Retribution: Old Law

The dead cannot rest unless their keen desire to be avenged is satisfied. This is a remnant of the old as time perception that blood must be avenged with blood.

This old as time saga of vengeance is one of the unwritten rules of the old law, the Retribution.

Unlike Aeschylus (as we can see in his play “The Libation Bearers”) Sophocles adopts Homer’s point of view. In Homer’s work, we do not find the perception that the dead asked for vengeance. They don’t get mad and they don’t tell the living what to do. They are not “angry at the killer” as Plato himself admits (Laws, 8655 d). They don’t interfere with the lives of those still alive. The only thing they ask for is to be buried (if they haven’t already been buried) and to have the necessary libations, offerings and honors appointed to them.

In Hades, they move around like “lifeless heads” (Odyssey, 11. 29, 49), “images of dead mortals” (Odyssey, 11. 476). They walk around like helpless shadows, without wit, without fibers (Iliad, 23.104, Odyssey, 11.219).

Homer and Sophocles tell us that: when one commits murder, he is exposed to the wrath of the victim’s relatives, which wrath, however, is not appointed by the dead. 

Sophocles’ heroes, Orestes and Electra, are led by their personal passion for revenge and a higher sense of honor. 

Sophocles and Aeschylus examined the unwritten rules of Old Law because they could see that this law, in a new form, still regulates and has impact on human relations, despite the fact that the state has substituted this law with a new one.

According to the old law, the son of the murder victim had the sacred obligation to avenge his father’s death. Thus, Orestes, the only son of Agamemnon (who, according to the etymology of his name, comes from the mountains), has an “alpine” point of view and plans to do credit to his father’s memory and to avenge his dishonorable death. In these tragic circumstances, his enemy is his own mother. 

In order to do his duty against his dead father, he must commit the most hideous of crimes: matricide. He is a young man that lived away from his home for so many years (this was Electra’s doing since she gave him away to be raised by the tutor) and has stayed clear from all the blood spilling that polluted his family.

He is a young man with an immaculate soul, who has committed no unholy act on his own, but who bears the weight of a grave and unforgivable sin committed by his ancestors, for which, though, he has to pay. He has to acknowledge the great debt he is obliged to pay.

Nowadays, anything relating to tradition is often considered as an element dead or inhibiting progress. So how can this play of Sophocles, and ancient Greek tragedy in general, be of any help to us?

The word “dead” brings to mind the corpse, something useless and susceptible to endanger its environment. It’s something that people must get rid of, it inhibits, in a way, the progress and evolution of civilization, it stops the improvement of the way of life. However, there is another point of view, with which I agree, that reaches a compromising solution after examining the relations between these concepts. We think of the word “tradition”. We often hear so much about it, however, the reality it represents is not easily understood.

Parents pass on to their children the best things they have , that they earned and acquired at their own effort, their language, their abilities, their ethics, their customs, their virtues and vices that they’re unaware of, their perceptions of life and death.

This act of passing on values that takes place every day in the families has been silently repeated in social life for centuries. The previous generations bequeath and deliver to the young people whatever they consider as prime material in order to help them make their lives better and easier. Hence, we understand that tradition is not only elements of civilization created in the past. It is actually an all-time process of uniting the past and the present. We would say it is a function of humanistic and educational character.

Because it helps young people of all eras, and their children, to overcome the obstacles and ordeals that their ancestors suffered from.

It passes on, through words and actions, selected elements of previous forms of civilization.

Tradition is the basic cultural function that roots from the ancestors’ love and will to help the next generations.

Tradition presents ideal examples that must be imitated, surpassed or even avoided, as we mentioned in previous chapters: it connects the present to the past while preparing the future. It is perhaps the most important factor for natural unity and independence.

Peoples that have no tradition find it hard to deal with the future and are always in danger of falling apart or getting absorbed by other peoples. Tradition pushes peoples towards the creation of a better future. These are some of the positive elements of tradition. However, returning to the introduction of this text, we must consider this question:

What good things can someone expect from superstitions, national and social prejudice, racial disputes and war? No matter how strange it seems, these are traditional elements. They were preserved for the following reasons:

In the past, these elements were effective during difficult times of a people’s history, for example, the hatred for a neighboring nation kept the people ready for war, a fact that saved them from slavery in several occasions. This conclusion helps us explain when and in which way traditional elements play an inhibiting role.

Younger generations that receive these traditional elements find them totally correct, perfect and therefore effective, thus reaching the point of sterile adoration of the forefathers and rigid conservatism.

Although they see that some of these elements have no meaning at the present time, they refuse to replace them with other more practical elements. They consider them sacred and privileged and they don’t think of judging them in order to prove their legitimacy. They object to progress because they think that any change will destroy tradition, so they fight against change.

Instead of turning their gaze towards the future, they look all the way back at the past.

The conclusion is this: Tradition is a process of love and union of knowledge.

The usefulness of its elements depends on the way the recipients use them.

Tradition = the conscience of peoples.

Strange as it seems, tradition is the conscience that evaluates, selects and transports elements of culture from the past, incorporating them, unabridged or slightly changed into the present.

Therefore, whatever good exists today was, at its most part, born as an idea and realized in the past.

The process of tradition gives the young people the chance to acquire the knowledge coming from the experience of others.

Ancient drama and tradition

In my opinion, ancient drama has offered a lot, since it contains some final and some temporary solutions to basic problems of life. Thus, tradition is a sacred support helping us deal with our current problems and also a motive for us to approach new problems.

At the same time, tradition achieves the union of time, a concept that man is used to grasp in fragments. We would say that tradition prepares the entrance of peoples and individuals into eternity.

In conclusion, I cite the beautiful scene described by Plutarch, where three successive generations of Spartans execute a triple dance. Each generation lists its virtues and accomplishments and all of them together plan the future of their country. The younger generation promises: “We will be much better than you”.