Aeschylus' The Oresteia: The Libation Bearers | Video 12 | Great Books of the Western Canon series

The Ramsay Centre continues to add to a series of videos featuring academics discussing the major themes and ideas of the some of the great texts of the west. Read the texts and watch the videos or simply watch the videos.

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You must focus on the effect on Argos. It is important to remember at all times that Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus are guilty of regicide and are usurpers of the throne. It makes perfect sense for Apollo to demand that the sin of the regicide cannot go unchallenged - think of the horrible drought he imposes on Thebes in the beginning of Oedipus because the regicide of Laius has remained unsolved. There is no indication that anyone in Argos really approves of the being governed by Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra. The a HUGE difference between Orestes and Clytaemnestra - Clyaemnestra is a regicide/ursurper and Orestes (the righful ruler of Argos) is asserting that right and punishing the usurper. There is a HUGE difference between Agamemnon's murder of his innocent daughter and Orestes' murder of his extremely guilty mother. There is a feeling at the end of Eumenidies that Oresetes is the King that Argos has been waiting for.