Orestes

In Greek mythology, Orestes (English pronunciation: /ɒˈrɛstiːz/; Ancient Greek: Ὀρέστης [oˈrestɛːs]) was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness and purification, which retain obscure threads of much older ones. Orestes has a root in ὄρος (óros), "mountain". The metaphoric meaning of the name is the person "who can conquer mountains". In the Homeric story, Orestes was a member of the doomed house of Atreus which is descended from Tantalus and Niobe. Orestes was absent from Mycenae when his father, Agamemnon, returned from the Trojan War with the Trojan princess Cassandra as his concubine, and thus not present for Agamemnon's murder by his...