Pylades

Pylades grew up alongside Orestes in Phôkis, the companion named in the same breath as the oath sworn to remember what enemies tried to make him forget. He enters in travel-stained garb, grim and armed, and withdraws with Orestes to watch the libation bearers approach—the steady second presence behind a man who has almost no one. His loyalty is the quiet counterweight to the house's betrayals, and his silence at the tomb makes Orestes's isolation bearable. He matters because the vengeance plot needs at least one witness who chose it freely.