Pylades

Son of Strophius of Phocis by Anaxibia, sister of Agamemnon — which makes him Orestes's first cousin. Raised together with Orestes at his father's court in Phocis during the years of Orestes's childhood exile from Mycenae. Stood beside Orestes through the matricide at Mycenae (Aesch. *Cho.* 20–21, 899–903 where Orestes turns to him in the single moment of hesitation), the Delphic refuge, the Areopagus trial, and the Tauric retrieval of Artemis's image (Eur. *IT* 67–92 for the pair's arrival in Taurica). Married Orestes's sister Electra after the cycle (Eur. *Electra* 1249 + Paus. 2.16.7). The friendship became the archetypal pair-of-friends in Greek literature — Cicero *De Amic.* 7.24 invokes the Pylades–Orestes bond as the Latin rhetorical commonplace.