ORESTES, the only son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, was seven years old at the period of his father's murder, when he was saved by his sister Electra, who sent him secretly to Strophius, prince of Phocis, who had married the sister of Agamemnon. Here he was educated with Pylares the son of Strophius, and afterwards proceeded to Athens. Eight years after the murder of his father he returned to Mycenae, and, with the assistance of Pylares and Electra, put to death Ægisthus and Clytemnestra (Hom. Od. i. 298; iii. 303-310; Hygin. 117). For this barbarous deed he was brought to trial, but was allowed to escape on account of his father. Tyndareus, father of Clytemnestra, was his accuser (Hygin. 119), or, according to another tradition, Perilaus, son of Icarus, and cousin of Clytemnestra (Paus. viii. 33, 2). He fled to Epirus, and there founded the city Argos Oresticon; but the district of Orestias is more properly in Macedonia (Strab. vii. 326). Suffering extremely from the stings of his conscience, he consulted the oracle of Delphi how he might best expiate his crime, when he was commanded to proceed to Tauris and to bring back the statue of Artemis or Diana Tauropolis. There was a law in that country that all strangers should be sacrificed to the goddess; and when Orestes and Pylares were found by some shepherds, they were brought to Thoas, king of Tauris, who ordered them to be delivered up to the priestess of Artemis, that they might be sacrificed. Iphigenia, the sister of Orestes, had been rescued from the altar when she was on the point of being sacrificed by orders of her father, and transferred by Artemis to be priestess in her temple in Tauris. Iphigenia
discovered on inquiry that the strangers were her own brother and his friend, and assisted them in carrying off the statue (Hygin. 120). Upon their return they are said to have passed through Cappadocia, and to have instituted the worship of Artemis or Diana at Comena and Castabela (Strab. xii. 535, 537). Another tradition made him be expiated by the Træzenian (Paus. ii. 31, 11). On the death of Menelaus, Orestes became king of Lacedæmon; and on the failure of the royal line of Megephenthes at Argos, he annexed that city to Mycenæ. He also acquired a great part of Arcadia, and was assisted by the Phocians (ii. 18, 5). In the latter part of his life he retired to Arcadia, and probably died by the bite of a serpent (Schol. Lycoph.) at Megea, whence his bones were afterwards transferred, in the reign of Anaxandrides, to Sparta (iii. 11, 8; Herodot. i. 67). He was married to Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, by whom he had Tisamenos, who succeeded him (Hygin. 122); and by Erigone, daughter of Ægisthus and Clytemnestra, he had Pentheus (Schol. Lycoph. 1374).