Between Stesichorus and Aeschylus, the only poet who illustrates the story of Orestes is Pindar. In the eleventh Pythian ode (478 B.C.), he describes a victory in the Pythian games as won ‘in the rich corn-lands of Pylades, host of Laconian Orestes; whom, when his sire was murdered, the nurse Arsinoè rescued from the violent hands of Clytaemnestra and from her deadly guile.’ That ‘pitiless woman’ slew Aga memnon and Cassandra. What, asks Pindar, was her motive? Was it ‘the slaying of Iphigeneia at the Euripus’? Or was it an adulterous passion? ‘Meanwhile, Orestes, a young child, became the guest of the aged Strophius, who dwelt at the foot of Parnassus. But in time, with the help of Ares, he slew his mother, and laid Aegisthus in blood1.’ Three points in this sketch are noteworthy. (1) Pindar makes Orestes ‘a Laconian’; following the tradition, adopted also by Stesichorus and Simonides2, that Amyclae in Lacedaemon was the place where Agamemnon was slain3. (2) The house of Strophius, ‘at the foot of Parnassus,’ is the refuge of Orestes; and Pylades is his friend. Probably the Nostoi (circ. 750 B.C.), in which Pylades figured, gave this account; but Pindar is the earliest extant source of it4. (3) Clytaem nestra, not Aegisthus, is in the foreground; and the speculation as to her motive reminds us that the myth had now grown into a shape which was ready for dramatic handling. Twenty years after this ode was written, Aeschylus produced his Oresteia.
Aeschylus. |
