About the work
Tragedy by Euripides, first performed in 408 BC at the Athenian City Dionysia. The play was extraordinarily popular in antiquity and, judging by surviving papyri, was the most widely read of all Euripides' tragedies.
Plot
Six days after murdering their mother Clytemnestra, Orestes — tormented by madness and the avenging Furies — is condemned to death by the Argive assembly along with his sister Electra. In desperation, he and his friend Pylades plot to kill Helen and take her daughter Hermione hostage; only the god Apollo's forceful intervention resolves the situation at the very end.
Cultural significance
With its chaotic plot and the almost grotesque rescue engineered by Apollo, 'Orestes' is considered one of the formally boldest of Euripides' late plays, mirroring the political disarray of Athens toward the end of the Peloponnesian War.