The Oresteia — who's who

Returns to Argos after ten years at Troy expecting the welcome owed to a victorious king. Is greeted by his wife with an equivocal speech, lured across purple tapestries he knows he should not walk on, and killed in his bath within an hour. The play allows him both grandeur and culpability — he sacrificed Iphigenia, brought home Cassandra, committed the impiety of the carpet. His death is the answer to all three.

The trilogy's central human intelligence. Organises the beacon network. Delivers the homecoming speech that is the most dangerous piece of theatrical rhetoric in Greek drama. Stands over her husband's body without apology. Is killed in the second play by her own son and returns as a ghost in the third to wake the sleeping Furies. The trilogy engages her argument more seriously than any other character's because her argument is the strongest.

The trilogy's protagonist across the second and third plays. Commanded by Apollo, recognised by Electra at his father's tomb, kills first Aegisthus and then his mother. Sees the Furies the moment the act is done. Flees to Delphi, then to Athens. Is tried before the Areopagus and acquitted by Athena's casting vote. Leaves the third play purified; the trilogy ends without him.

Present only in the second play. Discovered at her father's tomb, sent there on Clytemnestra's instruction to pour libations to his ghost. Recognises Orestes from a lock of hair, a footprint, a woven pattern on his cloak. Participates in the great lyric exchange of the Kommos. Drops out of the narrative after the recognition scene; the killing is Orestes's to carry.

Son of Thyestes, who was served his own children at Atreus's banquet. Has been nursing the grievance through two reigns. Co-author of Agamemnon's murder. Appears briefly in the exodos of the first play to assert his claim over the killing. Is killed by Orestes in the second play, off stage, before Clytemnestra.

Brought home from Troy as Agamemnon's prize. Cursed by Apollo to speak true prophecy that no one believes. Her scene in the fourth episode of Agamemnon — in which she sees the crimes of the house, the death of Agamemnon, and her own death, and speaks them aloud to a chorus that cannot understand — is the most sustained piece of lyric prophecy in Greek tragedy. She enters the palace knowing what awaits her.

Commanded Orestes to kill his mother and threatened him with worse if he refused. Appears in the Eumenides to defend Orestes before Athena's court. His argument — that the mother is only the soil in which the father's seed grows, and the father is the only true parent — has troubled readers since antiquity. He represents the principle of the new Olympian civic order in direct collision with the older chthonic powers of the Furies.

Patron of the city where the play is performed. Refuses to judge the case of Orestes alone because no single mind should bear that authority. Summons twelve Athenian citizens, founds the Areopagus court, charges it to hold the middle course between tyranny and anarchy. After the tied vote casts the deciding ballot for acquittal. Then reasons the Furies, in careful, patient verse, out of their rage. Her persuasion of the Furies — not her founding of the court — is the trilogy's final act.

The oldest powers in the play — older than the Olympians, born from primordial blood, dwelling under the earth. They pursue anyone who kills a blood relation. They appear on stage as a sleeping pack around Orestes at Delphi and are described by the horrified priestess as beyond any comparison she can find. They prosecute at the Areopagus with complete conviction and complete sincerity. They are not defeated at the trial; the vote is tied. They are persuaded by Athena to accept a new role as guardians of Athens. They leave the stage as the Eumenides, the Kindly Ones, escorted to their shrine by torchlight.

Opens the trilogy. Has been lying on the roof of Agamemnon's palace for a year, waiting for the beacon from Troy. Half-afraid of what he knows about the house. Sees the fire, dances his opening steps of joy, and says the phrase that tells the audience all they need to know: "an ox stands heavy on my tongue." He will say no more about what he knows. His silence in the face of what is coming establishes the moral atmosphere of everything that follows.

Arrives after ten years to announce the victory and the king's return. His speech of greeting — to the earth, the sun, the gods, his homeland — is the trilogy's most unguarded expression of joy. The chorus cannot tell him about Clytemnestra's plans. He sails back to Sparta not knowing what is about to happen in the palace behind him.

Twelve old men who were too old to go to Troy. They hold the moral weight of Agamemnon and much of The Libation Bearers, since every other character in those plays either commits or enables violence. Their odes — especially the parodos and the great stasima on Zeus, on hybris, and on the curse — are the trilogy's philosophical backbone. They cannot stop what happens. They can only witness and interpret.