The Road to Understanding: Parmenides in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon

This paper examines Parmenidean resonances in the Hymn to Zeus of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. Ties to presocratic and other contemporary thinkers are increasingly well-established in Aeschylean scholarship, and have yielded interpretive fruit in discussions of style, metaphysics, and ethics (Seaford, Scapin, Kouromenos, Poli Palladini). Likewise, analysis of the Parmenidean influences in the Agamemnon can contribute to our understanding of Aeschylean Zeus. My examination of the Hymn to Zeus, drawing on Parmenidean parallels, reveals a non-anthropomorphic depiction of the god as an explanatory concept or cosmic principle. In this respect, my argument aligns with Scapin, Seaford (2012), and Golden, all of whom identify Aeschylean Zeus as an abstract power.

I begin by examining features shared by both poems: the road to knowledge, the dialectic of abstract vs. physical, and the discussion of naming. Both Parmenides and Aeschylus employ the image of a road to understanding, and in both cases, the road is set down for mortals by a divine figure. Parmenides’ division of his poem into the Aletheia and Doxa separates the object of true thought from the physical world of appearances; nevertheless, in his description of the (non-physical) object of thought, he uses the language of the physical. Likewise, Aeschylus’ hymn alternates between conceptual and physical, at times presenting Zeus as an abstract force and at others describing him in physical terms as a wrestler. Finally, the chorus of the Agamemnon mirror Parmenides’ insistence on the use of correct language in their recognition of the impossibility of naming Zeus; because he is too great to be named accurately, one must acknowledge insufficiency of his customary name. After examining these parallels, I move on to discuss the implications of these similarities for our understanding of Aeschylus’ presentation of Zeus.

My conclusion takes two parts. First, while the resonances between Aeschylus and Parmenides are subtle, an examination of the two reveals both parallel imagery and shared subject matter. The coincidence of these aspects allows me to conclude that Aeschylus’ Hymn to Zeus was directly drawing on Parmenides. Second, within the Agamemnon, these resonances serve to place Zeus on a different plane of existence from even the other gods, making him analogous to the object of knowledge in Parmenides’ Aletheia, as opposed to the physical, epistemologically invalid world of the Doxa. Despite the language of physicality, these correspondences suggest an Aeschylean Zeus who is an abstract concept, specifically the explanatory force of the world, rather than an anthropomorphic agent. In this conclusion, the paper serves as a further indication of both Aeschylus’ participation in the broader intellectual culture of his time, and the rich convergence of ideas between drama and philosophy in 5th century Greece.