Athenian tragic drama was the precursor of Athenian moral philosophy. Dramatists were an important element in a major intellectual awakening in ancient Greece during the fifth century B.C., along with philosophers. It was then when the word justice started being communicated to people via ancient tragedies.

All the dramatic scripts revolved around this central word, or theme. People and gods were living with justice, acting according to justice and even justifying justice. This ancient world gave us the word ?justice,? the meaning of justice and a symbol for justice. Thanks to her high sense for fairness, the Greek goddess Athena was held in great esteem. She also demonstrated her apt attitude towards justice in many Greek tragedies.

In Aeschylus' "Oresteia," for example, it is Athena who votes in favor of the acquittal of Orestes, who killed his own mother. Both she and Apollo, who told Orestes to kill his mother in revenge for the death of his father, find a justification for their pardon in a peculiar and new argument.

In attempt to defend past wrongdoings, the "younger gods" asserted that a mother is less important than a father, hence excusing her murder. As evidence they put forward the ?fact? that a mother is only a carrier of a child but it is the seed of the father that counts.

This was the belief of a group living 2,500 years ago. However, this nonsense was programmed so well in their minds that even after so many years and after advances in genetic medicine have proven the opposite, we still face the consequences of this perverse logic.

Since the time when Orestes was tried by the Furies, Europe has developed into a complex and highly tuned machine, a community based on law. It derives its spiritual identity partially from ancient Greek philosophy and it solves almost all-current disputes within its borders via legal actions.

Thanks to the highly technical and methodological construct of the European judicial system, justice has become much more predictable.