a less extreme act, and the audience may suspect that some sort of compromise is now closer to hand.

An end to the cycle of drasanti pathein does not, however, come automatically with Orestes' victory. Clytemnestra's death does not leave her powerless but rather brings on her agents of revenge, the Furies, who appear to Orestes at the end of the play. They are immediately identified as women (1048), and they clearly have some power over Orestes. Their arrival thus indicates that the excessive male dominance in Choephoroi is not to be the end of the story. The cycle will continue as the male dominance gives rise to new female forces to counteract it. The killing of Clytemnestra creates another imbalance, this time in favor of the male, and this imbalance must be corrected as the others have been. Where then will it end? ask the chorus in their last words (1075-76), and the audience too await the third and final play.

Eumenides opens with a prologue delivered by the Pythia, priestess of Apollo. As the female servant of the male god who had most strongly supported Orestes in Choephoroi, the Pythia's mere presence is an indication that the power of the male side has not disappeared. Her prologue, however, suggests that a peaceful settlement of the sexual conflict may be reached in this play, for she relates at length the history of the oracle at Delphi and how it came to belong to Apollo, and her version of this history is significantly different from the standard version, in which Apollo had to fight a monstrous (and female) Python in order to gain possession of Delphi. In the Pythia's account, the oracle at Delphi is handed over to Apollo peacefully as a birthgift from his grandmother Phoebe, who received it (also peacefully) from Themis, who received it from the first possessor of the oracle, Gaia (Earth). Apollo thus has inherited his oracle from a succession of women. On the other hand, he has obtained his prophetic skill from his father Zeus (17). The prologue, then, suggests that, like Orestes, Apollo represents a more peaceful use of male power than did Agamemnon.

As I have said, the main conflict in Eumenides between Apollo/Orestes and the Furies is a sexual one, not just because the participants on the one side are male and on the other female, but also because the point of dispute is in important respects a sexual one. This is apparent even in the preliminary stages of the dispute, where the Furies maintain that Clytemnestra's killing of Agamemnon is less important than Orestes' killing of Clytemnestra, since the latter violated a blood tie but the former did not (210-12). In response, Apollo argues the supreme sanctity of marriage, holding up Zeus and Hera as an example (213-18). We have already seen that from the male perspective the marriage bond is more highly valued than the blood tie: Agamemnon was willing to sacrifice his daughter in order to regain Helen for her husband and punish the Trojans. Here the same set of values is affirmed by the male side and denied by the female. There are, of course, other important aspects to the conflict in Eumenides (such as the conflict between two generations of gods), but as the debate progresses the sexual aspect becomes the overriding issue, and the connection between the sexual conflict in this and in the earlier plays becomes clearer.

In her first words to Orestes (436-42), Athena asks who he is and why he is there. He responds that he is the son of Agamemnon, commander of the navy and annihilator of Troy, who was ignobly killed when he returned home (456-61). After this preliminary questioning Athena decides to form the Areopagus to hear the arguments. The debate before this court quickly establishes that Orestes killed Clytemnestra in return for her murder of Agamemnon (587-602). The Furies press their point that if she deserved to die then so does Orestes. They did not pursue Clytemnestra, they explain, as they now pursue him, since the murder of Agamemnon was not of a blood relative (605). Orestes asks skeptically if he is of his mother's blood (606), and the chorus answer emphatically that she nourished him in her womb (607-8). To this Orestes has no answer, and he turns over his defense to Apollo. The Furies' case at this point is clear: they value the blood tie, especially the tie to a mother, more highly than the marriage bond, and, as we have seen, it was precisely the reversal of this relative valuation that led to the crimes of Orestes and Agamemnon.

Apollo now gives his views on this matter of blood, and, after claiming that he does not lie (615), he states openly (625) that the death of a noble man is a different matter (sc. from the death of a woman). He continues with a number of remarks that he hopes will sting the jury (638): there is disgrace in the death of a noble and honored man, especially if killed by a woman (kai tauta pros gynaikos, 627); Agamemnon, moreover, was killed, not in battle by some Amazon, but in his home, deceitfully, in a bathhe, the admiral of the fleet (627-37). And when the Furies again insist that the shedding of a mother's blood, kindred blood, brings pollution (653-56), Apollo resorts finally to the biological argument that the father is the only true parent, the mother merely an incubator (657-66). This scientific theory is generally attributed to Anaxagoras, a younger contemporary of Aeschylus', and it may have been used in Athens at the time to justify the inferior status of women in society, though we have no evidence other than its use in this play.

Here the biological argument is crucial to Apollo's (Orestes') case, since he has been unable to find any convincing reason for valuing the marriage bond more highly than the blood tie. Thus in the end he must deny that there is any such blood tie in this case. Apollo has failed to convince the Furies with his earlier indirect arguments in support of male superiority, and so he must finally resort to this direct statement of the sexual superiority of the male. This is his final argument, followed only by another mention of the political benefits that Orestes' acquittal will bring Athens; with this, Apollo rests his case. The view that the male is the sole true parent is also Apollo's one convincing argument: in reply to it the Furies have nothing to say, and upon it Athena bases her vote for Orestes' acquittal. She is herself evidence of Apollo's argument, since she was born directly from Zeus and has no mother (663-66). Thus she too favors the male in all things (736-40). It should by now be clear that this final argument is in no way irrelevant; in fact it is directed at one of the central concerns of the trilogy, the clash between male and female forces and values.

The debate between Apollo/Orestes and the Furies is finally decided by Orestes' acquittal. In a sense, of course, this is a victory for the male side, but it certainly does not result in the same sort of male dominance we saw in Choephoroi. Throughout the debate the two sides appear nearly equal in strength; neither has a clearly superior case, and the net effect is that of a standoff. Aeschylus makes it clear that the arguments are equally strong on both sides by making the decision a tie vote (753), and having Orestes released on the basis of a procedural ruling that a tie results in acquittal (741). The implication of this equal division of the jury is that the arguments on both sides have equal strength. Thus, in sexual terms, the male and female forces are at last equally balanced.

We should note too that the figure who supervises the legal process and who acts as arbitrator in the final reconciliation possesses elements of both male and female sexuality. Athena is, to be sure, female, but she is also a warrior who leads her troops like a man (296; cf. 457-58), she was born from Zeus alone without a mother, and she has never married (737). But even though she votes for the male side, she is still a woman; unlike Apollo, she is respectful of the Furies and neither fears (407) nor denounces them. Thus her bisexuality seems to give her the ability to act as a neutral arbitrator in the sexual conflict and to persuade the Furies that they were not really defeated (795). A similar bisexuality is characteristic of another group of women, the Amazons, who are said by Athena to have camped on the hill of the Areopagus in a campaign against Theseus and to have given the hill its name when they sacrificed to the war god, Ares (685-90; cf. 628). This odd bit of local history is perhaps included in Athena's account of the court in order to indicate the sexually neutral nature of the hill and thus to establish that it is the proper place for a trial that will assist in achieving a sexual compromise.

In spite of the equal weight of the arguments and the tie vote, however, a verdict must be rendered, and Orestes is acquitted. The Furies feel that they have been defeated and threaten to pour out their wrath on the city, but in the end they are appeased and persuaded to grant the city their favor instead. Just as their threatened evil is a barren plague (780-87, 810-17), so their blessing is one of fertility (921-26, 937-47), a feminine blessing to match the masculine contribution of Orestes' promised military alliance (762-74). And along with the reconciliation of the female element comes a complete end to the divisive sexual conflict, for Athena makes it clear that there will be sacrifices to the Furies at childbirths and at weddings (835) and that they will be honored by men and women alike (856). The Furies in turn agree to prevent men from dying young and to help furnish young maidens with husbands (956-60), thereby reestablishing the value of marriage (cf. 835). Male and female elements, which have been in conflict since before the beginning of Agamemnon, are thus reconciled at the end of Eumenides. Sexual harmony is established at last.

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