Orestes- Greek HeroHero"Avenger of Agamemnon"

The Murder of Agamemnon

Orestes' father Agamemnon ruled a house already stained with blood. His grandfather Atreus had served Thyestes the flesh of Thyestes' own children at a banquet. Thyestes cursed the house for all generations. When Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia at Aulis to gain fair winds for the fleet sailing to Troy, his wife Clytemnestra swore revenge.

During Agamemnon's ten-year absence, Clytemnestra took Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, as her lover. When Agamemnon returned victorious with the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his concubine, Clytemnestra welcomed him with ceremony before killing him in his bath, trapping him in a robe that left him helpless. Cassandra was killed beside him. In the Odyssey, the shade of Agamemnon recounts his murder to Odysseus in the underworld.

Orestes was still a child. His sister Electra spirited him away to the court of King Strophius in Phocis, where he grew to manhood alongside Strophius's son Pylades.

Apollo's Command

When Orestes reached maturity, he traveled to Delphi. Apollo's command was unequivocal: kill his mother and her lover to avenge Agamemnon.

Returning to Mycenae in disguise with Pylades, Orestes found his sister Electra, who had endured years of humiliation in the household. In Aeschylus's Choephoroi, the siblings meet at Agamemnon's tomb and invoke their father's spirit before acting. Orestes struck Aegisthus first, then confronted Clytemnestra. She bared her breast and appealed to the bond between mother and child. Pylades reminded him of the god's command. Orestes drove the sword home.

The Pursuit of the Erinyes

The Erinyes rose the moment Clytemnestra fell. In Aeschylus's Eumenides, they form the chorus: black-robed women with serpents wound through their hair, sleeping at first around Orestes at Delphi before waking to hunt him with terrible cries. They drove him to the edge of madness, pursuing him from sanctuary to sanctuary across Greece.

Orestes fled to Delphi, where Apollo offered temporary refuge and purified him with the blood of a young pig. But the Erinyes could not be appeased by Olympian ritual. Their law preceded Apollo's. Their law preceded Zeus. Apollo directed Orestes to Athens.

The Trial on the Areopagus

At Athens, Athena established a court of law on the rock of the Areopagus to resolve what neither gods nor mortals could settle alone. Apollo spoke for Orestes, arguing that the father is the true parent and Clytemnestra's murder of Agamemnon outweighed her claims as mother. The Erinyes prosecuted, insisting on the inviolable law of blood kinship.

A jury of Athenian citizens voted. The ballots split evenly. Athena cast the deciding vote for acquittal, and Orestes was freed.

To prevent the Erinyes from cursing Athens, Athena offered them a new role: they would become the Eumenides, the "Kindly Ones," honored goddesses dwelling beneath the Areopagus. They accepted. Four generations of murder in the House of Atreus ended with a vote.

Iphigenia in Tauris

Orestes' purification was not yet complete. In Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris, an oracle commanded him to travel to the land of the Taurians on the Black Sea and retrieve an ancient wooden image of Artemis.

Arriving with Pylades, Orestes was captured and brought before the priestess of Artemis, whose duty was to sacrifice all foreign visitors. The priestess was his own sister Iphigenia, not killed at Aulis as the family believed, but spirited away by Artemis at the moment of sacrifice and transported to Tauris. Brother and sister recognized each other. Together with Pylades, they stole the cult image and escaped by sea, outwitting the Taurian king Thoas. Athena appeared to direct them to establish Artemis's cult at Brauron and Halae in Attica.

King of Mycenae

Orestes returned to claim his father's throne. He married Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, and when Menelaus died, he gained the Spartan throne alongside his own.

His bones carried power beyond death. Herodotus tells how the Spartans, unable to defeat Tegea in war, were advised by the Delphic oracle to recover the bones of Orestes from Tegean territory. A Spartan named Lichas discovered an enormous skeleton in a bronze coffin at a smithy in Tegea and brought it back to Sparta. After this, the Spartans prevailed in every engagement. The dead hero, returned to friendly soil, fought for them still.