Apollo gives an order through the Oracle at Delphi that Agamemnon's son, Orestes, is to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, her lover.

On Agamemnon's return from Troy he was murdered ( according to the fullest version of the oldest surviving account, Odyssey 11. 409 – 11 ) by Aegisthus, the lover of his wife Clytemnestra.

Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, had taken Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, as a lover.

When Agamemnon came home he was slain by either Aegisthus ( in the oldest versions of the story ) or Clytemnestra.

Aegisthus and Clytemnestra then ruled Agamemnon's kingdom for a time, Aegisthus claiming his right of revenge for Agamemnon's father Atreus having fed Thyestes his own children ( Thyestes then crying out " So perish all the race of Pleisthenes!

Agamemnon's son Orestes later avenged his father's murder, with the help or encouragement of his sister Electra, by murdering Aegisthus and Clytemnestra ( his own mother ), thereby inciting the wrath of the Erinyes ( English: the Furies ), winged goddesses who tracked down egregiously impious wrongdoers with their hounds ' noses and drove them to insanity.

Aegisthus and Thyestes thereafter ruled over Mycenae jointly, exiling Atreus ' sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus to Sparta, where King Tyndareus gave the pair his daughters, Clytemnestra and Helen, to take as wives.

While Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, was absent on his expedition against Troy, Aegisthus seduced Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, and was so wicked as to offer up thanks to the gods for the success with which his criminal exertions were crowned.

Unbeknownst to Agamemnon, while he was away at war, his wife, Clytemnestra, had begun an affair with Aegisthus.

In Aeschylus's Oresteia, the story is begun with Agamemnon's return home, to find that his wife, Clytemnestra, had married her lover, Aegisthus.

Incidentally, Telemachus learns the fate of Menelaus ’ brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks at Troy: he was murdered on his return home by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.

Many of the Greek wives were persuaded to betray their husbands, most significantly Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, who was seduced by Aegisthus, son of Thyestes.

His wife Clytemnestra ( Helen's sister ) was having an affair with Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, Agamemnon's cousin who had conquered Argos before Agamemnon himself retook it.

He killed Clytemnestra and Aegisthus and succeeded to his father's throne.

In Euripides ’ other story about Iphigenia, Iphigenia in Tauris, the play takes place after the sacrifice and after Orestes has killed Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.

She and her brother Orestes plotted revenge against their mother Clytemnestra and stepfather Aegisthus for the murder of their father, Agamemnon.

Electra was absent from Mycenae when her father, King Agamemnon, returned from the Trojan War to be murdered, either by Clytemnestra's lover Aegisthus, by Clytemnestra herself, or by both.

Aegisthus and Clytemnestra also killed Cassandra, Agamemnon's war prize, a prophet-priestess of Troy.

Pylades and Orestes killed Clytemnestra and Aegisthus ( in some accounts with Electra helping ).

On the other hand, Sophocles does mention her, and hints that she lives in the palace of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, together with Electra and Chrysothemis.

With his friend Pylades ' assistance, Orestes murders mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.

While he was fighting the Trojans, his wife Clytemnestra, infuriated by the murder of her daughter, began an affair with Aegisthus.

When Agamemnon left Mycenae for the Trojan War, Aegisthus seduced his wife, Clytemnestra, and the couple plotted to kill her husband upon his return.

In Aeschylus ' Oresteia trilogy, Clytemnestra kills her husband, King Agamemnon because he had sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia to proceed forward with the Trojan war, and Cassandra, a prophetess of Apollo.

Agamemnon and Clytemnestra had four children: one son, Orestes, and three daughters, Iphigenia, Electra and Chrysothemis.

Unable to return to Greece, she emigrated to the United States, where she had earlier appeared in 1931, performing Clytemnestra in a modern Greek version of Electra.

Tyndareus had two ill-starred daughters, Helen and Clytemnestra, whom Menelaus and Agamemnon married, respectively.

After the war, Agamemnon, returning, was greeted royally with a red carpet rolled out for him and then was slain in his bathtub by Clytemnestra, who hated him bitterly for having ordered the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia ( although the life of the latter had been saved ).

In the original illustrations, which were done by Thackeray, Becky is shown behind a curtain with a vial in her hand ; the picture is labelled " Becky's second appearance in the character of Clytemnestra " ( she had played Clytemnestra during charades at a party earlier in the book ).

Clytemnestra had held a grudge against her husband Agamemnon for murdering their eldest daughter, Iphigenia, as sacrifice to Artemis or Athena ( disputed ).

Upon his arrival that evening, before the great banquet she had prepared, Clytemnestra drew a bath for him and when he came out of the bath, she put the royal purple robe on him which had no opening for his head.

According to Euripides's Orestes, Tyndareus was still alive at the time of Menelaus's return, and was trying to secure the death penalty for his grandson Orestes due to the latter's murder of Tyndareus's daughter, Clytemnestra, but according to other accounts he had died prior to the Trojan War.

Clytemnestra believes the murder was justified, since Agamemnon had sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia before the war, as commanded by the gods.

While at Mycenae, Hermione presumably would have met her cousins Iphigenia ( whom most sources say was the daughter of Helen's sister, Clytemnestra and Menelaus ' brother, Agamemnon, although others say that Clytemnestra had taken pity on Helen and adopted Iphigenia from her ) and Electra and their younger brother Orestes.

A fragment of the play may indicate that Artemis appeared to console Clytemnestra and assure her that her daughter had not been sacrificed after all, but this Euripidean end, if it existed, is not extant.

While the old servant goes to lure Clytemnestra to Electra's house by telling her that her daughter has had a baby, Orestes sets off and kills Aegisthus and returns with the body.

Another prominent example of anagnorisis in tragedy is in Aeschylus's " The Choephoroi " (" Libation Bearers ") when Electra recognizes her brother, Orestes, after he has returned to Argos from his exile, at the grave of their father, Agamemnon, who had been murdered at the hands of Clytemnestra, their mother.

The play recounts the story of Orestes and his sister Electra in their quest to avenge the death of their father Agamemnon, king of Argos, by killing their mother Clytemnestra and her husband Aegisthus, who had deposed and killed him.

Most recently she played a lizard in Edward Albee's Seascape and took a sabbatical from the Alley during the 2000-2001 season to perform Clytemnestra, Helen of Troy and Andromache in John Barton's 10-hour epic Tantalus, directed by Sir Peter Hall, which originated at Denver Center Theatre Company ( co-produced by the RSC ) and had a five-month UK tour.

In the mistaken belief that her husband Agamemnon had murdered their daughter Iphigenia, Clytemnestra then killed Agamemnon.

In later examples such as the Treasury of Atreus and Tomb of Clytemnestra ( both at Mycenae ), all three parts were constructed of fine ashlar masonry.