Slouching toward Democracy

In his flight from the Furies, Orestes — who has committed a vengeful matricide — prays to Apollo for refuge. His prayer is answered, and he is whisked away to Athens, where Athena asks the “men of Greece” to judge “the first trial of bloodshed.” At her behest, the best citizens of the Attica peninsula come forward and place their pebbles into one of two urns. They vote.

Aeschylus tells this story in The Eumenides, the third play of his Oresteia trilogy. The Father of Tragedy grew up in the early period of Athenian democracy, as it was struggling to establish itself. His trilogy begins with Agamemnon, in darkness and suffering. But it ends with the light of wisdom and the establishment of political order and justice — and institutions to protect those things. It’s a story of the birth of a hero: not Orestes, but Democracy itself. The Furies and the destructive chaos they bring to their victims are banished; wisdom and moderation prevail over rage and...