Pathos and mathos before Zeus
Pathos and mathos before Zeus
This chapter seeks to interpret the statement in Aeschylus, Agamemnon 176–8 that Zeus laid down the law pathei mathos (‘learning through suffering’), asking in particular whether we are meant to assume that learning and/or suffering existed before Zeus laid down this law, and, if we are, what the relationship was between them. It argues that the only answer consistent with Aeschylus' text, and with current popular beliefs about primeval times, is that before Zeus there was no suffering (all man's needs were produced spontaneously by the earth) and no learning (because it was unnecessary). Zeus deprived man of happiness, so that he could survive only by acquiring wisdom — which, at the end of the Oresteia, the Athenians at least have succeeded in doing.
Keywords: wisdom, Agamemnon, Oresteia, Zeus, learning, suffering, primeval
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
