How the Greeks invented courtroom drama

It's a staple of cinema, TV and stage. But the courtroom drama would not exist
without a Greek tragedy written 2,500 years ago

The essence of a Greek tragedy - revenge and justice - can be found in the Oresteia by
Aeschylus Photo: Alastair Muir

By Harry Mount
12:00PM BST 03 Jun 2015

The right to a trial by jury is one of the most treasured principles of Western democracy.
Any citizen who is lucky enough to live in a free society is aware of the protection
afforded him under the law and has a keen sense of justice.
It’s no surprise, then, that the courtroom drama has become a staple of British and
American culture, from To Kill a Mockingbird to Twelve Angry Men, LA Law
and Broadchurch. Whether it’s a story about a gruesome murder, a police cover-up or
a wrongful arrest, the gladiatorial arena of the court lends itself perfectly to drama.
But none of these novels, plays, films or TV shows would exist without a Greek tragedy
written 2,500 years ago. The Oresteia, written by Aeschylus, is the original courtroom
drama and the play that planted the concept of trial by jury in the public’s imagination.
• 15 great courtroom films
It seems strange, then, that this fundamental work has been neglected for so long.
There hasn’t been a major London production of the Oresteia for more than a decade –
and now two of them come along at once. At the Globe, Rory Mullarkey is knocking the
three plays of the Oresteia – Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides –
into one three-act play. At the Almeida, Robert Icke is also fitting the three plays into a
single performance, starring Jessica Brown Findlay, best known as Lady Sybil
in Downton Abbey.
In whatever form you watch it, the Oresteia is an astonishing survivor. Written in 458
BC, it’s the only remaining ancient Greek trilogy. In fact, there was a fourth part:
Proteus, a satyr play that only exists in a tiny fragment. Of the 70 to 90 plays written by
Aeschylus – the earliest surviving Greek playwright – only seven remain.
We’re so lucky that one of those survivors is the Oresteia, containing, as it does, all the
gory, sexy ingredients of quintessential Greek tragedy: infidelity, murder, the ultimate
family squabble, revenge and, crucially, justice - in the form of the original jury trial. Like
so much of Greek literature, the Oresteia is rooted in the Trojan War.
We all know the story of Odysseus returning from Troy on a 10-year-long epic journey.
But, like Odysseus, the other conquering Greek heroes had to get home, too. And one
of them was Agamemnon, King of Mycenae and brother of Menelaus, husband of Helen
of Troy.
When Agamemnon returns to his windswept, hilltop palace at Mycenae – one of the
great archaeological sites of Greece, in the craggy heart of the Peloponnese – all hell
breaks loose. Unlike lovely Penelope – waiting patiently for Odysseus on Ithaca while
he shags his way around the Mediterranean – Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, is
spitting blood. Not surprisingly, she still hasn’t forgiven him for sacrificing their daughter,
Iphigenia, on the way to the Trojan War, to get a favourable wind.
It doesn’t help that Agamemnon has also brought back a girlfriend – Priam’s daughter,
Cassandra, whose accurate predictions of the future are never believed, like the
unluckiest Fleet Street columnist.
And so, with the help of her lover, Aegisthus, Clytemnestra takes an axe to Agamemnon
– killing him in the royal bath, having entangled him in a net. Cassandra, Agamemnon’s
mistress, also gets the chop.
The second play in the trilogy, The Libation Bearers, tells the story of Agamemnon’s
daughter, Electra, and his son, Orestes; thus the collective title, the Oresteia. The whole
work pivots on the agonising question that sets revenge against justice: should you
spare your mother even if she kills your father?
Orestes’s answer is “No”. He murders Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, too; not
that you see him actually doing it. In the Oresteia, you never watch any of the mass
blood-letting; it’s all done off-stage, with a lot of screaming, in an ingenious device that
makes it all the more horrifying.

Orestes killing Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, by Mei Bernardino (1653)

The last play in the trilogy – The Eumenides or The Kindly Ones – determines what
happens to Orestes: should he be convicted for murdering his mother or acquitted for
rightly avenging his father?
In The Eumenides, you see the Western European legal system under construction.
The action takes place on the Areopagus – the great flat chunk of limestone still visible
in Athens, just below the Acropolis. This rock acted as the ancient Greek court of appeal
in real life – and here the Western European court was born. And the courtroom drama,
too.
Athenian citizens acted as jurors in the Athenian courts – and that’s what happens at
the end of the Oresteia. Orestes is tried for matricide by the goddess Athena, one of a
jury of 12 selected by Athena from the Athenian citizens. Apollo acts as Orestes’s
defence lawyer – always handy to have a god as your barrister. And the dead
Clytemnestra is represented by the terrifying Furies, avenging goddesses who have
been tormenting Orestes since the killings.
The jury is split evenly – and Athena rules that, with a divided vote, Orestes should be
acquitted. A happy ending, then – the result of Greek tragedies surprisingly often.
More than that, justice has trumped vengeance; and a family blood feud has been
prevented by democratic justice. The Oresteia is a paean of praise, not only to justice,
but also to Athens, the shining city on the hill where democracy and people-made law
were first enshrined.
As well as inspiring countless courtroom dramas, the play has influenced a long list of
famous writers and artists, from Eugene O’Neill, whose 1931 play Mourning Becomes
Electra is based on the Oresteia, and TS Eliot, whose play The Family Reunion is an
adaptation of The Eumenides, to Mozart, Harrison Birtwhistle, Richard Strauss, Edith
Wharton, Sylvia Plath and even JK Rowling, who cites a passage from The Libation
Bearers in the preface of the seventh and final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows.
Considering the esteem in which he was held in his lifetime and is still held today,
Aeschylus’s death in 456 BC, was unfairly comic: while in the Sicilian city of Gela, an
eagle dropped a tortoise on his bald head, mistaking it for a rock that could crack the
tortoise’s shell.
The playwright and war hero (Aeschylus fought in the two great Athenian victories over
the Persians at Marathon and Salamis) is possibly the only human being ever to be
killed by a tortoise. But it would be unjust indeed if his legacy was reduced to a
punchline in a pub quiz.
It is, after all, thanks partly to him that the democratic ideals of Athens still fire our
imaginations and continue to inspire some of our favourite dramas.