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Orestes
Orestes is the son of the unhappy marriage of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra. At the beginning of the Trojan War, Orestes was just a young boy, but later in life he would experience the curse of Tantalus as painfully as the other members of his family. For, as Agamemnon left Mycenae to fight the Trojans so as to recover Helen for his brother Menelaus, Orestes' mother Clytaemnestra began to have an affair with Aegisthus. Aegisthus was the son of Thyestes, who had been Atreus' bitter rival for the throne of Mycenae (and also his brother). Not surprisingly then, Aegisthus was desperate for revenge against Agamemnon, the son of Atreus. Clytaemnestra, for her part, desired revenge for the death of her daughter Iphigenia, sacrificed by Agamemnon so that the Achaean fleet could sail to Troy.
After Agamemnon returned from Troy, Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra murdered him in his bath tub. Aegisthus planned to kill the young Orestes as well, but his older sister Electra smuggled him away from Mycenae to Phocis, to the house of Strophius (married to Anaxibia, the sister of Agamemnon). Orestes became a great friend of Strophius' son Pylades (who would later marry Electra). When Orestes reached full maturity, he travelled to the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi and asked whether or not he should avenge his father's murder; the Oracle replied that he should. And so Orestes and Pylades secretly left Phocis and sneaked back into Mycenae. When they were on the outskirts of the city, they came across a small country house where Electra was living. There the three began to concoct a conspiracy, and Electra brought in an old slave, the former tutor of Agamemnon. The old tutor told them about the lives and routines of Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra.
Eventually, Orestes and Pylades put the plan into action. They approached Aegisthus as he was sacrificing to the Nymphs and slew him on the spot. The royal guards were standing around him, but when they recognised Orestes, rather than attacking him, they applauded and acclaimed him as the true king. Later on, Clytaemnestra was lured into Electra's country house, where Orestes pounced on her and stabbed her. Nonetheless, since she was his mother, he had to hold a cloak over his eyes as he committed the deed. Soon afterwards, he became tortured by guilt, which was being stirred up inside him by the avenging Furies. The Furies chased him across Achaea, first to Troezen, and then to the Oracle of Apollo in Delphi. In the end, he travelled to Athens to stand trial for matricide at the court of the Areopagus. The votes were equally in favour of punishment and acquittal, but the goddess Athena came and cast her vote for acquittal.