Abstract
<jats:p> This article investigates the issue of revenge in Aeschylus’ <jats:italic>Persians</jats:italic> from a renewed perspective that combines philology and ancient Greek law, exploring the relationship between law and violence in fifth-century Athens. By examining the ‘retaliatory’ vocabulary within the play, derived both from Homer and the language of the Attic courts, this paper enforces a new interpretation of τιμωρία (first attested in Aeschylus), starting from its etymological link with τιμή and illustrating its connections with (Athenian) subjective rights and their violation by Xerxes, guilty and responsible for ὕβρις on both a human and divine level. </jats:p>