During his absence his wife Clytemnestra had been false to him,
and when his return was expected, she with her paramour,
Aegisthus, laid a plan for his destruction, and at the banquet
given to celebrate his return, murdered him.
It was intended by the conspirators to slay his son Orestes also,
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 that ardent friendship which has
become proverbial. 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 repaired 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 both Aegisthus and
Clytemnestra.
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.
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