Orestes
[6] In Pindar's version, the young Orestes was saved by his nurse Arsinoe (Laodamia) or his sister Electra, who conveyed him out of the country when Clytemnestra wished to kill him.
In Aeschylus's Eumenides, Orestes goes mad after killing his mother and is pursued by the Erinyes (Furies), whose duty it is to punish any violation of the ties of family piety.
After a conflict of mutual affection, Pylades at last yielded, but the brother and sister finally recognized each other due to the letter, and all three escaped together, carrying with them the image of Artemis.
[7] After his return to Greece, Orestes took possession of his father's kingdom of Mycenae (killing his half-brother Alete, who was the son of Clytemestra and Aegisthus), to which were added Argos and Laconia.
His body was conveyed to Sparta for burial (where he was the object of a cult) or, according to a Roman legend, to Aricia, when it was removed to Rome (Servius on Aeneid, ii.
These legends belong to an age when higher ideas of law and of social duty were being established; the implacable blood-feud of primitive society gives place to a fair trial, and in Athens, when the votes of the judges are evenly divided, mercy prevails.
[9] Huge bones found in caves in nearby areas of Greece have been attributed to horses (Equus abeli), mammoths, elephants, deers, bovids and cetaceans.
[10][12] Maurus Servius Honoratus, an early 4th century grammarian, regards the ashes of Orestes (Cineres Orestis) as one of the seven pignora imperii of the Roman empire in his In Vergilii Aeneidem commentarii (‘Commentary on Virgil’s Aeneid’).
Alongside the ashes, Servius lists the other six pignora: the stone of the Mother of the Gods, the terracotta chariot of the Veientines, the ancile, the sceptre of Priam, the veil of Iliona, and the palladium.
A dialogue entitled Erotes ("Affairs of the Heart") and attributed to Lucian compares the merits and advantages of heterosexuality and homoeroticism, and Orestes and Pylades are presented as the principal representatives of homoerotic friendship: Taking the love god as the mediator of their emotions for each other, they sailed together as it were on the same vessel of life...nor did they restrict their affectionate friendship to the limits of Hellas....as soon as they set foot on the land of the Tauride, the Fury of matricides was there to welcome the strangers, and, when the natives stood around them, the one was struck to the ground by his usual madness and lay there, but Pylades "did wipe away the foam and tend his frame and shelter him with a fine well-woven robe," thus showing the feelings not merely of a lover, but also of a father.
L'Orestie d'Eschyle (1913–1923) is a French-language opera in three parts by Darius Milhaud based on The Oresteia triptych by Aeschylus in a French translation by his collaborator Paul Claudel.
