Definition of: Orestes

(ô·res′tēz, ō-)
In Greek legend, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra who, aided by his sister Electra, killed his mother and Aegisthus, her lover, to avenge his father's murder; he was then pursued by the Furies until Athena granted him absolution. In another version he expiated his guilt by carrying off an image of Artemis from Tauris to Greece with the aid of his sister Iphigenia. [<L <Gk. Orestēs <oros, oreos a mountain]