Soon after, Orestes and Pylades start enacting the plan: disguised as far-away guests, they gain access to the royal palace by announcing the supposed death of Orestes. The two reunite and devise a plan on how to kill Clytemnestra. Noticing a group of women approaching the tomb with apparently the same mission, Orestes withdraws, only to recognize his sister Electra among the libation bearers, cursing their mother and praying for his return. Accompanied by his friend Pylades, he stops by at the tomb of his father – located just in front of the palace – and makes an offering. The play is set in front of the palace of Argos, where, many years after the murder of his father Agamemnon by his mother Clytemnestra and her partner, Aegisthus, Orestes returns from exile to exact vengeance, commanded by the god Apollo. First performed in 458 BC, Libation Bearers is the second play in Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy, preceded by Agamemnon and followed by Eumenides.
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