A Lost Classic - Aeschylus' Proteus - Reimagined From Homer

I spent the night reading Aeschylus' Eumenides, Oresteia part 3. What a letdown. I guess the lost 4th play Proteus was the thing to catch the king.

I googled "Aeschylus Proteus" yesterday afternoon, but for once Homer's Odyssey is a better bet than the world wide web. Menelaus tells Telemachus the story directly, and I can easily imagine how Aeschylus would change it.

Homer brings Menelaus home for a tragic grief scene. In the satire play, Aeschyus would make Menelaus visit Athens. Menelaus, deluded by Proteus to imagine Athens to be his native Argos, shows how absurdly pompous Athenian leaders are in comparison with the returning hero. Then he meets Orestes his nephew, still living in Athens, now a sophist and teacher of youth, who tells him the tragic tale, and ends the four plays on a bizarre note of Menelaus realizing that he has got everything wrong. The home coming hero returns to the wrong home.