fibi ducks
Active Member
oh i see. Re knew what he was doing then.
Myths about law
- Thread starter fibi ducks
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Alejandro
Active Member
You're thinking about the three daughters of King Kekrops of Athens, namely Herse, Aglauros and Pandrosos. Incidentally, the mythology of the Areiopagos, which was in Athens, says that the first ever murder trial, rather than that of Orestes, was tried here (centuries before the events of the Trojan War) in a case among the Olympian gods, and relating to Aglauros' daughter Alkippe, whose father was the war-god Ares. When Alkippe was an adolescent, she was raped by her father's cousin Halirrhothios, or, as a more fortunate version of the story goes, just as he was about to commit the act, the young lady's father Ares appeared on the scene and slew this cousin of his. For the killing, Ares’ uncle the sea-god Poseidon, father of the slain Halirrhothios, brought the war-god before the other deities for trial with the charge of murder, being the first ever to be put on trial for the shedding of blood. At this time, for the hearing of the case, Alkippe’s grandfather Kekrops, in conjunction with Athena, instituted a court on the hill that was from then on called the Areiopagos (Ares’ Hill/ Crag), because in this suit of Ares against Poseidon the war-deity grounded his spear on this hill. At this court Kekrops was the first and only mortal magistrate participating in the judgement. He and the majority of the gods decided the case in favour of Ares, who, according to their ruling, was merely protecting his child from violation (or avenging her, depending on the version of the story, which is perhaps a noteworthy point, as the most basic question in such a trial would be "What really happened?"). Because his cousin Athena had been his staunchest supporter in the suit, after his acquittal Ares dedicated on the Areiopagos hill an altar to Athena Areia. Nevertheless, the war-god’s stepfather uncle Zeus decreed that he undergo a period of servitude among mortals in order to assuage Poseidon’s anger, after which he was completely vindicated of the charge against himself. More than a century after these events Alkippe married Eupalamos, a great-grandson of Erikhthonios (her father’s successor’s successor on the throne of the dominion). Their son Daidalos was another to be tried by the court of the Areiopagos for murder, but, unlike his grandfather Ares before him, he was found guilty and had to skip town in order to escape execution. And thus Daidalos ended up on Crete Island where he constructed the famous Labyrinthos which housed Minotauros... But that's another story.
Rhonda, I think you might be right about the concept of the scales of justice originating with Ma'at and her feather of judgement, or at least I think it's the origin of the Greco-Roman myth about the dead being judged in the Underworld by Themis, who was at some point represented as a blindfoldedly impartial goddess bearing these scales, which weighed a person's good deeds versus his/her bad ones, the result deciding the fate of his/her soul. Granted that there were other [probably more ancient] versions of the myth about how a dead human's soul was judged in the royal court of Haides [Hades] and Persephone in the Underworld, which had Zeus' dead sons Aiakos, Minos and Rhadamanthys surrounding the golden throne of their uncle Haides. Aiakos, it was sometimes said, judged the souls of the European dead especially. The court for the dead was attended also by the river-deities of the Underworld—Styx, being the foremost among these rivers, levelling accusations against the gods themselves (it is by her name that the gods swore their most sacred oath). From the mystery cults, other Underworld divinities such as Hermes Khthonion, Dēo (i.e., Demeter), Brimo, Daeira and Iasion, might also have been thought of as attendants, depending on one's religious persuasion at the time.