Clytemnestra Lydia, according to Plutarch's The Greek Questions, 45, having succeeded Omphale who had received from Herakles Hippolyte's (the queen of the Amazons') axe, carried this axe (called labrys by Lydians) as one of their sacred insignia of office. In the tradition following the Sicilian lyric poet Stesichorus's "Oresteia" Clytemnestra used such a double-edged ax to assist her lover Aegisthus in the killing of Agamemnon (and later, to attempt to kill her son Orestes, as he arrived to avenge his father's death), as depicted on the mixing bowl (calyx krater) with the killing of Agamemnon (Early Classical Period – about 460
Greek mythology libretti for many of Handel's and Mozart's operas. By the end of the 18th century, Romanticism initiated a surge of enthusiasm for all things Greek, including Greek mythology. In Britain, new translations of Greek tragedies and Homer inspired contemporary poets (such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Keats, Byron and Shelley) and painters (such as Lord Leighton and Lawrence Alma-Tadema). Christoph Gluck, Richard Strauss, Jacques Offenbach and many others set Greek mythological themes to music. American authors of the 19th century, such as Thomas Bulfinch and Nathaniel Hawthorne, held that the study of the classical myths was essential to the understanding of