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Rh face him; and Clytemnestra had, besides, this charge against him, that he had sacrificed her daughter Iphigenia to appease the goddess Artemis, whose wrath had kept the whole Grecian fleet becalmed at Aulis. Moreover, Agamemnon too was found unfaithful, for he brought with him Cassandra, the inspired daughter of Priam, to be his concubine. And so Agamemnon died, and Clytemnestra and Ægisthus reigned in Argos; but Orestes, son of Agamemnon, when he became a man, was charged by Apollo to avenge the murder of his father. And he obeyed, and killed both Ægisthus and his mother. Then the dark deities who pursue impious murderers drove the matricide in misery from land to land, until at last his cause was tried, and Apollo pleaded for him before the high court of Areopagus at Athens, and Minerva, the patron goddess of the city, gave the casting-vote that set him free. And so at last the curse was put away, and the Furies, who had been cruel powers, became beneficent, and a temple was assigned to them in Athens, and they were called the Kind Ones.

Such are the outlines of the story. In the "Agamemnon" is represented the death of the king; in the "Choephori," the vengeance of Orestes; in the "Eumenides," his trial and deliverance; the three plays thus forming one connected whole, or Trilogy. Since this Trilogy is universally regarded as one of the greatest works of human art, while some perhaps would admit no rival to it, we must try at the outset to show in what direction the features of its greatness are to be looked for.