In the Greek Mythology, Oreste (in Greek old Ὀρέστης / Oréstês ) is a Atride, wire of the king Agamemnon and Clytemnestre, and brother of Iphigénie and Electra like according to Sophocle de Chrysothèmis.

Myth

It is still promised in marriage child to his cousin Hermione, before the Trojan War.

Oreste is still very young when Agamemnon, of return of Troy, is assassinated by Clytemnestre and its lover Égisthe. Electra, fearing for the life of her brother, succeeds in entrusting it to their uncle Strophios, in Phocide. Over there, it binds friendship with his cousin Pylade.

Arrived at the adulthood, Oreste returns to Argos, accompanied by Pylade, to carry out the oracle Apollon: to avenge his/her father by killing Égisthe and Clytemnestre. This last crime, although being able to be seen as a right revenge (if the law of Retaliation is followed), makes of Oreste a matricide, one bet for its city, and the gods make it torment by the Érinyes. Continued without slackening, in prey with momentary crises of madness, Oreste ends up arriving at Athens where the assembly of the citizens, joined together on the hill of the Aréopage, decides, on the councils of Athéna, to exonerate it murder of his/her mother.

Thereafter, Oreste keep silent Néoptolème, which had benefitted from its state to remove Hermione. It reigns at its sides on Argos and generates a son, Tisamène, which will succeed to him.

Sources

• (II, 16; VI, 13-14 and 24-28).

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• (CCLVII).
• (II, 16,7; II, 18,6; II, 29,4).
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See too

• Atrides
• Pylade