Abstract

Aeschylus’ Oresteia supports Aristotle’s claim about the naturalness of the city and the city’s role in shaping justice for humans. In the Oresteia, Aeschylus shows how the city’s justice is the only way to control the wrath of the Furies. Aeschylus shows that the city and its justice tames the Furies and provides for the only way by which the husband-wife relation, which is not a blood tie but provides the basis for which the family is even possible, can be preserved and be secure from the passions the Furies release in their quest for revenge. The Furies and their desire for vengeance for the violation of the blood bond, threaten to undermine the very basis on which the family is founded: the husband-wife bond. Thus Aeschylus gives support and aids Aristotle’s position that the husband-wife bond is a political bond and rests within the realm of the city and the political.