Light and Darkness in Ancient Greek Myth and Religion by Menelaos Christopoulos & Olga Levaniouk

Author:Menelaos Christopoulos & Olga Levaniouk [Christopoulos, Menelaos & Levaniouk, Olga]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Ancient, Greece
ISBN: 9780739138984
Google: cCHlswEACAAJ
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2010-09-15T20:44:33+00:00

The Erinyes are—as Homer calls them– ἠεροφοίτιδες (Iliad 9. 571, 19), an epithet which could refer to the fact that they walk in darkness, invisible, and this darkness could be the darkness of night, the realm of the invisible par excellence.13

However, when the Pythia goes to Apollo’s temple to predict the future, she finds them around the omphalos—in the prologue of Eumenides—exhausted and asleep. And if we deduce from line 67 that it was Apollo who put them to sleep, perhaps we might infer that it was the power of light—the Sun— which makes them sleep.14 In their sleep they are visited by Clytaemestra’s ghost. An angry Clytaemestra who rouses them complaining that they are asleep and neglecting their function.15

The Erinyes’ mode of action is described in Eumenides with several horrific terms which allude to their character. And amongst those characteristics there is one which makes them truly vampire-like creatures: the fact that they drink their victims’ blood.16

All the events in the palace of Argos, Agamemnon’s death, the situation of Clytaemestra and Aegisthus, have provoked night as a dark veil which covers everything and everybody, which anticipates more terrible disasters. And during that night—real or imagined—the matricide is committed and the Erinyes appear, first at a mental and private level—in Orestes’ mind—then at a real level, when everybody—included the audience in the theater—can see them. They need to be seen because their hideousness is scaring. But nobody usually sees them because their world is darkness.

Finally, at the end of Eumenides darkness becomes light when the Erinyes are transformed into the Eumenides. The ancient goddesses will keep their rights and will receive the honor of a place of privileged worship in Athens as a guarantee of prosperity for the city. It is the triumph of light.

One should also consider the representation of the Erinyes in Greek art and see whether it can give us some more details about their relationship with night and darkness.

Images of the Erinyes in vase-painting in the context of the myth of Orestes show in general a strong influence from dramatic performances.17 Some of them seem to reflect the text of Eumenides, for instance, when the Pythia finds the Erinyes sleeping in Apollo’s temple. An Apulian bell-crater attributed to the Judgement Painter and in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (360 BC) shows Orestes and the omphalos in the center of the image, Apollo and Athena one on each side and two Erinyes sleeping at the bottom of the image.18 On an Apulian kalyx-crater by the Konnakis Painter in the Hermitage Museum (360–350 BC) Orestes is also depicted inside Apollo’s temple and the Pythia looks frightened by the sight of the five Erinyes sleeping. The Erinyes are here represented with black skin—like the description in Eumenides—and contrasting white robes.19 In both scenes there is an opposition between the placid and relaxed Erinyes, with their eyes closed, and the image of Orestes or of the Pythia, which give the impression of agitated movement.

The usual iconography of the Erinyes

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