The myth of Orestes and the Erinyes as a sign of declining blood feud and a stronger state
The myth of Orestes, Electra and Clytemnestra is regarded as an illustration of the weakening of the custom of blood vengeance. Responsibility for it lay with the goddesses known as the Erinyes, who unfailingly overtook anyone who had killed a blood relation. Hence the goddesses of vengeance, for example, did not pursue Clytemnestra, who had merely killed her husband, and fell upon Orestes, who had taken the life of his mother. Orestes was saved because he appealed for help to Apollo and Athena, read: to the state, which in the person of the Areopagus acquires an ever greater monopoly on taking life and granting the right to live, in opposition to the archaic laws.
