The Oresteia

The Oresteia is Aeschylus's trilogy comprising Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and Eumenides. It follows the murder of the returning king, his son Orestes's retaliation and the pursuit that brings Orestes before a court in Athens. Throughout the sequence, competing claims of parenthood, marriage and divine command make vengeance appear both obligatory and destructive. Choral songs and recurring images bind the separate plays into a sustained account of inherited violence. The final settlement introduces public judgment and religious accommodation, giving the trilogy a movement from private retaliation toward a civic order that must still reckon with anger and memory.