The King's new concubine, Cassandra, is now introduced and this immediately spawns hatred from the queen, Clytemnestra. This is a very ominous moment in the play as loyalties and motives are questioned. After her soliloquy, Clytemnestra pleads with and persuades Agamemnon to walk on the robes laid out for him. Upon the return of Agamemnon, his wife laments in full view of Argos how horrible the wait for her husband, and King, has been. Clytemnestra is introduced to the audience and she declares that there will be celebrations and sacrifices throughout the city as Agamemnon and his army return. He laments the fortunes of the house, but promises to keep silent: 'A huge ox has stepped onto my tongue.' The watchman sees a light far off in the distance-a bonfire signaling Troy's fall-and is overjoyed at the victory and hopes for the hasty return of his King, as the house has 'wallowed' in his absence. The play opens to a watchman looking down and over the sea, reporting that he has been lying restless 'like a dog' for a year, waiting to see some sort of signal confirming a Greek victory in Troy. She desires his death to avenge the sacrifice of her daughter Iphigenia, to exterminate the only thing hindering her from commandeering the crown, and to finally be able to publicly embrace her long-time lover Aegisthus. Waiting at home for Agamemnon is his wife, Queen Clytemnestra, who has been planning his murder. After ten years of warfare, Troy had fallen and all of Greece could lay claim to victory. It details the homecoming of Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, from the Trojan War. The murder of Agamemnon, from an 1879 illustration from Stories from the Greek Tragedians by Alfred ChurchĪgamemnon ( Ἀγαμέμνων, Agamémnōn) is the first of the three plays within the Oresteia trilogy. Oresteia originally included a satyr play, Proteus ( Πρωτεύς), following the tragic trilogy, but all except a single line of Proteus has been lost. The principal themes of the trilogy include the contrast between revenge and justice, as well as the transition from personal vendetta to organized litigation.

The only extant example of an ancient Greek theatre trilogy, the Oresteia won first prize at the Dionysia festival in 458 BCE. The trilogy-consisting of Agamemnon ( Ἀγαμέμνων), The Libation Bearers ( Χοηφόροι), and The Eumenides ( Εὐμενίδες)-also shows how the Greek gods interacted with the characters and influenced their decisions pertaining to events and disputes.

The Oresteia ( Ancient Greek: Ὀρέστεια) is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BCE, concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, the trial of Orestes, the end of the curse on the House of Atreus and the pacification of the Furies (also called Erinyes or Eumenides). SNG Drama Ljubljana performs an adaptation of The Oresteia, in 1968

Aeschylus produced the oresteia