Aeschylus,_Sophocles,_Plato_And_Dante

Aeschylus, Sophocles, Plato And Dante 1. Dikaiosyne – literally means justice in Ancient Greek; however there are several different interpretations as to what justice can mean. In The Oresteia by Aeschylus the definition of dike is the relationship between individuals. Justice becomes an issue of to what extent we are responsible for our actions and furthermore dike is seen as a correction of a wrong. In the Oresteia a complicated series of events plague the house of Atreus of Argos (Agamemnon, pg1) following the end of the Trojan War. Agamemnon returns from the war a hero, but upon his arrival he is murdered by his wife’s lover and his cousin. However, the reasons for his murder are not simple. The murder is only a small part of a cycle of vengeance that began between the cousin’s fathers. Aegisthus motivation for murdering Agamemnon was in retribution for the crimes committed against his father. As a result, Orestes, Agamemnon’s remaining son, is now responsible for avenging his father’s death. Orestes avenges the death by murdering his mother and Aegisthus for which he receives his mother’s curse. Orestes is then plagued by the Furies for the murder. good, justice, soul, plato, knowledge, function, perfect, natural, ideal, dante’s, circle, hell, guardians, society, people, one, inferno, world, things, plato’s, life, individual, however, gods, god, form, each, dante, bad, allegory, wisdom, state, pg, perform