Abolition of the Death Penalty as the Legal Liberation from the Law of Vengeance: A Philosophical Interpretation of Aeschylus’ Oresteia

This paper interprets Aeschylus’ Oresteia as the earliest philosophical foundation for the abolition of the death penalty. In the trilogy, the transition from the natural law of vengeance (physis) to the civic law of the polis (nomos) culminates in Athena’s judgment, where human justice renounces the logic of blood-for-blood retribution. This transforma- tion prefigures modern humanistic law, in which the state ceases to imitate the violence it forbids.