Aeschylus

Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays can still be read or performed, the others being Sophocles and Euripides. He is often described as the father of tragedy: our knowledge of the genre begins with his work and our understanding of earlier tragedies is largely based on inferences from his surviving plays. Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived into modern times. Fragments of some other...

From the perspective of the townspeople and the queen, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon follows the emotional journey of grief, rage, and revenge. Agamemnon had dedicated much of his life to a war that his brother started. He vowed to do whatever it takes to win-committing war crimes and killing innocents. But, even in victory, Agamemnon feels unsatisfied and plagued by the bloodshed he caused. Because of this, he decides to perform a ritual to clear his conscience...

Orestes, Apollo, and the Erinyes go before Athena and eleven other judges chosen by her from the Athenian citizenry at the Areopagus (Rock of Ares, a flat rocky hill by the Athenian agora where the homicide court of Athens later held its sessions), to decide whether Orestes's killing of his mother, Clytemnestra, makes him guilty of the crime of murder.