The House of Atreus

About

Morshead's translation of the complete Oresteia trilogy — Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides — under the title The House of Atreus brings together the only complete surviving tragic trilogy from ancient Greece. The trilogy traces the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, Orestes' revenge, and his subsequent trial before the first Athenian jury — the mythological foundation of democratic law. It is simultaneously the most formally sophisticated, the most theologically complex, and the most politically visionary work of ancient drama. The Eumenides' invention of the jury trial as an alternative to blood-feud justice remains one of the most extraordinary theatrical arguments in any tradition.