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Topic

Household Management in Three Family Tragedies: Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Sophocles’ Electra, and Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis

Department of Greek and Roman Studies

Date & location

• Friday, December 13, 2024
• 2:00 P.M.
• Clearihue Building, Room B415

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Laurel Bowman, Department of Greek and Roman Studies, University of Victoria (Supervisor)
• Dr. Geoffrey Kron, Department of Greek and Roman Studies, UVic (Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Joseph Grossi, Department of English, UVic

Chair of Oral Examination

• Prof. Freya Kodar, Faculty of Law, UVic

Abstract

In this thesis, I read three tragedies from three fifth-century playwrights through the lens of household management. I describe the “science” of household management (oikonomia) through descriptions by Aristotle and Xenophon, then apply it to tragedy in three case studies. I examine major characters’ performance of householding and some implications of those performances for understanding of the plays and their relation to their fifth-century contexts. I understand the place of the oikos (household) in Athenian society through S. C. Humphrey’s anthropological framework of social articulation, and I use Emma Griffiths’ paradigm of tragic potential as a guiding concept.

In Chapter One, I examine the impiety of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon in his eponymous play. Oikonomia fits into Aeschylus’ view of divine Justice (Δίκη). Agamemnon devalues those under him—his daughter, his wife, and his army—to extract more than he should, and the habit permits the curse of his house to overtake his favor with the gods. The sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia imperils him in public and in private, and his wife Clytemnestra convinces to reperform the failure of oikonomia in the Carpet Scene.

In Chapter Two, I argue that Sophocles uses oikonomia in Electra as a mechanism of conveying a more malleable form of justice. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus personally squander their claims to righteousness by degrading their household, while Orestes gains the ability to return and kill them through his practice of proper householding. I also extend Sophocles’ method of expressing oikonomia through the treatment of enslaved household members to the other two playwrights, arguing that active management of enslaved characters is a key indicator of a householder’s skill.

In Chapter Three, I argue that Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis shows a circumstance in which the oikonomia of both Agamemnon and Clytemnestra fails to change the outcome of Iphigenia’s sacrifice. Iphigenia is forced to reassign herself into the charm (ἐπῳδός, Ag. 1418) of the Greek army, and Euripides questions the division between the spheres of public and private during particularly challenging times for the democratic demos. I conclude with a comparison of the plays and their use of household management.