• Athenian tragedians wrote three plays at a time (plus a 'satyr play'): these three plays are usually called a 'trilogy.'
• Three tragedians presented their plays on three successive days.
• Aeschylus' Eumenides is the third play of Aeschylus' trilogy called the "Oresteia" (the story of Orestes).
• To catch you up quickly on the previous two plays, please read the wikipedia article 'Oresteia'
• This trilogy has a very long trail of influence thru the ages.
• It should be obvious why it was assigned: but keep track of the interplay between mythology and reality, justice and vengeance, impersonal retribution v. personal, etc. Think of the power of art/literature in a society.
  
• 
• By William-Adolphe Bouguereau - https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/orestes-pursued-by-the-furies/SQE-jakW_S49YA, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81006118
  

• Characters of the Play

• THE PYTHIA, Apollo’s prophetess at Delphi
• ORESTES
• APOLLO
• THE GHOST OF CLYTAEMESTRA
• CHORUS OF FURIES
• ATHENA
• SECONDARY CHORUS OF THE PROCESSIONAL ESCORT, comprising the priestess of Athena Polias and her assistants

A run-through of the play via excerpts of particular significance for the 'political thought content' of it:

Scene: At first, before (and, from line 64, within) the temple of Apollo at Delphi; at line 235 the scene changes to the temple of Athena Polias on the Acropolis at Athens

• The Pythia's opening speech:
• 'the roadmaking children of Hephaestus, who tamed the land'
• Athenians are considered children of Hephaestus
• line 30: "And if any Greeks are present, let them approach in an order determined by lot, as is the custom"
• line 40: "a man sitting at the navel-stone as a suppliant for purification, a man polluted in the eyes of the gods"
• Apollo addressed Orestes:
• line 73: "you must flee, ... until you come to the city of Pallas and sit clasping her ancient image in your arms. There we will have judges to judge these matters, and words that will charm, and we will find means to release you from this misery for good and all—for it was I who induced you to kill the woman who was your mother."
• line 88: "Hermes, guard him, and, true to your title, be his escort, shepherding this my suppliant—for Zeus respects the sanctity of wayfarers like this one "
• Orestes leaves, ghost of Clytaemnestra appears to awaken the furies and goad them on:
• 125: Ghost: You moan, you still sleep—won’t you get up, quickly? What activity has destiny allotted you, except doing harm?
• 153: He’s slipped out of the net—son of Zeus—you’re a thief, a youth riding roughshod over ancient divinities by showing respect for the suppliant, a godless man who injured his parents: you, a god, smuggled away the man who attacked his mother! Who will say that any of this is in accordance with justice?
• 165: the navel of earth has acquired for its own a horrible blood-pollution. Seer though he is, Apollo has polluted and defiled the inner sanctum of his own house—himself setting the pollution in motion, himself inviting it in— violating the laws of the gods by honouring what is mortal while annulling the ancient dispensations of destiny,
• 175 Orestes, polluted suppliant that he is, he will be going where he will get another avenger on his head.
• Apollo returns and tells the Furies to be gone, not to pollute his temple
• Chorus speaks with Apollo
• 195 Chorus Lord Apollo, hear our reply in turn. You yourself are not jointly responsible for this; you did it, from first to last, and you’re entirely responsible. ...
  
• Apollo: I gave an oracle—of course I did—that he should bring her punishment for what she did to his father.
• chorus: And then you offered to receive him with fresh blood on his hands
• 210: Chorus: We drive from their homes those who assault their mothers.

  apollo: What about a woman who slays her husband?

  chorus: That would not be a kindred murder of a person of the same blood.
• 215 Apollo: Truly you have held in utter contempt the pledges of Hera, goddess of marriage, and of Zeus, and <treated> them as being of no account; and Cypris too is cast aside in dishonour by this argument, she from whom come the closest, dearest ties that mortals have. The bed of a man and a woman, when hallowed by destiny, is something mightier than an oath, and Justice stands sentinel over it.
• 235 scene switches to Athens: Orestes as suppliant to Athena:
• Orestes: Here I shall keep vigil and await a final judgement.
• Chorus tracks him down: this unpunished matricide gets away in flight unnoticed...wanting to stand trial for his act of violence. But that is not possible. A mother’s blood on the ground is hard to bring back up...having drained you dry while you live, I shall haul you off below, so that you may pay in suffering the penalty of your matricide
• 280 Orestes: the pollution of matricide has been washed out: at the hearth of the god Phoebus...Now, therefore, it is with pure lips that I call reverently on Athena
• 310 chorus: We believe we practise straight justice: against him who can display clean hands there comes no wrath from us, and he goes through life unharmed; but as for him who has sinned grievously, like this man, and conceals his gory hands, we present ourselves as upright witnesses in support of the dead, and manifest ourselves with final authority as avengers of blood upon the killer. ... The child of Leto ^(Apollo) is depriving me of my rights by snatching away from me this hare,^(Orestes) a proper sacrifice to cleanse a mother’s murder. And over the sacrificial victim this is my song: insanity, derangement, the mind-destroying chant of the Furies...this was the lot that death-dealing Destiny spun for us in perpetuity... 355 I have chosen for my own the overturning of houses ... 390 we carry out our despised function, far away from the gods.
• Athena arrives fresh from Troy, where she was claiming her precinct, the land that was given to her after the war: BTW, the Athenians are making a claim to have played a big part in the war here: she asks the Furies what is happening
• 425 Chorus: (we are punishing Orestes) because he saw fit to become the murderer of his mother.
• Athena: Was that because of compulsion, or because he was in fear of someone’s wrath?

  chorus: Why, what goad is there so powerful that it can drive one to commit matricide?

  Athena: Two parties are present: I have had only half the story.

  chorus: He will not accept our oath, nor be willing to offer his own.

  Athena: You’re more concerned to have a reputation for justice than to act with justice.

  chorus: How do you mean? Explain—you’re not lacking in cleverness.

  Athena: I say that an unjust cause should not gain victory by means of oaths.

  chorus: Well, question him, and give an upright judgement.

  Athena: Do you really wish to entrust the final decision on your charge to me?

  chorus: We do indeed, as a worthy return for the worthy respect you have shown us.
  

• 440 orestes:
  
• Lady Athena, I will begin from your last words by removing a great anxiety. I am not a suppliant seeking purification, and I have not sat down clasping your image with pollution on my hand. I will give you powerful proof of this. It is the law that a man who has committed homicide must not speak until blood has dripped over him from the slaughter of a young sucking beast at the hands of a man who can cleanse blood-pollution. I have long since been purified in this way at other houses, both by animal victims and by flowing streams. That is what I say to set this anxiety aside; now you will quickly learn my origin. I am an Argive, and you know my father well—Agamemnon, commander of the men who sailed in ships, the man together with whom you <once> caused the city of Ilium to be a city no more. He perished ingloriously when he came home: my black-hearted mother killed him after shrouding him in a richly embroidered net, which testified to his murder in the bath. And when I returned home, having previously been in exile, I killed my mother—I will not deny it—putting her to death in return and requital for my beloved father. And for this Loxias jointly shares the responsibility, because he foretold painful sufferings, which acted like goads to my heart, if I did not do something to those responsible for this crime. Now I ask you to judge the issue of whether I did it with justice or not; however I fare at your hands, I shall be content with the outcome.
• 470 Athena:
  
• The matter is too great for any mortal who may think he can decide it; but neither is it proper for me to judge a case of murder which can give rise to fierce wrath—especially since you have approached this temple, disciplined by suffering, as a pure and harmless suppliant, while these beings have an allotted function that is hard to dismiss, and if they do not get a victorious outcome, the poison that will afterwards fall from their outraged pride into the soil will be an unbearable, unending plague for this land. That is how it is: both options, to let you remain or to send you away, are very hard for me to take without incurring wrath. Nevertheless, since this matter has fallen upon us here, I shall choose for my city men without fault to be judges of homicide, respecting the ordinance of an oath which I shall establish for all time. [Addressing both orestes and the chorus]Will you please collect testimonies and proofs as supporting props for your pleas; I will come back when I have chosen the best among my citizens to decide this issue well and truly, not being led by unrighteous thoughts to violate their oath in any way at all.
• 490 Chorus predicts chaos if their ancient rights are abrogated:
  
• "There is a proper place for the fear-inspiring, and for fear to sit high in the soul as its overseer" ...
  "Do not praise either a life of anarchy or a life under despotism: in everything god has given pre-eminence to the mean, though he governs different spheres in different ways."...
  "let everyone give proper honour to the sanctity of parents and be respectful of the honour due to guests"
  565 The first trial ever
  Apollo says Orestes is pure and "I bear the responsibility for the killing of this man’s mother."
• Athena suggests/orders that "the prosecutor speak first"
• 600: Orestes admits to killing, says Apollo made him do it. Asks why Furies did not pursue Clytaemnestra. They reply that her death freed her, and also that Agamemnon was not blood-kin to Clytaemnestra.
• 615 Apollo:
• I shall say to you, to this great institution ordained by Athena, Orestes killed “justly”; and, as a seer, I shall not be telling a lie. I have never said anything on my prophetic throne—not about a man, not about a woman, not about a city—except at the bidding of Zeus, father of the Olympians. I tell you solemnly to understand well how strong is this plea of justification, and I tell you to follow the counsel of the Father; for an oath can in no way be stronger than Zeus.
• 655 Apollo claims that the father, not the mother, has blood ties to children. Athena is cited as proof that a father can give birth without a mother.
• 682 Athena establishes the court as a place:
  
• Now hear my ordinance, people of Attica, who are judging this first trial for bloodshed. In time to come also, the people of Aegeus will always have this council of judges. <They will sit on> this hill, ...I counsel my citizens to maintain, and practise reverently, a system which is neither anarchic nor despotic, and not to cast fear completely out of the city; for what mortal respects justice, if he fears nothing?
• 735 Athena votes to acquit Orestes and establishes the principle that a tie goes to the defendant.
• 795: Athena asks Furies not to blight the land of Athens and to accept an honored place in Athens. She also reminds them that she has the keys to where Zeus keeps his thunderbolts, and then renews her pleas that they accept honors in Athens. She invokes Persuasion (885).