1. Orestes is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness, revenge, and purification, which retain obscure threads of much older works.
14 Facts About Orestes
1. 2.
In particular Orestes plays a main role in Aeschylus' Oresteia.
3.
In Pindar's version, the young Orestes was saved by his nurse Arsinoe or his sister Electra, who conveyed him out of the country when Clytemnestra wished to kill him.
4.
Orestes returned home, along with his first cousin Pylades, son of Anaxibia and Strophius.
5.
The story of Orestes was the subject of the Oresteia of Aeschylus, of the Electra of Sophocles, and of the Electra, Iphigeneia in Tauris, Iphigenia at Aulis and Orestes, all of Euripides.
6.
Orestes takes refuge in the temple at Delphi; but, even though Apollo had ordered him to kill his mother, the god is powerless to protect Orestes from the consequences.
7.
The Erinyes demand their victim; Orestes asserts that it was indeed he who killed his mother, though he was acting on the orders of Apollo.
8.
Orestes traveled to Tauris with Pylades, where the pair were at once imprisoned by the people, among whom the custom was to sacrifice all Greek strangers in honor of Artemis.
9.
Orestes offered to release him if he would carry home a letter from her to Greece; he refused to go, but he implored Pylades to deliver the letter while he stayed to be slain.
10.
Orestes was said to have died of a snakebite in Arcadia.
11.
Things soon changed after Orestes committed matricide: Menelaus then gave his daughter to Neoptolemus, son of Achilles and Deidamia.
12.
Orestes seized Argos and Arcadia after their thrones had become vacant, becoming ruler of all the Peloponnesus.
13.
Orestes appears to be a dramatic prototype for all persons whose crime is mitigated by extenuating circumstances.
14.
In one version of the story of Telephus, the infant Orestes was kidnapped by King Telephus, who used him as leverage in his demand that Achilles heal him.