An Old Man, _formerly one of the retainers of Agamemnon._
ORESTES, _son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra_.
ELECTRA, _sister of Orestes_.
CHORUS _of Argive Women_.
CHRYSOTHEMIS, _sister of Orestes and Electra_.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
AEGISTHUS.
PYLADES _appears with_ ORESTES, _but does not speak_.
SCENE. Mycenae: before the palace of the Pelopidae.
Agamemnon on his return from Troy, had been murdered by his wife
Clytemnestra and her paramour Aegisthus, who had usurped the Mycenean
throne. Orestes, then a child, had been rescued by his sister Electra,
and sent into Phocis with the one servant who remained faithful to his
old master. The son of Agamemnon now returns, being of a full age,
accompanied by this same attendant and his friend Pylades, with whom
he has already concerted a plan for taking vengeance on his father's
murderers, in obedience to the command of Apollo.
Orestes had been received in Phocis by Strophius, his father's friend.
Another Phocian prince, named Phanoteus, was a friend of Aegisthus.