Previously, on Atreus

Welcome to my first author post!  Very simple - just a set up and background information to prepare for the onslaught of words, words, and bloodshed to come....

By the time of Aeschylus (b. 513 B.C., d. 456 B.C.) Greek tragedy traditions were largely set.  Athenian festivals consisted of three groups, each consisting of three actors and a chorus, acting out sets of four plays. Aeschylus was said to have won first prize in the dramatic contest 13 times while alive, but even in death he kept rakin’ ‘em in against other, more living, playwrights.  Crazy!  Of the 70+ plays he’s credited with, only 7 survive: The Suppliants, The Persians, The Seven Against Thebes, Prometheus Bound, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides.  All of them some of the finest, clearest action taking place in a play yet today.  Pretty good stuff, and undeniably human.  Who hasn’t felt that a certain murder would be justifiable?

The first three plays I’m detailing by Aeschylus are the extant parts of the Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides... but there’s an awful lot that happens before the curtains went up, so to speak, that was common knowledge to Greeks in the audience.  Dramatists of the time rarely worked directly from the Illiad or the Odyssey; the less authoritative texts were much more useful.  Here’s a summary of the legend Aeschylus utilized:

1. Atreus and Thyestes, brothers, fought after Thyestes seduced Atreus’ wife and disputed the throne of Argos.
2. Thyestes was driven out, but returned with his children as a supplicant.
3. Atreus pretended to forgive him and took him in, then slaughtered all but one of his children (Aegisthus, a simpering bitch, survived), cooked them into an apparently enormous pie, which he then fed to Thyestes, who was, understandably, pissed the hell off (gee).
4. Thyestes and his infant son flee, cursing the House of Atreus.  Damn.
5. Atreus had two sons: Agamemnon and Menelaus.  Agamemnon married Clytaemnestra, Menelaus married Helen of Troy.  Cly and Ag had three kids: Iphigeneia, Electra, and Orestes.
6. Oh noes! That philandering Spartan Paris of Troy stole Helen!  Obviously the thing to do is launch a thousand ships full of warriors to reclaim her!  Obviously!
7. But worse news!  There are gods that are angry with you and won’t let you go!  What do you do?  Sacrifice your daughter, Iphigeneia.  No, seriously, take her down to the sea and have a priest slit her open like a goat in front of the whole city.  You can’t argue with success, apparently - shortly thereafter the fleet launches.
8. This really, really doesn’t sit well with mom (Cly).  She takes Agamemnon’s cousin Aegisthus as her lover during the 10 years Agamemnon is crusading across the sea, and in her heart holds a grudge, and plans...

Next time, on Atreus: Homecoming! Prophecy! Revenge! Murder!