The Oresteia concerns all of the above as well as individual conscience, a sort of prototype
democracy (e.g., trial by
jury), and the manual end of a cycle of
violence - to name a few. It is a
trilogy about the exceedingly
dysfunctional family of
Atreus, of the house of
Argos.
Agamemnon is set in Argos after the Trojan War, and shows the curse, which was laid by Atreus' brother Thyestes, working on the next generation. Agamemnon had sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia and had offended the gods with destruction of their temples. On his return to Argos, he is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus (Thyestes' only surviving son - so he has his own reasons for murdering him). Agamemnon ends with Clytemnestra and Aegisthus tyrannizing the city while the chorus wistfully anticipates Orestes' return as the city's salvation.
At the start of The Libation Bearers, Orestes has secrectly returned to Argos to avenge his father.
Modern playwrights' versions: