This article deals with the conflict between mercy and just retribution in the work of Dracontius, a Roman poet from Vandal Africa of the 5th–6th centuries. This conflict is characteristic of many works by Dracontius, but the scholars have not yet reached a complete consensus on how the author views resolution or what he regards as more important. This paper attempts to unravel the rhetorical tangle woven by Dracontius through an analysis of the two poems united by the time of creation, the theme of the Trojan War, and a number of shared motifs: “The Abduction of Helen” and “The Tragedy of Orestes”. The conclusion is drawn that the trial, which formally appears only once in the finale of “The Tragedy”, actually recurs more frequently in these works, although not explicitly indicated. In particular, the opening scene of “The Abduction”, which features the prophecies of Helenus and Cassandra and their proposal to kill Paris, is built on the same principles as the trial of Orestes that concludes “The Tragedy”. They also correspond to Orestes’ seemingly extrajudicial retribution against Clytemnestra. The idea of connecting the Trojan War, the massacre in the house of Atrides, and the trial of Orestes in a legal (or rather, quasi-legal) context and presenting it to the reader in this form had already arisen in ancient literature before Dracontius. Such attempts can be found in Aeschylus, whose Oresteia is considered one of the primary likely sources for the Carthaginian poet. In Dracontius, this idea is developed and given a new, original expression, the treatment of which directly affects the understanding of both the stated problem — mercy vs justice, and the general meaning of the poems