Corruption & Power in Ancient Greek Lit

Power and Corruption

I believe that Lord Acton is generally right when he says that Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely , but there must be a qualification added . If it were the case that power always corrupts then there would be nothing worthwhile ever achieved , for it requires power to accomplish any task . It would be more accurate to say that the knowledge of one 's power tends to corrupt . To know that one is powerful is also to be proud , and therefore the root of corruption is pride

, and the message then merges with the Biblical teaching that pride always precedes the fall . Those who bring great things in the world do so usually in the mode of modesty . They tend to attribute the great things to the Almighty while thinking themselves mere instruments . In this sense modesty becomes their most powerful asset . But pride corrupts and destroys . And if we take Lord Acton 's phrase absolute power ' to mean absolute pride , which is the pride where one begins to have delusions pertaining to the divine , then there is no doubt that this is an absolutely corrupting influence . In this sense Lord Acton is correct .In ancient Greek literature there are many examples of pride preceding the fall , and Clytemnestra 's example is one , as we find portrayed in Aeschylus ' tragic drama Agamemnon . As with many characters from Greek mythology , it is hard to separate the human aspect from the divine one in the case of Clytemnestra . She is said to have issued from divine parentage , being the daughter of Zeus and Leda , and Helen is her sister Yet she is an overwhelmingly human character as we find in Aeschylus play . She is vain and vindictive , and we are interested in how power comes to effect her , for she is in charge of Athens in the absence of her husband Agamemnon . The latter is away on the historic expedition to Troy is to recover his sister-in-law Helen , held in captivity by the Trojans . The battle of Troy was a monumental campaign that spanned ten years , and most of the men folk of the Hellenic lands were absent on this campaign . After finding herself in power , Clytemnestra is breeding hatred and enmity towards Agamemnon , and planning his demise with her lover Aegisthus . She hates Agamemnon because he has sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia at the bidding of the gods . But if Agamemnon was following the gods , Clytemnestra is only following her lusts , which her association with Aegisthus makes out . In the end it is her lust for power that makes her murder her husband on his victorious return from Troy . In sequels to this play Aeschylus has their son Orestia avenging the murder of his father , and thus Clytemnestra meets her just end at the hands of her son

In his play Macbeth , Shakespeare gives us a more penetrating analysis of the influence of power . Macbeth is an upright and valiant general , but to whom the whiff...