107 © Te Author(s) 2018 S. Georgoulas, Te Origins of Radical Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94752-5_6 6 Greek Drama: Aeschylus According to Robert Garland (1998), Attic drama, state-funded, deeply bourgeois-oriented and fundamentally sacred, can at frst glance give the impression of a veiled means of enhancing social compliance. Te truth was very diferent. Although the drama unfolded within a religious con- text, drama playwrights did not see as their goal to ofer pious platitudes or to promote apathetic obedience to the will of the gods. On the con- trary, they were not afraid or ashamed to present the Olympian gods as degenerate or even morally repulsive, whenever that ftted their purposes (Saïd 2006). What drama did primarily was to provide a framework within which issues of public and private interest could literally be revealed and presented to the public. In other words, its purpose was not to act as a moral referee, but rather to express harsh moral choices that determine human existence, to explore the problematic nature of man’s relationship with the gods, and to demonstrate the capacity of man (and the gods) for evil (Winnington-Ingram 1985). As such, drama often All extracts are from (open access) http://www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/ literature/index.html, and translated from Greek to English. For an English translated version, see https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dramas_of_Aeschylus_(Swanwick).