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[458] ἀκούετε refers to Odysseus and his companions, who on their travels might have heard of the lost Orestes. It is implied in v. 452 that Orestes was away from Mycenae when Agamemnon returned, so that the father's murder took place during the son's absence. It is best to take που in a local sense closely with ζώοντος, ‘alive anywhere,’ this ‘anywhere’ being further subdivided into the places suggested by Agamemnon as the possible scene of his sojourn. There seems no particular reason why these places are chosen, except as representing a refuge at a considerable distance from Mycenae. There is no clue given as to whether the Boeotian or Arcadian Orchomenus is intended; and we are surprised to have no allusion to Phocis or to Athens; see on Od. 3.307. Agamemnon takes for granted that his son is not dead; or they would have met among the shades.

Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901.

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