How Medea drew on The Oresteia
A documented line of influence: Euripides demonstrably engaged Aeschylus’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Oresteia
Aeschylus · 458 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
Medea
Euripides · 431 BCE
Ancient GreeceRelevance
7/10
On Medea’s page
- Medea answers the Oresteia — the murder-by-poisoned-robe is patterned on Clytemnestra killing Agamemnon in his entangling robe
- Euripides borrows the Agamemnon's language of 'sacrifice' for the killing, and stages Medea over the bodies as Aeschylus staged Clytemnestra over hers
- Read the Oresteia first and Medea reads as a deliberate response to Clytemnestra — the avenging woman over the corpses, remade
On The Oresteia’s page
- Euripides built Medea's revenge on Aeschylus's blueprint — the verbal echoes of the Choephoroi are specific enough to catch
- Medea frames her killing as a 'sacrifice,' an echo of the Agamemnon; she stands over the corpses exactly as Clytemnestra stood over Agamemnon and Cassandra
- The poisoned robe that kills is patterned on the entangling robe Clytemnestra used — Aeschylus's signature image, turned to a new horror