The Cilician Marshes shimred beneath the star-strewn sky, the night as calm and fluid as water. Themis leaned back in her wicker chair, absentmindedly flipping through the parchnt scroll in her hands.
The case was as follows: A father sacrificed his daughter in offering; the mother, consud by hatred, conspired with her lover to kill him. The son, in turn, killed his mother to avenge his father.
The verdict ruled that the son should be acquitted.
Such righteous revenge, it was decided, ought to be forgiven.
"I cannot agree with this judgnt."
After long contemplation, Themis lifted her head and shook it gravely.
Samael raised his cup, sipped the crystal dew within, and arched a brow.
"In the eyes of the son, the mother is nothing more than his father's murderer—an enemy. To him, she is not a mother."
"Avenging one's father—isn't that a noble act?"
Themis straightened, her tone resolute.
"If the son is innocent, then what cri did the mother commit in avenging her daughter?"
"There is no need to dress up the act of killing one's kin. If their sins cancel each other out, then all he did was kill an innocent woman."
Across from her, the ancient serpent countered.
"The father is the true sower; the mother is rely a vessel. The father is more important than the mother."
"The justice of a son avenging his father is far nobler than a mother venting her resentnt!"
The fingertips of the goddess of justice brushed lightly across the parchnt, her expression solemn.
"In raising children, the father provides the seed, the mother the womb. Both leave the sa bloodline in their heirs."
"Furthermore, motherhood—the instinct to bear and protect children—is the foundation of the world's birth. Shouldn't a mother seeking justice for her daughter be the nobler act?"
Then Themis seed to recall sothing. A faint smile curved her lips.
"Besides, if we weigh the justice of parental status..."
"A child can live without a father, but never without a mother."
"Even Uranus, Father of the Sky, was born from Gaia, Mother of the Earth, alone."
"It was the mother who created the father."
At this, Samael's expression grew peculiar, his eyes gleaming with subtle amusent.
This case, in fact, drew from Aeschylus's tragedy Orestes, adapted from the myths of old Greece.
During the famous Trojan War to co, the Greek commander Agamnon led his army but was trapped by storms. To appease the sea god, he sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia.
His wife, Clytemnestra, enraged, took a lover. Ten years later, when Agamnon returned triumphant, she assassinated him at ho, her lover seizing the throne.
Their young son, Orestes, only twelve at the ti, fled in exile, vowing revenge. Years later he returned, and with his sister Electra, killed his mother and her lover.
But though he avenged his father, he was now guilty of matricide. Driven mad, hounded by the Furies, he could find no peace and wandered in tornt.
At last, Apollo led him to Athens to seek the judgnt of Athena, goddess of wisdom.
The sun god defended Orestes, claiming the father was the true begetter, and that one could exist without a mother—just as Athena had sprung from Zeus's head.
In the end, Athena, forced to decide, cast the tie-breaking vote. Orestes was acquitted and returned to Mycenae to claim the throne.
But if Themis had stood among them and thrown Gaia's creation of Uranus into Apollo's face, one could only imagine the expression of the sun god.
After all, if fathers are created by mothers, then wouldn't a mother killing a father be all the more justified?
And let's not forget—Uranus himself was castrated at Gaia's bidding by his son Kronos.
If Apollo dared to claim again that fathers outweighed mothers, or that avenging a father was more righteous, he'd be slapping Greece's great ancestress across the face.
Marvelous! Truly marvelous!
The scher narrowed his eyes, quietly tucking the argunt away for later.
"So, in your view, the son deserves the death penalty?"
Themis shook her head, frowning in thought before answering.
"If I were the judge, I would choose exile, not execution."
"Oh? Why? Matricide is a capital cri."
Samael's lips curved with faint amusent as he asked.
Themis's pale fingers stroked the parchnt, her poise serene as she spoke.
"A mother avenging her daughter is, to so extent, understandable."
"But she enthroned her lover, leaving a twelve-year-old prince marked as an enemy by usurpers."
"The claim of avenging one's father cannot stand."
"Yet when one's life is threatened, extre asures taken in self-preservation ought to be forgiven."
She paused, her brow knit slightly, her tone calm and asured.
"However, the prince survived his childhood peril, escaped, and only as an adult returned to kill both his mother and her lover."
"That stretches beyond the limits of self-defense. Sympathetic, yes—but not grounds for full acquittal."
"Still, before facing judgnt he had already been cursed and driven mad by the Furies for years. The punishnt must be lessened accordingly."
"Taking all this into account, stripping him of his greatest treasure—his claim to the throne—and casting him into permanent exile is, to , the most fitting judgnt."
The trial closed. Themis let out a breath of relief. But when she gathered herself again, she realized silence had fallen.
The weight of Samael's gaze made her hand rise instinctively to her cheek, where warmth was already blooming. A blush spread to her ears, and her body shifted slightly, uneasy.
"Why? Was my judgnt wrong?"
Samael snapped to, shaking his head rapidly.
"No, no! You're right! Absolutely right!"
"Your grasp of law and arbitration far surpasses what I imagined!"
Amazing. In such a short ti, she had already introduced concepts like "self-defense" and "excessive self-defense" into the case, and her reasoning was flawless.
Even in the well-developed legal systems of his past life, the outco would have been much the sa.
The Mycenaean prince's matricide could be likened to excessive self-defense compounded by ntal illness—a devastating combination.
At most, he would have lost his political rights for life and been sentenced to life imprisonnt. Perhaps he'd even be granted dical parole, locked away in a psychiatric ward, cut off from the world.
Wasn't that exile, with his inheritance revoked, in all but na?
To see such a judgnt in the barbaric Age of Gods—one so close to modern law—was astonishing.
What more could he say? Inwardly, Samael cheered with a string of "66666," raising banners for the goddess of justice.
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