Euripides and Sophocles wrote their own versions of Electra's story. The basic plot is as follows: Agamemnon is killed by Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus after returning from the Trojan War to reclaim his sister-in-law Helen of the Trojans. Electra and her brother Orestes plot to kill their mother and her lover to avenge her death. Both authors wrote about the same plot, but constructed the story very differently. Sophocles focused on Orestes, and Euripides focused more on the life of Electra. In Sophocles' version, the play opens with Orestes learning his fate from the Pythian Oracle; he must avenge his father's death alone and unarmed. He sends his pedagogue Pylades, as a spy, to find out the situation in Mycenae. Electra mourns her father's death. He is unable to avenge his father's murders without the help of Orestes, his brother. She is also angry at the way her mother and her lover waste her father's wealth and desecrate his name. Her half-sister Chrysothemis does not help Electra and refuses to help in the murder of her mother and her lover. Pylades arrives bringing the sad news of Orestes' death. He tells Clytemnestra that Orestes was killed in a chariot race at the Delphic games; his body was cremated and his ashes were sent to Mycenae. Concealing his identity, Orestes arrives and, with the help of Electra and Pylades, plots the murder of his mother and his mother's lover. Orestes enters the palace, kills his mother and returns to Electra. When Aegisthus arrives, Orestes kills him too, fulfilling his destiny. Euripides' version is much more dramatic. The play begins with Electra's marriage to a peasant. Aegisthus had attempted to kill Electra but Clytemnestra convinced him to allow her to live. He decided to marry her to a peasant so that his children would be born humbly and not pose a threat to his throne. Orestes and Pylades arrive. Orestes says he came to the sanctuary of Apollo to pledge to avenge his father's murder. Orestes, hiding his identity, talks to Electra about recent events in Mycenae. He admits that he is sad that his brother was taken away at such a young age and that the only person who would recognize him would be his father's old servant. He also discusses his contempt for Aegisthus desecrating the monument on Agamemnon's tomb and his mockery of Orestes..