From tragic fear to political concord in Aeschylus’ dramas

Abstract

In the majority of Aeschylus’ plays fear is an important theatrical device used for the development of different tragic situations, but in Eumenides (458 BCE) it becomes one of the main themes of the play and a sort of means of social control at the disposal of Athens, actually troubled by many inner tensions, in order to promote political harmony. This tragedy seems to announce in advance the need of peace and harmony which Pericles’ Acropolis will show by means of its monuments: some peculiar similarities between myths and rituals mentioned in Eumenides and the ideological program of the Parthenon would support this hypothesis.