Editing Atreus (section)

=== Agamemnon, Iphigenia, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, Orestes and Electra ===
[[File:Murder Aegisthus Louvre K320.jpg|thumb|The murdering of [[Aegisthus]] by [[Orestes]] and [[Pylades]]]]

Prior to sailing off to war against Troy, Agamemnon had angered the goddess [[Artemis]] because he had killed a sacred deer in a sacred grove, and had then boasted that he was a better hunter than she was. When the time came, Artemis stilled the winds so that Agamemnon's fleet could not sail. A prophet named [[Calchas]] told him that in order to appease Artemis, Agamemnon would have to sacrifice the most precious thing that had come to his possession in the year he killed the sacred deer. This was his first-born daughter, [[Iphigenia]]. He sent word home for her to come (in some versions of the story on the pretense that she was to be married to [[Achilles]]). Iphigenia accepted her father's choice and was honored to be a part of the war. Clytemnestra tried to stop Iphigenia but was sent away. After doing the deed, Agamemnon's fleet was able to get under way.

While he was fighting the Trojans, his wife Clytemnestra, enraged by the murder of her daughter, began an affair with Aegisthus. When Agamemnon returned home he brought with him a new concubine, the doomed prophetess, [[Cassandra]]. Upon his arrival that evening, before the great banquet she had prepared, Clytemnestra drew a bath for him and when he came out of the bath, she put the royal purple robe on him which had no opening for his head. He was confused and tangled up. Clytemnestra then stabbed him to death.

Agamemnon's only son, [[Orestes]], was quite young when his mother killed his father. He was sent into exile.  In some versions he was sent away by Clytemnestra to avoid having him present during the murder of Agamemnon; in others his sister [[Electra]] herself rescued the infant Orestes and sent him away to protect him from their mother. In both versions he was the legitimate heir apparent and as such a potential danger to his usurper uncle.

Goaded by his sister Electra, Orestes swore revenge. He knew it was his duty to avenge his father's death, but saw also that in doing so he would have to kill his mother. He was torn between avenging his father and sparing his mother. 'It was a son's duty to kill his father's murderers, a duty that came before all others. But a son who killed his mother was abhorrent to gods and to men'.

When he prayed to [[Apollo]], the god advised him to kill his mother. Orestes realized that he must work out the curse on his house, exact vengeance and pay with his own ruin. After Orestes murdered Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, he wandered the land with guilt in his heart. After many years, with Apollo by his side, he pleaded to Athena. No descendant of Atreus had ever done so noble an act and 'neither he nor any descendant of his would ever again be driven into evil by the irresistible power of the past.' Thus Orestes ended the curse of the House of Atreus.

This story is the major plot line of [[Aeschylus]]'s trilogy ''[[Oresteia|The Oresteia]]''.