Theatre
The Oresteia
Ὀρέστεια
Aeschylus · -458
Synopsis
Agamemnon returns victorious from Troy with his captive Cassandra and finds at Argos his wife Clytemnestra, who has not forgiven him the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia. What follows takes three plays and a single question, taken up from generation to generation: who must avenge, and how far. The children and the gods become involved, and the last play brings the matter before a court in Athens.
Context
The trilogy, made up of Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides, was first performed in 458 BCE at the Great Dionysia, four years after the reform by which Ephialtes had democratised the Areopagus: the last play stages the trial of Orestes before this court, which has been read as taking sides in the Athenian debate. A satyr play, Proteus, completed the set; it is lost.
Who it is for
Three tragedies to be read in order; it is better to know the genealogy of the Atreidae, which the text assumes to be known.
Prizes and reception
It won the first prize, the last of its author's thirteen victories, and it is the only connected trilogy of Athenian theatre that has come down to us.
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