The Oresteia

The most famous series of ancient Greek plays, and the only surviving trilogy, is theOresteiaof Aeschylus, consisting ofAgamemnon,Choephoroe, andEumenides. These three plays recount the murder of Agamemnon by his queen Clytemnestra on his return from Troy with the captive Trojan princess Cassandra; the murder in turn of Clytemnestra by their son Orestes; and Orestes' subsequent pursuit by the Avenging Furies (Eumenides) and eventual absolution. Hugh Lloyd-Jones's informative notes elucidate the text, and introductions to each play set the trilogy against the background of Greek religion as a whole and Greek tragedy in particular, providing a balanced assessment of Aeschylus's dramatic art.

Alan Shapiro is Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of numerous volumes of poetry, including The Dead Alive and Busy, winner of the 2001 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award Peter Burian is Professor of Classical Studies at Duke University