PLATE XXXIII
The Death of Aigisthos
The personages of this tragic episode are identified by the names inscribed beside them. Orestes, the young man in the centre, thrusts his sword into the body of Aigisthos and looks back half-fearfully, half-defiantly at his mother Klytaimestra, who (in a panel on the opposite side of the vase) endeavours to wrest from Talthybios a double-axe with which to defend her paramour. The terrified maiden is Chrysothemis, a sister of Orestes, who is but little known in legend. From a red-figured pelike of the style of Euthymides (early fifth century b.c.), in Vienna (Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, No. 72). See p. 135.
