Orestes was the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra who with his friend
Pylades and the aid of Electra murdered his mother and her lover Aegisthus and thus avenged the murder of his father. His name appears to mean 'mountain dweller', from oresteros, 'mountainous' (from oros, 'mountain'). As a boy he grew up in Phocis which has high mountainous country around Delphi.
