Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's children included Orestes, Iphigenia, Electra, and Chrysothemis. The family was destroyed when Clytemnestra murdered Agamemnon upon his return from Troy, and Orestes later killed her in revenge.
Orestes fathered Penthilus by Erigone Aegisthid, daughter of his enemy Aegisthus — a union that bound the houses of Agamemnon and Aegisthus through blood despite their deadly feud.
Orestes married Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, after Neoptolemus's death. Their son Tisamenus ruled Sparta and the Argolid until the Heracleidae drove him into Achaea.
Strophius of Phocis took in the young Orestes after Agamemnon's murder, raising him alongside his own son Pylades at the Phocian court and sheltering him from Aegisthus's reach.
Electra and Orestes, siblings united by grief, together plotted the killing of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus to avenge their father Agamemnon's murder.
Pylades and Orestes formed an unbreakable bond while raised together at the court of Strophius in Phocis. Pylades stood by Orestes through the matricide and the Erinyes' pursuit.
Aegisthus, Clytemnestra's lover and usurper of Agamemnon's throne, was Orestes's sworn enemy. Orestes returned from exile to kill Aegisthus as part of his divinely commanded vengeance.
The Erinyes hounded Orestes across Greece after he killed his mother Clytemnestra, driving him to madness with torches and shrieking until Athena convened his trial at the Areopagus in Athens.
In Euripides's Orestes, Orestes and Pylades seized Helen as a hostage when Menelaus refused to help them escape the Argive assembly's death sentence, threatening to kill her before Zeus snatched her away to Olympus.
⚠ Euripides has Zeus rescue Helen to Olympus; Apollodorus records a version where Orestes actually kills her before the gods intervene.
Orestes and Neoptolemus clashed over Hermione. Menelaus had promised her to Orestes, but Agamemnon betrothed her to Neoptolemus at Troy. Neoptolemus died at Delphi, and Orestes claimed Hermione.
Orestes and Pylades together slew Aegisthus, Clytemnestra's lover and Agamemnon's murderer, while he was making a sacrifice. In Aeschylus's Choephoroi, this killing precedes the matricide.
Orestes killed his mother Clytemnestra to avenge her murder of his father Agamemnon, as commanded by Apollo at Delphi. This matricide brought the Erinyes upon him.
Orestes arranged the death of Neoptolemus at Delphi, eliminating his rival for Hermione's hand and claiming her as his wife in accordance with Menelaus's original promise.
⚠ Euripides' Andromache (1070-1165) has Orestes orchestrate the killing via the Delphians. Virgil's Aeneid (3.330-332) attributes it directly to Orestes. Pindar's Nemean 7 and Pausanias 1.13.9 give other versions involving Apollo's anger.
Apollo at Delphi commanded Orestes to avenge Agamemnon by killing his mother Clytemnestra, then defended the matricide against the Erinyes at Athena's court on the Areopagus.
Orestes avenged his father Agamemnon by returning from exile to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, as dramatized in Aeschylus's Choephoroi and the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides.
In Euripides's Iphigenia in Tauris, Orestes journeyed to retrieve a sacred image of Artemis from the Taurians, fulfilling Apollo's final condition for his purification from matricide.
Athena established the Areopagus court to try Orestes for killing his mother Clytemnestra, then cast the deciding vote to acquit him in Aeschylus's Eumenides.
Orestes sought purification at Delphi after killing his mother Clytemnestra, and the Oracle directed him to stand trial at Athens before Athena's court.
In Euripides's Andromache, Orestes arrived at Neoptolemus's court and rescued Hermione from her desperation, then spirited her away and arranged Neoptolemus's death at Delphi to claim her as his wife.
In Euripides's Iphigenia in Tauris, Orestes traveled to the land of the Taurians and discovered his sister Iphigenia alive as priestess of Artemis. The siblings escaped together with Artemis's sacred image.
In Euripides's Orestes, Menelaus refused to defend his nephew before the Argive assembly's death sentence, prompting Orestes and Pylades to seize Helen as hostage in a desperate bid for leverage.
In Euripides' lost play and later sources, Telephus seized the infant Orestes from his mother's arms and threatened to kill him, forcing the Greeks to agree to heal his wound.
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