This content is from Wikipedia. We do not consider this content professional or citable. Please use your discretion when relying on it. GradeSaver also offers a professionally written study guide by one of our staff editors.

Introduction

The Oresteia (Ὀρέστεια) is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus which concerns the end of the curse on the House of Atreus. When originally performed it was accompanied by Proteus, a satyr play that would have been performed following the trilogy; it has not survived. The term "Oresteia" originally probably referred to all four plays, but today is generally used to designate only the surviving trilogy. "The individual plays probably did not originally have titles of their own"^[1] The only surviving example of a trilogy of ancient Greek plays, The Oresteia was originally performed at the Dionysia festival in Athens in 458 BC, where it won first prize. Overall, this trilogy marks the shift from a system of vendetta in Argos to a system of litigation in Athens.