The House of Rot: What the Oresteia Tells Us About Power, Corruption, and the American Throne
What happens when you let the war criminal decorate the living room -- Chronicles of Collapse (with Jokes!)
PROLOGUE (read aloud, preferably with thunderclaps)
The war is over. The king returns. The banners fly, the crowds cheer, and the carpets—crimson as prophecy—are rolled out. But something stinks. Is it the blood on his hands? The sacrificial daughter he left at the altar of ambition? Or just the mildew of a once-noble house gone full mold?
Either way: welcome home, Agamemnon. We built you a statue. It’s hollow.
ACT I: The Return of the King (And Other Cautionary Tales)
In Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, the titular hero comes back from Troy, puffed up with victory and fully oblivious to the fact that his wife wants to skewer him like a holiday ham. This is not just marital discord. This is the rotting center of power laid bare.
Agamemnon isn’t just a man—he’s a system. A war machine with a smile. A structure that rewards brutality if it wears epaulettes. A patriarch. A celebrity general who sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, to get better wind for his ships. (Try that on Instagram.)
Fast forward a few thousand years, and tell me you don’t see echoes: men who march off to their personal Troy—wars of ego, greed, or Twitter addiction—and come home expecting parades. And we give them parades! We call them “savvy,” “strategic,” “strong.”
But they stink. Not just metaphorically. Something foul drips from their robes.
Modern Agamemnons:
A President who “wins” through division, then returns to office not with olive branches but indictments and a personal shopping list for the Department of Justice.
Billionaire moguls who burn down economic norms, then ride home on rockets shaped like Freudian regrets.
Preachers who once whispered salvation now scream election conspiracy from the pulpit.
They all smell like victory—and rotting daughters.
ACT II: Clytemnestra Has Entered the Chat
Enter Clytemnestra, stage left, wielding a blade sharpened by grief and several years of rage baking at 450 degrees.
She doesn’t just kill her husband. She monologues. She justifies. And maybe—just maybe—she’s right. Or at least, right-ish. Because in a world where justice is broken, vengeance puts on its lipstick and heels and takes the wheel.
And oh, are we there yet?
The Clytemnestra Complex (Working Title)
We’ve reached a point in American public life where the house is so thoroughly poisoned that the options aren’t good vs. evil. It’s vendetta vs. decay. Everyone’s got a knife. Everyone’s got a grudge. No one trusts the courts, the church, the news, or your Aunt Susan’s Facebook memes.
The Clytemnestras of today? Whistleblowers. Leakers. Disillusioned citizens. Disbarred attorneys with a martyr complex and a podcast.
They’ve seen the rot. They’re not wrong. But sometimes they burn the whole house down to prove it.
And who built this house, anyway?
Agamemnon did. With taxpayer subsidies.
Institutional Decay, Now with Extra Blood
We used to believe in systems. That there were referees. That the court was neutral. That a man on trial for crimes would be treated like… a man on trial for crimes.
Now we’ve got:
Supreme Court justices with luxury yachts and emotional support billionaires
A Congress cosplaying Rome but forgetting the part where the Senate gets stabbed
A President deploying troops against protesters, while bridges collapse behind the motorcade
It’s not just broken. It’s cursed. And the curse is this: every attempt to cleanse the house seems to invite more blood.
Just like Clytemnestra.
ACT III: Orestes Is Tired
When your mom kills your dad, and the gods tell you to kill your mom, and then your brain breaks because that’s technically matricide and the Furies are now living in your skull rent-free—congrats! You’re Orestes.
Orestes is all of us.
We inherited a wreck. We were told it was noble. We were told democracy was sacred, the flag was untouchable, and justice was blind. But now the robe’s on fire, and Lady Justice is checking Zillow for studio apartments in Finland.
So what do we do?
Some say: Burn it down. Others: Vote harder. Still others: Try to fix it from inside, right before being devoured by the machinery or the next news cycle.
Orestes no longer wants to fight. He wants peace. But to get peace, he has to confront the whole damn system. Not just his mom, but the gods, the court, and the idea that maybe—maybe—we need something new.
Are We Ready for Eumenides?
In the final play of the trilogy, the Furies—goddesses of vengeance—are transformed into the Eumenides, the Kindly Ones. Not because they suddenly love brunch and civic virtue. But because the Athenians invent a new way: the court of law. Public trial. Rational judgment.
They don’t burn the house. They build a better one.
That’s the hope. But hope’s on a tight budget right now.
We are stuck between plays. Clytemnestra is still in the bathtub. Orestes is still screaming. And the gods? Oh, they’re off buying real estate in Dubai.
Orestes is the millennial drowning in student loans, the Gen Zer radicalized by climate collapse, the parent watching school boards turn into gladiator arenas.
INTERMISSION: The Chorus Would Like a Word
"This house is cursed," they sing. "This throne is cracked, this crown is heavy, and someone just bought the naming rights to the Underworld."
We—the chorus—see it all. We’re tired. We joke to survive. We meme to cope. We scream into our coffee mugs and call our senators, only to be transferred to voicemail #7.
But we’re still here. And we still get a say.
Just like the chorus in the plays, our job isn’t to fix it. Our job is to witness. To remember. To warn.
To say:
This has happened before. It ends in blood unless it ends in wisdom.
And wisdom only shows up if invited, usually after three acts of carnage and a suspicious amount of hubris.
FINAL ACT: The House We Must Build
If we want to break the curse, we need more than indictments and impeachments. We need:
A public that doesn’t worship Agamemnons
A justice system that doesn’t birth Furies
A culture that values humility over spectacle
We need to rewrite the third act before someone else writes it in permanent marker and signs it with executive privilege.
Because here's the secret the Oresteia whispers:
Power doesn’t corrupt. It reveals. And once revealed, it must be judged. Not by mobs. Not by kings. But by all of us, together.
The Areopagus wasn’t perfect. But it was public. And that made all the difference.
EPILOGUE: For the Record, Agamemnon Deserved It
Let’s not get sentimental. He sacrificed his daughter for better optics.
He gaslit his wife. He ignored prophecy. He thought victory absolved him.
He wore his hubris like a robe.
So when Clytemnestra pulled out the knife, she wasn’t just settling a score. She was ending a chapter.
But that’s not the end. It can’t be.
We have to decide what comes after.
So ask yourself:
Are we living in Agamemnon?
Surviving through Libation Bearers?
Or ready to build our Eumenides?
Because the House of Rot can’t stand forever. And someone has to start cleaning.
Preferably, before the next king decides to sacrifice us all for a better wind.
Further Reading:
