Chapter 17, The Return from Troy
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♦ Lost painting, possibly by Polygnotos, in Pinakotheke from Propylaia of Athenian Akropolis
♠ Pausanias Description of Greece 1.22.6
On the left of the gateway [to the Athenian Akropolis] is a building with pictures… There in the pictures is Orestes killing Aegisthus, and Pylades killing the sons of Nauplius who had come to bring Aegisthus succor. Greek Text
♠ Parian Marble 239F25 – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 2, pp. 681-82, ed. F. Jacoby, 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
♠ Apollodoros, Epitome 6.25
And not long afterwards, being afflicted with madness and pursued by the Furies, he repaired to Athens and was tried in the Areopagus. He is variously said to have been brought to trial by the Furies, or by Tyndareus, or by Erigone, daughter of Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra. Greek Text
♠ Diktys Cretensis, De bello Troiano 6.4
This acquittal so grieved Orestes’ half-sister, Erigone, who was the daughter of Aegisthus, that she hanged herself. Latin Text
♠ Etymologicum Magnum seu verius Lexicon, (s. Aiôra), ed. T. Gaisford. Oxford 1848.
♠ Hellanikos 4F169a – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 1, pp. 146-47, ed. F. Jacoby, 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
♠ Scholia Ab at Homer, Iliad 22.29 – Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem 2, pp. 232-33, ed. W. Dindorf and E. Maass. Oxford 1875.
♠ Apollodoros, Epitome 6.28
and having come to Mycenae, he united his sister Electra in marriage to Pylades, and having himself married Hermione, or, according to some, Erigone, he begat Tisamenus, and was killed by the bite of a snake at Oresteum in Arcadia. Greek Text
♠ Kinaithon fr 4 PEG – Poetae Epici Graeci 1, p. 116, ed. A. Bernabé. Leipzig 1987.
Kinaithon in his epic poem said that Erigone, daughter of Aigysthos, bore Penthilos, a natural son of Orestes. (Transl. E Bianchelli)
♠ Hyginus, Fabulae 122
ALETES: To Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, a messenger came, falsely saying that her brother and Pylades had been sacrificed in Taurica to Diana. When Aletes, Aegisthus’son, heard that no-one of the race of the Atreidae survived, he seized the kingly power in Mycenae. But Electra went to Delphi to inquire about her brother’s violent death. She came thee the same day that Iphigenia and Orestes arrived. The same messenger who had reported about Orestes, said That Iphigenia was the murderess of her brother. When Electra heard this, she seized a burning firebrand from the altar, and in her ignorance would have blinded her sister Iphigenia if Orestes had not intervened. After this recognition they came to Mycenae, and Orestes killed Aletes, son of Aegisthus, and would have killed Erigone, daughter of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, but Diana rescued her and made her a priestess in the Attic land. Orestes, moreover, after Neoptolemus was slain, married Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, and Pylades married Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Latin Text
Artistic source edited by Frances Van Keuren, Prof. Emerita, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Univ. of Georgia, August 2022
Literary sources edited by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, March 2023
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