The Revenge of Orestes

The Story

Orestes was still young when Agamemnon was killed.

He was removed from danger and raised away from Mycenae.

Years later he returned.

His purpose was revenge.

Agamemnon had been murdered by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, and the demands of family honour required Orestes to punish the killers.

Electra, his sister, remained closely associated with the memory of their father.

In the major tragic traditions she recognised or assisted Orestes when he returned.

Orestes killed Aegisthus.

Then came the far more terrible task.

He killed Clytemnestra.

By avenging his father, Orestes had murdered his mother.

The act solved one obligation only by creating another violation.

The Erinyes, ancient powers associated with vengeance for blood crimes within the family, pursued him.

Orestes fled.

The cycle of retaliation that had defined the House of Atreus now seemed impossible to end.

Every murder demanded another murder.

In Aeschylus' Oresteia, the solution comes through a transformation in justice itself.

Orestes reaches Athens.

Athena establishes a formal trial.

The case is judged rather than answered by another private act of revenge.

Orestes is acquitted.

The Erinyes are given a new honoured place within the civic order.

The story therefore moves beyond the fate of one family.

The ancient system of blood vengeance is replaced by communal judgment and law.

The curse of the House of Atreus finally begins to lose its power.

Did Orestes avenge Agamemnon? Yes. Orestes returns and kills Aegisthus and his own mother Clytemnestra in revenge for the murder of his father Agamemnon.

How did Orestes avenge his father's death? Orestes returns to his family's kingdom after growing up away from the immediate danger surrounding Agamemnon's murder. With support from Electra and, in important traditions, under the command or guidance of Apollo, he confronts those responsible for his father's death.

Orestes first kills Aegisthus, one of Agamemnon's killers and a descendant of Thyestes. This act continues the older feud between the descendants of Atreus and Thyestes.

Why did Orestes kill Clytemnestra? Clytemnestra participated in the murder of Agamemnon. Orestes therefore faces an impossible conflict between two powerful obligations: the duty to avenge his murdered father and the prohibition against shedding the blood of his own mother.

Orestes chooses revenge and kills Clytemnestra. The act avenges Agamemnon, but it also makes Orestes guilty of matricide.

Why was Orestes pursued by the Erinyes? The Erinyes are ancient goddesses associated particularly with serious crimes against family and blood. Killing his mother places Orestes within their sphere of punishment, regardless of his claim that he acted to avenge his father.

The Revenge of Orestes therefore does not solve the House of Atreus curse. It exposes the central problem of the entire family story: every act of justified vengeance creates another crime demanding punishment.