Clytaemnestra was murdered six days ago; the pyre on which her body burned is still warm. She murdered Agamemnon in the first year of the war; his tomb is some hundred yards from the palace, next to her tomb. Euripides’ Orestes begins at this moment. The war is over, at least onedirty and hateful war is over. Yesterday Menelaus disembarked in Nauplia and today, at dawn, Helen sneaked into the palace. “Home from Troy at last,” Menelaus says. “How happy I am to see this house once more.” I was astounded when, at the opening night of Orestes and at all following performances, the audience received this line, Menelaus’ first, with jeering laughter.

In his introduction to the translation, William Arrowsmith has underlined the most striking aspect of Orestes: in no other Greek plays, with the possible exception of Aristophanes, has anachronism as a method of political and artistic provocation been carried so far.