Characters
- Aegisthus — usurper; slain first
- Agamemnon — mother; slain; dream of the serpent-son
- Ajax — invoked in the kommos
- Chorus of libation-bearing slave women — ritual partners
- Chrysothemis — sister; partner in recognition and prayer
- Cilissa — nurse (reports Orestes’ childhood; tragic color)
- Lyssa — appear to Orestes after the mother-killing
- Orestes — avenger; matricide; pursued by Erinyes
- People of Crisa — oracle commanding the revenge
- Pylades — companion; voices Apollo’s command at the crisis
Places
- Mount Helicon — Orestes’ flight for purification (play’s exit)
- Mycenae — recognition and kommos
- Palace of the Atreidae — murders of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra
Themes
Narrative
Orestes, returned from exile at Phocis with his friend Pylades, came to Agamemnon’s tomb as Apollo’s oracle had commanded: kill his mother and Aegisthus or face divine penalties. Electra and the captive women of the Chorus brought libations sent by Clytemnestra after nightmare omens. Brother and sister recognized each other by tokens—lock of hair, footprints, woven cloth—and joined in a kommos invoking their father below the earth for strength.
Disguised as a messenger reporting Orestes’ own death, Orestes entered the palace. He killed Aegisthus first; then, face to face with Clytemnestra, he hesitated when she bared the breast that had nursed him. Pylades reminded him of Apollo’s word. Orestes struck her down as justice for Agamemnon and as pollution newly incurred. At once he saw the Erinyes—snakes and blood in his vision—though the Chorus could not yet see them, and fled toward Delphi for purification. The middle play of the Oresteia thus completes the revenge Homer’s nostoi praise and opens the crisis of matricide that only Athena’s court will resolve.