Pylades | King of Phocis

Pilades is the son of Strophius, king of Phocis, and Anaxibia, daughter of Atreus and Aetrope. When Orestes, his cousin, took refuge in his house, they became great friends. After Agamemnon's death, Orestes killed Clytemnestra, and Pillades killed Aegistus.

Piliades married Electra and, according to Helanicus of Lesbos, had two sons, Medon and Strophius. The myth of Orestes, elements of which can be found in the Odyssey, the Catalogue of Heroines, the poem Oresteia, and in Pythia XI, tells of the events that occurred upon King Agamemnon's return to Argos.

After the death of the commander of the Trojan war, Aegistus and his accomplice Queen Clytemnestra turned to Orestes, the son of the dead king, since once the rightful heir to the throne was eliminated, both would be safe and free from vengeance for the blood spilled.

Orestes, freed from death by his sister Electra, was taken to the court of Strophius king of Crisis where he grew up safe and was able to gain the friendship of Pilades, the king's son. Upon coming of age, Orestes obeyed Apollo's orders and returned to Argos with Pillades, by then an inseparable friend, to avenge the terrible crime committed by Aegistus and his own mother, Clytemnestra.

Obtained the help of Electra, who introduces him to the palace, and by the inseparable Pílades, who urges him to act when he hesitates before the bare breasts of the suppliant mother, Orestes executes Apollo's justice.

The germ of the tragic that inspired so many in antiquity emerges in the myth: the condition of man faced with the demands of powers beyond his control, leading to actions whose crushing consequences he cannot avoid.

Faced with the execution of his mother, the madness and torment of the Furies, the avengers of crimes against inbreds, come upon Orestes, who had committed matricide! Purified of his crime by Apollo in Delphi, and freed from the Furies after a trial in Athens, presided over by the goddess Athena herself, Orestes was ordered to leave in search of a statue of Artemis in Tháurida, which could free him from madness.