Orestes

Electra secretly sent her young brother Orestes away from Mycenae when Agamemnon left for Troy. She feared that Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus would kill him. Orestes was taken to the court of King Strophius of Phocis, where he grew up with Strophius's son, Pylades. The two formed a close friendship. Electra continued to send messengers, reminding Orestes that he must avenge their father's death.

After the ten-year Trojan War, Agamemnon returned to Mycenae. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus had prepared his murder, and killed him at the banquet held to celebrate his return. Orestes consulted Apollo's oracle at Delphi. The god instructed him to return to Mycenae and avenge Agamemnon. Orestes therefore travelled there with Pylades, reclaimed his father's house, and carried out the revenge.

According to some accounts, Electra supported her brother. Orestes killed Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, who was his mother. Their deaths brought further suffering upon him. The Erinyes, the Spirits of Vengeance, pursued Orestes relentlessly and drove him from land to land. Pylades remained with him during these wanderings and watched over him.

Orestes eventually stood trial for murder in Athens before the court of the Areopagus. In Aeschylus's account, Athena cleared him of the charge and pacified the Erinyes. They became benevolent spirits. Other accounts focus on the return to Mycenae and the killing of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, without giving the same details of the trial.

The Erinyes pursued Orestes from Delphi as he travelled to Athens. They demanded punishment for the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra. Orestes appealed to Athena for protection. He claimed that Apollo had ordered him to avenge the murder of his father, Agamemnon.

Athena decided that the matter must be heard at the Areopagus, the sacred hill of Ares. The Erinyes questioned and accused Orestes before the court. Apollo stood beside him as his defender. He declared that he was answerable for Orestes’ deed and that Orestes had killed at his command. Orestes did not deny the murder. He said that he, not Apollo, had been guilty of killing his mother, but that he had been cleansed of his guilt.

Athena accepted his plea and acquitted Orestes. She persuaded the Erinyes to accept the judgement. They had upheld the ancient law of revenge for bloodshed, but now a new law of mercy was established. Their fearful nature changed, and they became the Eumenides, the Benignant or Kindly Ones. They became protectors of those who sought refuge with them and went to live beneath the Areopagus. The evil that had haunted the House of Atreus was banished, and Orestes left Athena’s tribunal acquitted.

The trial followed Orestes’ return to his family’s home after Agamemnon’s murder. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus had ruled there for ten years. Orestes met his sister Elektra and told her that Apollo had ordered him to avenge their father. With her encouragement, he killed Aegisthus and Clytemnestra. The Erinyes then pursued him for the matricide until he reached Athens.

Orestes and Pylades landed on the hostile shores of Tauris and made their way towards the temple of Artemis. Orestes had killed his mother, Clytemnestra, and Aegisthus to avenge the murder of his father, Agamemnon. The Erinyes then pursued him, driving him into madness. Although Athena had acquitted him at Athens, he still suffered from the affliction, or believed that the Erinyes remained after him.

At Delphi, Orestes asked how he could be freed. Apollo ordered him to travel to Tauris and bring back the wooden statue of Artemis that lay there. The Taurians sacrificed Greek strangers to the goddess, so the two friends were seized, bound, and taken to the temple as victims. The priestess in charge was Iphigenia, Orestes’ sister. Artemis had taken her away when she was about to be sacrificed, and Iphigenia had remained in exile, performing the duties of her office.

Iphigenia questioned the prisoners and discovered who they were. She revealed herself to Orestes, and the three planned their escape. Iphigenia helped Orestes secure the sacred statue and load it on a vessel bound for Greece. Pylades accompanied Orestes throughout the danger, as he had during Orestes’ earlier wanderings.

When the vessel was ready, Athena appeared and gave further instructions. Orestes was to take the statue to Halae in Attica and establish a temple to Artemis there. Iphigenia was to go to Brauron, where she would serve as Artemis’ priestess for the rest of her life. The expedition therefore fulfilled Apollo’s command and provided the means for Orestes’ release from his affliction.

Orestes was sent away while still a child after his father, Agamemnon, was murdered at Mycenae. Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus, had arranged the killing when Agamemnon returned from the Trojan War. They also planned to kill Orestes, but his sister Electra sent him secretly to Strophius, king of Phocis. There he grew up with Strophius’s son, Pylades, and the two became close friends.

When Orestes was grown, he consulted Apollo’s oracle at Delphi. Apollo ordered him to return to Mycenae and avenge Agamemnon’s death. Orestes went back with Pylades. In some accounts, Electra helped him. Orestes killed Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, who had taken control after Agamemnon’s murder.

The killings brought punishment. The Erinyes pursued Orestes, and he was eventually tried for murder at the Areopagus in Athens. According to Aeschylus, Athena acquitted him and pacified the Erinyes. Orestes then inherited the Argive throne.

Agamemnon and Menelaus had earlier been brought back to Tyndareus after being sent away by their nurse to Polypheides, king of Sicyon, and then to Oineus of Aetolia. They expelled Thyestes and became Tyndareus’s sons-in-law. Agamemnon became king of Mycenae, while Menelaus became king of Sparta after Tyndareus entrusted the kingdom to him. After Menelaus’s death, Orestes was also recognised in traditions as king of Sparta.

After killing his mother, Clytemnestra, and Aigisthos, Orestes was pursued by the Erinyes. He went to Athens and was tried before the Areiopagos. The votes were evenly divided, so he was acquitted. The accusers were variously said to be the Erinyes, Tyndareus, or Erigone, the daughter of Aigisthos and Clytemnestra.

Orestes then consulted the oracle about his affliction. He was told to fetch the wooden statue of Artemis from the land of the Taurians. With Pylades, he went there and was captured by Thoas, the Taurian king. The priestess in the temple was Iphigenia, Orestes' sister, who had been saved by Artemis from sacrifice. She deceived Thoas, allowing Orestes and Pylades to escape with the statue. Orestes returned with it and was freed from his affliction.

He married Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus and Helen. They had a son, Tisamenus. Orestes became king of Argos and later succeeded Menelaus on the Spartan throne. Tisamenus succeeded him and became the most powerful ruler in the Peloponnese. He was eventually killed and displaced by the returning Heraclids, bringing the Pelopid rule to an end.

The account of Hermione's marriage differs. One tradition says that Menelaus had given her to Orestes, then offered her to Neoptolemus after the capture of Troy. Another explains that Tyndareus had given Hermione to Orestes at Sparta while Menelaus was away at Troy and did not know of the arrangement.

When Agamemnon’s return from the Trojan War was expected, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus planned his death. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, had been away with the Greek forces. During his absence, Clytemnestra took Aegisthus as her lover. When Agamemnon returned, they murdered him at the banquet held to celebrate his arrival. Agamemnon and Clytemnestra had a son, Orestes.

The conspirators also meant to kill Orestes. He was still a child, but they feared that he might grow up and avenge his father. Electra saved him by sending him secretly away from Mycenae. She entrusted him to Strophius, king of Phocis, who took him into his household and raised him in exile.

At Strophius’s court, Orestes grew up with Pylades, the king’s son. The two formed a close friendship. Electra continued to remind Orestes through messengers that he must avenge Agamemnon’s death. When Orestes reached manhood, he went to Delphi and asked Apollo whether he should punish his father’s murderers. The god authorised the vengeance. Orestes then left for Mycenae in secret with Pylades. The later events of his story include the killing of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, followed by madness, pursuit by the Furies, and a trial at Athens.

Electra stole Orestes away and entrusted him to Strophios, king of Phocis, who raised him with his own son, Pylades. When Orestes reached manhood, he went to Delphi and asked Apollo whether he should avenge the murder of his father, Agamemnon. The god authorised the vengeance. Orestes returned secretly to Mycenae with Pylades and killed Aegisthus and his mother, Clytemnestra.

After the killings, madness struck Orestes. The Furies pursued him, and he went to Athens, where he was tried at the Areiopagos. The accuser is reported in different ways. The Furies brought the charge in one account, Tyndareus in another, and Erigone in a third. Erigone was the daughter of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra. The votes at the trial were evenly divided, so Orestes was acquitted.

Orestes then asked the oracle how he could be freed from his affliction. Apollo replied that he must fetch a wooden statue lying in the land of the Taurians. In the account that continues this story, Orestes travelled there with Pylades. The priestess of Artemis was Iphigenia, Orestes’ sister, who had been saved by Artemis from sacrifice. She deceived Thoas, king of the Taurians, allowing Orestes and Pylades to escape with the statue. Thoas followed them as far as Sminthos, where Orestes killed him.

In a later genealogical tradition, after the overthrow of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, Orestes married Erigone, their daughter, and fathered Penthilus with her. Another report says that Orestes married Hermione and fathered Tisamenos by her. A further account gives him Tisamenos as a legitimate son by Hermione and Penthilus as an illegitimate son by Erigone.