Aeschylus - The Libation-Bearers

“For word of hate let word of hate be said, cries Justice.

Stroke for bloody stroke must be paid.

The one who acts must suffer…”


Produced in 458 BC, Aeschylus' The Libation-Bearers is the second play in the Oresteian trilogy, and recounts the aftermath of Clytemnestra's murder of king Agamemnon. 


Orestes has been living in exile and has come back to Argos in secret to avenge his father's death.


The Libation-Bearers is the second of the three connected tragedies that make up The Oresteia trilogy by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus, (preceded by Agamemnon and followed by The Eumenides). 


The trilogy as a whole is considered to be Aeschylus’ greatest, work, and depicts the reunion of Agamemnon's children, Electra and Orestes, as they take their revenge by killing Clytemnestra and Aegisthus in this latest phase of the curse of the House of Atreus.


At its core, The Libation-Bearers is a play about vengeance, bitterness and fear, an Ancient Greek tale of a husband murdered by his adulterous wife, who in turn is murdered along with her lover by her vengeful son.




AESCHYLUS (525-456 BC) is one of three ancient Greek tragedians (along with Sophocles and Euripides) whose plays have survived down through the centuries. Although he is said to have written over seventy plays, only a few have survived.



He was the playwright who first made Athenian tragedy one of the world's great art forms, although in his epitaph he preferred to be remembered as one of those who fought the Persians at Marathon. 


His most famous plays include Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, The Oresteia, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides, and Prometheus Bound.