Between the poet's logos and the speaker's logos

Tragic Ways to Argue in Aeschylus and Antiphon

Abstract

It is in the context of the crimes practiced by Clytemnestra to avenge the murder of Iphigenia that we will underline the relations between the intentionality of actions and free deliberation. We will also point out some affinities that approximate the rhetorical skill of the Esquilian queen with the eloquent speakers of the discourses of Antiphon. In this way, we intend to show that both the poet and the philosopher call into question the problem of the intentionality of blood crimes by explaining through the discursive and dialogical capacity of their orators the tension between the old praxis of revenge and the new codes of draconian legislation.