private justice (revenge), the rational response to the brutal reaction, thus rebuilding the
social fabric.
17.
In his Oresteia, a literary classic of old Greece essentially regarding justice,
Aeschylus did not give in when facing the spirit of tragedy, since, in the middle of the
intense human suffering, he revealed his belief in ethical accession; in The Eumenides,
the final piece (458 a.C.), Aeschylus considered that, in the end, reason and persuasion
of what is fair should prevail for common good, the good of all.16 In The Eumenides, the
creation of the court of Areopagus, - the first of the classical world, - was able to end the
destructive cycle of private revenges, in midst of the absence, up to that time, of public
institutions of criminal justice.
18.
At the end of the Oresteia, the Furies are infuriated with Athena, but she is able to
persuade them in the sense of the acceptance of the verdict and their new role as
"beneficial metoikoi of the city,” as "protective goddesses of the tribunal", as Eumenides
(Kind); thus the final scene of the trial of Las Euménides, the clarification of the sense of
justice, the establishment of dike as legal justice.17 The perennial lesson of Aeschylus’
Oresteia is still current and valid in our time, in the turbulent end of the XX century and
the beginning of the XXI century. The tragic trilogy evolved from chaos to the law of the
polis, from darkness to light, from isolation to understanding, from blood revenges to
legal justice based on reason.18
19.
The cycle of private blood revenges, which will consume the entire family, - the
heroic Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Orestes (at the end acquitted by the court of Athena,
but also swallowed by violence, - only ended with the founding of the court of justice and
the assertion of the primacy of Law over brute force. As has been stated with regard to
Aeschylus’ Oresteia, “the trilogy transforms darkness into light, the bloody tunic of
Agamemnon in the festive attire of the final procession (...) of Las Eumenides."19 The
comprehension of the Greek tragedy can help us “mitigate the pressure that the modern
forms of life have over us" (without this implying an undesirable return to the past),
keeping present “the wisdom obtained with difficulty that comes with suffering,” which
must be cultivated by us all.20
IV.
The Perennial Nature of the Search for Justice.
20.
The perennial relevance of the Greek tragedy is illustrated by Peru’s tragedy of
terrorism by clandestine agents confronted with the State’s terrorism, leading to a cycle
of revenges that caused more than 30 thousand deaths, and that up to this date
.
W. Kaufmann, Tragedy and Philosophy, Princeton, University Press, 1992
[reprint], pp. 178, 183, and 190.
16
.
C. Rocco, Tragedia e Ilustración, Santiago/Barcelona, Edit. Andrés Bello, 1996, pp.
144, 203, and 207.
17
.
Ibid., pp. 47, 64-65, 184-185, 201, 204-205, and 214.
.
Ibid., p. 201.
.
Ibid., p. 261.
18
19
20
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