Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra, in Greek legend, a daughter of Leda and Tyndareus and wife of Agamemnon, commander of the Greek forces in the Trojan War. She took Aegisthus as her lover while Agamemnon was away at war.

Orestes
Orestes, in Greek mythology, son of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae (or Argos), and his wife, Clytemnestra. According to Homer, Orestes was away when his father returned from Troy to meet his death at the hands of Aegisthus, his wife’s lover.

Aegisthus
The Trojan War lasted ten years. During this period of Agamemnon’s long absence, Clytemnestra began a love affair with Aegisthus, her husband’s cousin. Whether Clytemnestra was seduced into the affair or entered into it independently differs according to the respective author of the myth.

Clytemnestra was angry with her husband, both because of her daughter’s sacrifice, as well as because Agamemnon had killed her first husband and taken her by force.

Clytemnestra. The play’s protagonist, Clytemnestra is Agamemnon’s wife and has ruled Argos in his absence. She plans his murder with ruthless determination, and feels no guilt after his death; she is convinced of her own rectitude and of the justice of killing the man who killed her daughter.

Menoetius
Patroclus was the son of Menoetius by either Philomela or Polymele, Sthenele, Periopis, or lastly Damocrateia. His only sibling was Myrto, mother of Eucleia by Heracles. Homer also references Menoetius as the individual who gave Patroclus to Peleus.

Electra then married Orestes’ friend Pylades. The plays of the same name written by Sophocles and Euripides and the Choephoroi by Aeschylus vary the theme in detail.

She married a man with a similarly powerful lineage, Agamemnon of House Atreus, King of Mycenae. Division between Clytemnestra and her husband began with the Trojan War. Agamemnon and Menelaus’ fleet, set to sail for Troy, was stuck at harbor, with no wind to carry it.

As shown in Agamemnon, by Aeschylus, Clytemnestra is independent and intelligent and she uses these skills, combined with her womanly wiles, to create a trap for Agamemnon. The murder is obviously premeditated, showing that she is cold and calculating and willing to go to any means to achieve her goals.

When the Greek fleet is becalmed at Aulis, thus preventing movement of the expeditionary force against Troy, Agamemnon is told that he must sacrifice Iphigenia to appease the goddess Artemis, who has caused the unfavourable weather. Agamemnon lures his daughter to Aulis by pretending that she will marry Achilles.

Aegisthus and Agamemnon’s fathers were brothers. Agamemnon’s father Atreus killed several of Aegisthus’ brothers and fed them to their father Thyestes. After Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon, Aegisthus justifies his involvement by saying that the murder of Agamemnon also avenges Atreus’s crime against Aegisthus’s family.

According to Homer, Achilles was brought up by his mother at Phthia with his inseparable companion Patroclus. Later non-Homeric tales suggest that Patroclus was Achilles’ kinsman or lover.