Is it just here.[17]
In reasoning of this kind, which we cannot suppose to have been included in traditional saga, we see a deliberate effort at ‘conscious archaising’ on the part of Sophocles[18] and of Euripides. In the Homeric society there existed, we have argued,[19] a distinction between murder and righteous vengeance. If this distinction had not existed in the Achaean caste the result would have been chaotic. Instead of a restricted system of ‘private vengeance’ which is controlled by discipline and by public opinion, we should find prevailing everywhere a barbarous vendetta-system. The ‘sacrifice’ of his daughter by Agamemnon is not mentioned in Homer, and there is no reason for assuming that such a sacrifice ever took place. But if it had occurred, the Achaeans would not have regarded it as an act of murder. In historical Athens such a plea as that which Clytaemnestra here advances could never have been made, as the legal and religious atmosphere was so entirely different. Hence, in dramatising a legend of this kind the correct reproduction of such arguments as those which we are discussing demanded considerable skill. As this play of Euripides cannot be regarded as a mere servile imitation of the corresponding Sophoclean drama, we must suppose that Euripides had recourse to ‘conscious archaising.’ It so happens, as we think, that in attributing this sentiment to Electra he has visualised correctly the Achaean attitude to murder.
In the Orestes we shall find an argument attributed to Tyndareus which at first sight seems to resemble the reasoning of Electra in this passage, but which is really very different. Tyndareus says of Orestes[20]:
He ought t’ have called the laws, the righteous laws,
T’ avenge the blood, and by appeal to them
Have driven his mother from this royal house:
Thus ’midst his ills calm reason had borne rule,
Justice had held its course, and he been righteous.
We believe that this sentiment of Tyndareus was either included in or suggested by an Argive variant of the Oresteian legend, and that it is based on the assumption that trials for homicide existed before Orestes slew his mother. The contrast which is drawn in the Orestes passage is a contrast between social justice and private vengeance, but the Electra passage indicates a contrast between private vengeance and vendetta. Now, in social justice such as existed in historical Greece, from the seventh century onwards, the Achaean system of private vengeance would have been regarded as a crime. Similarly in the Achaean system of ‘private vengeance’ uncontrolled and indiscriminate ‘vendetta’ was a crime. In both cases the crime would have consisted in the violation of the existing order. Now Euripides suggests (as we infer from these two passages in the Orestes and the Electra) that the consequence of such a violation is identical in both circumstances, namely an indefinite series of murders. As applied to vendetta we admit that this criticism is true, but in regard to private vengeance it is false. We have seen[21] that such a series of slayings did not characterise either the Achaean or the Pelasgian system of ‘private vengeance.’ We shall have occasion to refer to this topic again when we discuss the problems of the Orestes drama.[22]
In the Electra the Chorus approves of the long-expected vengeance of Orestes. Speaking of the slain Aegisthus, they say to his slayer, Orestes[23]: