Nuria Scapin The Flower of Suffering Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes Edited by Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos Associate Editors Stavros Frangoulidis · Fausto Montana · Lara Pagani Serena Perrone · Evina Sistakou · Christos Tsagalis Scientific Committee Alberto Bernabé · Margarethe Billerbeck Claude Calame · Jonas Grethlein · Philip R. Hardie Stephen J. Harrison · Stephen Hinds · Richard Hunter Christina Kraus · Giuseppe Mastromarco Gregory Nagy · Theodore D. Papanghelis Giusto Picone · Tim Whitmarsh Bernhard Zimmermann Volume 97 Nuria Scapin The Flower of Suffering Theology, Justice, and the Cosmos in Aeschylus’ Oresteia and Presocratic Thought ISBN 978-3-11-068552-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-068563-3 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-068576-3 ISSN 1868-4785 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020933848 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Editorial Office: Alessia Ferreccio and Katerina Zianna Logo: Christopher Schneider, Laufen Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com  To My Parents Who taught me passion and dedication Contents Acknowledgments  XI  Introduction  1 . Setting the Scene  1 .. Philosophical inquiries into the Oresteia  2 .. Themes and Aims  6 .. Some objections to Seaford’s argument  8 . Aeschylus and the Early Greek Philosophical Tradition: Methodology  14 .. The violent grace of divine justice in the Oresteia  14 .. Self-reflective statements and ‘metatheological’ discourse  16 .. Archaic poetry: towards an explicit theology?  21 .. A world teeming with gods: philosophical theology and theistic philosophy  29 Part I: Philosophical Theology in Presocratic Philosophy and the Oresteia  Explicit Theological Innovations: Xenophanes’ God  35 . Theology is separate from nature  35 . Proper speech and moral behaviour  37 . On the nature of god(s)  41  God and the Unity of Opposites: Heraclitus  51 . That which is in common  55 . All things are one  59 . God and the unity of opposites  62 . Wisdom, immanence, separation, and governing plan  68  Zeus Whoever He Is  76 . Zeus and justice in the parodos of the Oresteia  76 . The role of Zeus in the Oresteia: a brief note on the history of interpretation  83  Zeus as the Ultimate Principle behind Reality  90 . Epistemological prudence  91 VIII  Contents . Light in darkness: following the beacon  100 . Zeus cause and effector of all  104 Part II: Cosmic Justice: between Metaphysics of Harmony and a Metaphysics of Conflict  Cosmic Justice and the Metaphysics of Opposites: Anaximander, Heraclitus, and Parmenides  117 . Dikê in the archaic period  118 . Dikê as a metaphor of cosmic order  120 . The metaphor extended: the notion of cosmic justice  132 . Dikê, necessity, and the opposites in Parmenides’ poem  137  Dikê, Time, and Necessity in the Oresteia  146 . Short premise  147 . Time and necessity  150 . Agamemnon 40–257: time and necessity  152 . Agamemnon 40–257: the inextricability of justice and injustice  159 . Agamemnon 355–502  162  Dikê as conflict in the Oresteia  172 . Setting the mood  172 . Dikê as poinê and the code of revenge  177 . Dikê as poinê, dikê as polemos  180 . Agamemnon 1407–1576  180 . Choephori 306–478  190  Persuasive Dikê: from violence to kindness  204 . Persuasion and fidelity in Parmenides’ poem and the Oresteia  206 . The Journey of persuasive reality  209 . Persuasion, fidelity, and the necessity of autonomy  211  A Cosmos of Opposites  214 . Opposites in the Agamemnon and Choephori  214 . The unity of opposites in Eumenides  224 . Differentiation of opposites in Eumenides  227 Contents  IX . The reconciliation of opposites in Eumenides  229 . Fear in time and the golden midpoint  231  Epilogue  234 . The Flower of Suffering  234 Bibliography  243 Index of Sources  261