Penthilus Penthilus Penthilus (; Ancient Greek: Πένθιλος) is the illegitimate or legitimate son of half-siblings Orestes and Erigone in Greek mythology. Penthilus' grandmother was Clytemnestra. His maternal and paternal grandfathers were Aigisthos and Agamemnon respectively. Orestes killed both Clytemnestra, who was his own mother and Aigisthos. Erigone is said to have hanged herself or married Orestes after Orestes' first wife, Hermione died. Orestes was ruler over much of the Peloponnese and died of a snakebite at age 70. One story says that as a child, Penthilus was torn apart and devoured by wolves in the Taygetus mountains, near Sparta. His father
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