ANCIENT GREECE 65
Orestes slays his mother to avenge
his father’s death in this painting by
Bernardino Mei (1655). Clytemnestra’s
lover, Aegisthus, lies beside her, also
slaughtered at the hand of Orestes.See also: The many affairs of Zeus 42–47 ■ The founding of Athens 56–57 ■ The quest of Odysseus 66–71say the king was killed at a feast
celebrating his return from the war;
others say he was murdered while
naked and helpless after his bath.Crime and punishment
The varying accounts also cite
several possible motivations for
Agamemnon’s murder. Some placethe guilt squarely with Aegisthus,
Agamemnon’s longstanding enemy,
as an act of vengeance for the
crimes of the king’s father. Other
versions lay the blame firmly at
Clytemnestra’s feet, presenting
her as a fearless and defiant woman
who murdered her husband as
retribution for killing their daughter.Aeschylus
Revered as the father of tragedy,
Aeschylus was an early Greek
dramatist—one of three, along
with Euripides and Sophocles,
whose works survive and are
still performed. He was born
around 525 bce in Eleusis, a
town northwest of Athens, and
grew up to fight against two
Persian invasions. When not
at war, Aeschylus regularly
took part in Athens’s annual
“Dionysia” playwriting contest.He claimed that the god of
theater, Dionysus himself, visited
him while he was asleep and
persuaded him to take up the art.
Aeschylus was a prolific
playwright, yet only seven of his
plays survive, each one believed
to have won first prize at the
Dionysia. The Oresteia trilogy—
Agamemnon, Choephoroi, and
Eumenides—are now his best-
known plays. Aeschylus was
credited with writing Prometheus
Bound, though his authorship
of that play is now disputed.Other accounts cite Clytemnestra’s
ungovernable female sexuality
and her passion.
Agamemnon’s children—his
son, Orestes, and his daughter
Electra—were both away from
home when their father was killed.
They returned to Argos to find their
mother and Aegisthus reigning in
his place. Orestes felt it the duty of
a son to avenge his father, so, with
Electra’s help and encouragement,
he disguised himself and gained
access to the palace, where he
killed Aegisthus.
The spirit of vengeance
demanded that Clytemnestra, too,
should pay the price for her role in
the crime. Orestes slew her also,
but carried her dying curse on his
head: relentless furies, the Erinyes,
hunted him across the face of the
earth for the rest of his days for his
crime of matricide. Electra escaped
the curse, marrying Orestes’s friend
and co-conspirator Pylades. ■US_064-065_Orestes.indd 65 30/11/17 4:55 pm