Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: The World of the Polis

Titel: The World of the Polis

Stichwort: Aischylos, die Schutzflehenden): Ausweitung der Ordnung der Seele auf das Volk; Entscheidung nach der Ordnung der Seele (nicht mehr wie bei Homer)

Kurzinhalt: The Suppliants; the xynon of Heraclitus is institutionalized as the community of citizens in council; the decision must be reached, without such counsel, from a searching of the soul

Textausschnitt: 323c From the depth the King is supposed to bring up a decision in accordance with dike. The Chorus admonishes him to make Dike his ally (395) and assures him that Dike protects her allies powerfully (343). Beyond the order of themis with its conflicts there lies an order of dike, in the double sense of a higher law and of concrete decisions. The situation that is not covered by themis will have to be ordered by a concrete decision, a dike, of ultimate rightness. That dike beyond themis has its source in the depth of reflection into which the King is ready to descend. At this point, when the actual descent should occur, however, it becomes clear that Aeschylus has moved far beyond the situation of the solitary Heraclitus into the community of a polis whose citizens are willing to descend into the soul as a people. For the King informs the Danaides that they are not taking refuge at the hearth of his private home, but in a polis. "The common" (to koinon) of the polis is threatened by them; and "in common" (xyne) the people will have to find a solution. The King can make no promise before he has "communicated" (koinosas) with all the citizens (365-69). The xynon of Heraclitus is institutionalized as the community of citizens in council. The Chorus protests vehemently with an appeal to his absolute kingship: "You are the polis! You are the people!" (370). But Pelasgus is not a mystic-philosopher; he has a people, and energetically he tells the Chorus: "Nothing without the people [demos]" (398). He leaves the suppliants in order to assemble the people and to submit the case to the general body (koinon) of the citizens (518), and he hopes that Persuasion (peitho) will aid him (523). The speech of the King is indeed successful. The decrees extending proxenia to the suppliants are passed. "It was the Pelasgian people that willingly heard the subtle windings of the speech; but it was Zeus who brought the end to pass" (623-24). The descent into the depth was taken in common and what the people found was the Dike of Zeus. (Fs) (notabene)

324a We have assembled the main elements of the Aeschylean theory of action. The order of Themis still governs the gods, the world, and society, as in the Homeric epics. But the existence of man under the order has become difficult, insofar as themis is no longer a guide for decisions in the concrete situation. In the Homeric epic a decision could be reached either by weighing the consequences of action on the utilitarian level, or by following counsel, divine or human. That was the burden of the great, paraenetic speech of Phoenix to Achilles. With Aeschylus both possibilities are excluded. The utilitarian weighing is expressly rejected as a motive (443-54); and Aeschylus, in order to prepare the case in experimental purity, even resorts to the technique of building up sound reasons that man must reject in order to arrive at the right decision (477). And no external counsel through the helpful appearance of a Homeric god or man is available. The decision must be reached, without such counsel, from a searching of the soul. The leap in being does not assume the form of an Israelite revelation of God, but of the Dionysiac descent into man, to the depth where Dike is to be found. Not every type of conduct, therefore, is action. We can speak of action only when the decision was reached through the Dionysiac descent into the divine depth. And conversely, not every situation is tragic. We can speak of tragedy only when man is forced into the recourse to Dike. Only in that case is he faced with the dilemma expressed by the line "to act or not to act." Apparently Aeschylus considered as action only the decision in favor of Dike. A negative decision, an evasion through utilitarian calculus, or a mere insensitiveness toward the issue, would not be considered action. (Fs) (notabene)