Editing Oresteia (section)

== Contemporary background ==
Some scholars believe that the trilogy is influenced by contemporary political developments in Athens. A few years previously, legislation sponsored by the democratic reformer [[Ephialtes]] had stripped the court of the [[Areopagus]], hitherto one of the most powerful vehicles of upper-class political power, of all of its functions except some minor religious duties and the authority to try homicide cases; By having his story being resolved by a judgement of the Areopagus, Aeschylus may be expressing his approval of this reform. It may also be significant that Aeschylus makes Agamemnon lord of Argos, where Homer puts his house, instead of his nearby capitol, Mycenae, since about this time Athens had entered into an alliance with Argos.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great, 3rd edition|last1=Bury|first1=J. B.|last2=Meiggs|first2=Russell|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1956|location=Oxford|pages=347–348, 352}}</ref>