Oresteia

Orestes’ sister, Electra, is the secondary lead character of The Libation Bearers. After Agamemnon’s death, Electra’s position in the household is greatly diminished. Electra prays for justice and vengeance for Agamemnon along with the chorus of enslaved women. Her main role in The Libation Bearers is to help spur Orestes into killing Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus. 

Wife of Agamemnon and Queen of Argos, Clytaemnestra is the antagonist of Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers. She is closely aligned with the Furies, who she spurs to punish Orestes in The Eumenides. During the decade Agamemnon was away in Troy, Clytaemnestra harbored a hatred for him for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia, and she and plotted revenge with her lover, Aegisthus. She sent Orestes away to Phocis on the pretense of keeping him safe but really to keep him at a distance because it would be his filial duty to avenge his father’s death.

When Agamemnon returns, Clytaemnestra convinces him to commit the sacrilegious act of walking on expensive tapestries on his way to the palace. She ensnares him in robes before stabbing him to death, cutting off Agamemnon’s hands, and burying him without the proper rites. This incurs the wrath of Agamemnon’s curse. Clytaemnestra has a prophetic dream of birthing and nursing a serpent (symbolizing Orestes, who returns to Argos to avenge Agamemnon). Orestes is aided by his sister Electra, who Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus treated like an outcast. After Clytaemnestra is killed by Orestes, she appears as a ghost in The Eumenides to chastise the Furies for being slow in carrying out vengeance upon Orestes. Though her ghost is not present for the trial at the Areopagus, her death is the focal point for debate. The gods and jurors ultimately rule that Orestes’ sin of killing her is forgivable in the face of the gravity of the murder of Agamemnon.

King of Argos and the inheritor of the House of Atreus, Agamemnon bears the weight of the curse of his polluted bloodline when he is murdered by his wife, Clytaemnestra, upon returning home from the decade-long Trojan War. Agamemnon is described as the mightiest king of the Greeks; he led the combined armies of many Greek city-states to avenge the kidnapping of Helen, wife of his brother, Menelaus. Though the play Agamemnon is named for him, he is not its focal point; rather, his piteous death is the crux of the action of the entire Oresteia.

Prior to the Trojan War, Agamemnon slew a deer sacred to the goddess Diana. Diana held back the winds, making it impossible for the Greek armies to set sail. To appease the goddess, he sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia. This both polluted Agamemnon and spurred Clytaemnestra  toward revenge. Agamemnon’s death puts Orestes into a horrible dilemma: He must either incur the wrath of his father’s unavenged spirit, or he must commit the sacrilegious act of matricide to avenge him.

The last surviving daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, Cassandra is taken to Argos as a concubine by Agamemnon. Cassandra was a priestess of Apollo. When the god made sexual advances toward her, she rebuffed him. In retaliation, Apollo gifted Cassandra with the power of prophesy, but cursed her so that others either do not believe her visions or simply cannot understand them, as is the case with the chorus in Agamemnon. Before Apollo abandons her and strips her of her prophetic powers, Cassandra has a vision of her own death at the hands of Clytaemnestra. Giving in to the inevitability of fate, Cassandra bravely enters Agamemnon’s palace and dies alongside him.

Agamemnon’s cousin, Aegisthus, is the son of Thyestes, who was fed his own children by his brother Atreus. In Agamemnon’s absence, Aegisthus became Clytaemnestra’s lover and schemed with her, plotting Agamemnon’s death. For Aegisthus, the murder represents vengeance for the wrongs Atreus did to Thyestes. Aegisthus is a coward, taking credit for Agamemnon’s death even though it was Clytaemnestra who killed him. Aegisthus is slain by Orestes in The Libation Bearers. 

The god of prophesy and oracles, among many other things, Apollo is Orestes’ chief benefactor and supporter in The Oresteia. He is invoked by Orestes in The Libation Bearers when he describes to Electra and the chorus of enslaved women what the Oracle of Delphi revealed to him. Apollo commands the death of Clytaemnestra but guarantees Orestes safety against the pollution of the act and of the vengeance of the Furies and Clytaemnestra’s curse. To this end, Apollo himself attends to Orestes’ purification rites in the time between The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides. In the trial at the Areopagus, Apollo acts as Orestes’ chief witness, arguing with the leader of the Furies, who Apollo regards with great disgust and disdain, over Orestes’ innocence. Ultimately, Apollo is able to convince the jury that Orestes was right to avenge Agamemnon, due to his assertion that life stems from the father, so the unavenged death of a father takes importance over the death of a mother.

Athena (sometimes called Pallas) is the goddess of justice and the patron deity of Athens. Athena sprang from the forehead of Zeus fully grown; this is used by Apollo as evidence in Orestes’ trial to prove the superior value of fathers over mothers. Athena acts as the arbiter of the trial in The Eumenides. She overlooks the grotesque nature of the Furies and treats them with the respect due to guests. Because of this, the furies respect Athena and are willing to make their case in a trial, rather than pursuing Orestes further. Athena uses the trial as the foundation for the Athenian justice system, which forbids murder and extrajudicial vengeance. She appeases the Furies by making them protective spirits of Athens, promising them the devotion and honor of her people. She renames the Furies “The Eumenides,” or “The Kindly Ones.”

The old men of Argos that form the chorus of Agamemnon share the shameful distinction of having been deemed unfit for battle when the Greek armies set sail for Troy. However, they are fiercely loyal to Agamemnon, and are skeptical of Clytaemnestra, though they have no power to do anything more than pray for Orestes’ return. The leader of the chorus remains defiant toward Aegisthus at the end of Agamemnon.

The enslaved women of the chorus in The Libation Bearers escort Electra to the cemetery to perform rites to appease the spirit of Agamemnon. The women and their leader are loyal to Orestes and Electra. They aid Orestes in seeking revenge by lying to Aegisthus that Clytaemnestra summoned him without his bodyguards, making it safe for Orestes to slay him.