The Backstory

Welcome to the House of Atreus, the most famous dysfunctional family in ancient Greek mythology. The house traces its origin back to Tantalus, a son of Zeus and a mortal woman. Tantalus decided to test the limits of the omniscience of the gods. He invited the gods to a banquet, killed his son, Pelops, sliced and diced, and cooked him up in a stew, perhaps with a few veggies, and served him to the gods. The gods are omniscient, so they refrained from touching the meal; except for Demeter. Demeter, distracted by the recent loss of her daughter, Persephone, ate some of a shoulder. At the command of Zeus, Pelops was reconstituted, and his life was restored. Hephaestos, craftsman of the gods, replaced Pelops’ shoulder with a new one made of ivory. As punishment for his culinary impiety, Tantalus in Hades is thirsty and hungry, constantly tantalized by food and drink that he cannot reach. The remade Pelops was even more handsome than the earlier version, so handsome that Poseidon had a crush on him.

When Pelops grew up, he wooed Hippodamia, the daughter of King Oenomaus of Pisa. Oenomaus decreed that he would overtake any suitor that tried to carry off Hippodamia, and kill them. He was as good as his word, too. He had already killed twelve or thirteen suitors this way, which probably put a bit of a crimp in Hippodamia’s social life. Pelops (or Hippodamia in some accounts) persuaded Oenomaus' charioteer, Myrtilus, to sabotage the king's chariot. When Pelops eloped with Hippodamia, daddy gave chase and was thrown from his chariot. Oenomaus became entangled in the reins, and was dragged to his death. Pelops then killed Myrtilus, either because he had tried to seduce Hippodamia or because Pelops didn’t want to leave any inconvenient witnesses around. As he was dying, Myrtilus cursed the house of Pelops, and, as we shall see this curse blighted the lives of Pelops' sons (Atreus and Thyestes), and his grandsons (Agamemnon and Aegisthus).

Left: The Sacrifice of Iphigenia; above right, murder of Agamemnon; above left, Orestes kills his mom, Clytemnestra.

A Few Comments on the Plays

The Oristeia consisted of three tragic plays, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumides, and a satyr play, Proteus, which is not extant. It is the only complete Greek tragic trilogy that has survived. Aeschylus presented the series and won the prize in 458 B.C. The plays represent the greatest of Aeschylus’ works, a fact admitted even by classical sources. The series also may have contained an important innovation in Greek tragic plays. The complexity of the play required the addition of a third actor.  Additionally, secondary characters acquire much greater depth than do secondary characters in other Greek tragedies. Evidence for this fact is supplied at the beginning of the play when we are introduced to the sentinel, presumably a minor character, but the playwright turns him into one of the first, and most interesting comic characters until Shakespeare’s gravedigger in Hamlet.

Pelops’ sons were Atreus and Thyestes. Atreus was the king of Mycenae, or, in some stories, Argos. Atreus’ wife had an affair with his brother. Between them, they tricked Atreus out of the throne and Thyestes became king. Thyestes swore that he would never give up the throne until the sun moved backwards. Zeus obliged, moved the sun, and Thyestes stepped down in favor of Atreus. Atreus banished his brother, but then he found out about the affair with his wife and got really annoyed. Atreus pretended that he wanted a reconciliation, agreed to allow Thyestes to come back and prepared a huge banquet to celebrate the end of their differences. At the banquet Atreus served Thyestes the flesh of Thyestes' two slaughtered sons.  Thyestes ate the food, and then was informed of what he had done. Overcome with horror, Thyestes cursed the family of Atreus and left with his one remaining child, his daughter Pelopia.

Thyestes went to the Delphic Oracle and asked how he could get revenge on his brother. The Oracle told him that he had to father a son upon his daughter. That son would avenge the father. Thyestes did so, and Pelopia gave birth to Aegisthus. She was so ashamed of her incestuous relationship that she exposed the infant. A shepherd found the child and raised him as his own. But, as a young man, Aegisthus found out his true identity and at the behest of his real father (oh, and also grandfather; same guy) went to Mycenae and killed his uncle Atreus.

Before his death, Atreus had fathered two sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus. The two brothers married two sisters, the daughters of Tyndareus, king of Sparta, and Leda. Actually, according to the myth, their father was really Zeus, who, disguised as a swan, had his way with Leda. Anyway, Agamemnon married Clytemnestra and Menelaus married Helen.

Helen was, of course, abducted (or ran away) with the Trojan houseguest, Paris, which started the Trojan War. When Agamemnon and Menelaus put together a massive Greek armada to attack Troy, the goddess Artemis was inadvertently offended by Agamemnon. Artemis visited adverse winds upon the fleet. Agamemnon was informed by a seer that, in order to get favorable winds, he would have to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia. He did so, got his wind, got his war, and gave his wife, Clytemnestra, a really good reason to hate him. Her hatred festered for a decade during the long war. In the meantime Clytemnestra took as her lover, Agamemnon’s cousin, and murderer of Pelops, Aegisthus.

The first play in the Oresteia is concerned with Agamemnon’s homecoming and Clytemnestra’s long-awaited revenge.

Above left, Orestes pursued by the Furies; above, Orestes slays Aegisthus; below, Aeschylus.

Aeschylus