Courting the Erinyes: Persuasion, Sacrifice, and Seduction in Aeschylus's Eumenides

At the end of the Eumenides, Athena draws on the discourses of propitiatory sacrifice and amatory persuasion in order to successfully persuade the Erinyes to give up their wrath and accept cult honors in Athens. Athena thus founds the cult of the Semnai with an act of rhetorical propitiation and, through the erotic element of her persuasive speech, offers the Erinyes the surprising role of beloved objects, who will be "wooed" by the Athenians in imitation of her own gentle persuasion.