Orestes (play)
ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides
Orestes (Ancient Greek: Ὀρέστης, Orestēs) (408 BCE) is an Ancient Greek play by Euripides that follows the events of Orestes after he had murdered his mother.
Background
In accordance with the advice of the god Apollo, Orestes has killed his mother Clytemnestra to avenge the death of his father Agamemnon at her hands. Despite Apollo's earlier prophecy, Orestes finds himself tormented by Erinyes or Furies to the blood guilt stemming from his matricide. The only person capable of calming Orestes down from his madness is his sister Electra. To complicate matters further, a leading political faction of Argos wants to put Orestes to death for the murder. Orestes' only hope to save his life lies in his uncle Menelaus, who has returned with Helen after spending ten years in Troy and several more years amassing wealth in Egypt. In the chronology of events following Orestes, this play takes place after the events contained in plays such as Electra by Euripides and Sophocles or The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus, and before events contained in plays like Andromache by Euripides. Orestes presents a very different version of the myth which was also depicted by Aeschylus in The Eumenides.
Plot
The play begins with a soliloquy that outlines the basic plot and events that have led up to this point from Electra, who stands next to a sleeping Orestes. Shortly after, Helen comes out of the palace under the pretext that she wishes to make an offering at her sister Clytemnestra's grave.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q663886. VIAF identifies the subject as 302736814. The Library of Congress control number is nr97033563. 1 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Orestes (play)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.