Death of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra
As an adult, Orestes returns to Mycenae/Argos seeking revenge for the death of Agamemnon. With his friend Pylades' assistance, Orestes murders mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. While Pylades seems to be a very minor character, he is arguably the most vital piece of Orestes' plan to avenge his father. In The Libation Bearers, the second play of Aeschylus' trilogy Orestia, Pylades speaks only once. His lines come at the moment Orestes begins to falter and second guess his decision to kill his mother. It is Pylades who convinces Orestes to follow through with his plan for revenge and carry out the murder. The significance of Pylades' lines has invited speculation into whether or not he might represent something more than human next to Orestes; he might play the role of divine encouragement or fate.
Pylades accompanies Orestes, but does not speak in other versions of Orestes' and Electra's revenge story: Sophocles' Electra and Euripides' Electra. In Sophocles' version Orestes pretends to be dead and Pylades carries the urn supposedly holding his friend's remains.
Read more about this topic: Pylades
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