Oresteia

The only complete surviving Greek tragic trilogy, staging the murder of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra, her murder in turn by their son Orestes, and Orestes's eventual trial and acquittal before a jury founded by Athena. The trilogy dramatizes the shift from a cycle of familial blood-vengeance to civic justice administered by law, closing with the ancient Furies transformed into protective guardians of Athens. Its three plays, Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides, were performed together at the City Dionysia in 458 BC and won first prize. Its central tension pits the ancient Furies, who pursue Orestes for spilling his mother's blood regardless of her own guilt, against Apollo's claim that Orestes acted justly, a deadlock only Athena's founding of the Areopagus court, and her own tie-breaking vote, resolves.