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Orestes
Pursued by the Erinyes
Orestes was not punished for all eternity in Tartarus, but for a while on earth, he was persued by the chthonian (relating to the underworld) Erinyes; the avenging furies!
Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and brother of Menelaus, was chosen commander-in-chief of the Greeks during the Trojan War. While in the port of Aulis in Boeotia, Agamemnon killed a stag which was sacred to Artemis, and the goddess in return visited the army with pestilence, and produced a calm which prevented the ships from leaving the port. Calchas the soothsayer thereupon announced that the wrath of the virgin goddess could only be appeased by the sacrifice of a virgin on her altar, and that none other but the daughter of the offender would be acceptable. Agamemnon, however reluctant, yielded his consent, and the maiden Iphigenia was sent for under the pretense that she was to be married to Achilles. When she was about to be sacrificed the goddess relented and snatched her away, leaving a hind in her place, and Iphigenia, enveloped in a cloud, was carried to Tauris, where Artemis made her priestess of her temple.
Hearing that her daughter had been murdered by her own husband, Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra was no longer faithful to him. She took a lover, and for the ten years that Agamemnon was away, She lived with her lover, AEgisthus, and plotted her revenge. When Agamemnon at last returned, AEgisthus and Clytemnestra killed him while he feasted at a banquet held in his honor. They then ruled Mycenae together, trying to put the whole affair behind them.
Aegisthus hand also intended to slay Agamemnon's son Orestes, a lad not yet old enough to be an object of apprehension, but from whom, if he should be suffered to grow up, there might be danger. Electra, the sister of Orestes, saved her brother's life by sending him secretly away to his uncle Strophius, king of Phocis. In the palace of Strophius, Orestes grew up with the king's son, Pylades, and formed with him an ardent friendship. Electra frequently reminded her brother by messengers of the duty of avenging his father's death, and when grown up he consulted the oracle of Delphi, which confirmed him in his design. He therefore went in disguise to Argos, pretending to be a messenger from Strophius, who had come to announce the death of Orestes, and brought the ashes of the deceased in a funeral urn. After visiting his father's tomb and sacrificing upon it, according to the rites of the ancients, he made himself known to his sister Electra, and soon after slew AEgisthus.
When he approached his mother, sword in hand, she beseeched him not to kill her. Calling upon a son's love for his mother to save her, she talked of how she had loved him as a child, how she had given birth to him, and how she had fed him with her own breasts and cradled him in her arms as he slept. Orestes wanted desperately to spare his mother's life. Pylades reminded him of what the Oracle of Delphi had commanded, and Orestes sadly slayed his own mother.
This revolting act, the slaughter of a mother by her son, though alleviated by the guilt of the victim and the express command of the gods, did not fail to awaken in the breasts of the ancients the same abhorrence that it does in ours. The Erinnyes, avenging deities, seized upon Orestes, and drove him frantic from land to land. Pylades accompanied him in his wanderings, and watched over him. At length, in answer to a second appeal to the oracle, he was directed to go to Tauris in Scythia, and to bring back a statue of Artemis which was believed to have fallen from heaven. Accordingly, Orestes and Pylades went to Tauris, where the barbarous people were accustomed to sacrifice to the goddess all strangers who fell into their hands. The two friends were seized and carried to the temple to be made victims. But the priestess of Artemis was none other than Iphigenia, the sister of Orestes, who had been snatched away by Artemis, at the moment when she was about to be sacrificed. Ascertaining from the prisoners who they were, Iphigenia disclosed herself to them, and the three made their escape with the statue of the goddess, and returned to Mycenae.
But Orestes was not yet relieved from the vengeance of the Erinnyes. At length he took refuge with Athena at Athens. The goddess afforded him protection, and appointed the court of Areopagus to decide his fate. The Erinnyes brought forward their accusation, and Orestes made the command of the Delphic oracle his excuse. When the court voted and the voices were equally divided, Orestes was acquitted by the command of Athena.
If you've followed the tour all the way to this page, congratulations! We've been into and out of the underworld. We've met Kings, heroes, and villains in the depths of the underworld. Although feared, Hades is a place which all but the divine must go. From the womb of our mother Earth we arose and into her depths we will go again. Some, who had brains, strength, talent, or luck have returned alive, but only to die and go there once more. Those who do not attain the privilege of Elysium, drink from the waters of the Lethe, forget their former selves, and are reborn. I hope this tour has shown you that there is really little to fear in the underworld. It is a very rich place filled with gems. I invite you to stay awhile and look around for some that you may not have seen on the tour. A good place to start is the Index.
If you came here without taking the tour, you can start it from the begining.
