After the lapse of a single year and after his ‘acquittal’ by the Areopagus, Orestes may again return to the city of Argos. This return is announced prophetically by Apollo to Menelaus, when he says[104]:
Thou, Menelaus, yield that Orestes reign
In Argos: haste to Sparta, reign thou there....
It shall be mine t’ appease the State to him,
Compelled by my command to slay his mother.
The Problem of Pylades
We may now consider a problem concerning Pylades which is presented by this drama. As in Aeschylus and in Sophocles, so in Euripides, Pylades co-operates with Orestes in avenging Agamemnon. But in Euripides the guilt of Pylades is more clearly emphasised. Hence, we hear for the first time that he is punished. He tells Orestes[105]:
My father in his rage hath banished me.
We saw that in Greek law the plotter, the co-operator, was as guilty as the actual slayer.[106] Hence the problem of Pylades’ guilt depends on that of Orestes’ guilt. If therefore Strophius, the King of the Phocian land, punishes Pylades pendente lite,[107] we attribute this to the autocratic power of a king on the one hand, and on the other to the general principle of Greek law that an accused person was presumed to be guilty until he had established his innocence.[108] Now, in the Electra[109] Castor and Pollux declare that Electra will marry Pylades and that he will take her to his home, but there is a suggestion that a brief period of time, probably one year, must elapse before this event takes place. We presume that he would be permitted by his father to return, in obedience to the divine decree. In the Orestes he is still an exile from his home, as the guilt which he shares with Orestes has not yet been atoned by exile. But has he any legal right to remain in Argos? Orestes warns him that his life is in danger there, but Pylades replies that the Argives have no power to punish him[110]: