Aegisthus

Agamemnon was murdered by Aegisthus, who had ruled Mycenae for seven years after killing him. Aegisthus had come to Mycenae while Agamemnon was away at Troy and had seduced Clytemnestra. Their rule followed the murder, while Agamemnon’s son Orestes was removed from the city. Electra, one of Agamemnon’s daughters, stole Orestes away and entrusted him to Strophios the Phocian. Strophios brought him up with his own son, Pylades.

When Orestes reached manhood, he went to Delphi and asked the god whether he should avenge his father’s murder. The god authorised the revenge. Orestes then left for Mycenae in secret, accompanied by Pylades. He returned to the place where Aegisthus ruled and killed him. In the account preserved by Homer, Orestes went from Athens to Mycenae to slay his father’s slayer, who had ruled there for seven years. He then arranged a funeral feast for his mother and for Aegisthus.

Some accounts make Orestes kill Clytemnestra as well as Aegisthus. After these killings, he was struck by madness and pursued by the Furies. He went to Athens, where he was tried in the Areiopagos. The votes were evenly divided, and he was acquitted. The accuser is variously said to have been the Furies, Tyndareus, or Erigone, the daughter of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra.

A watchman saw Agamemnon return from Troy and carried the news to Aegisthus. Aegisthus had kept the man on duty for a year and had promised him two talents of gold. He had stayed in Mycenae while Agamemnon fought abroad. He was the son of Thyestes. He had beguiled Clytemnestra with his words, though she first resisted him and still had a good heart. Agamemnon had left a singer to watch over her. Aegisthus took the singer to a deserted island and left him there, where birds later preyed on him. He then brought Clytemnestra into his house, and she gave in to him.

Agamemnon had nearly reached home when storms drove him from his course near the high promontory of Malea. The winds carried him towards the old dwelling place of Thyestes, where Aegisthus then lived. The gods later turned the winds back, and Agamemnon reached his native land. He kissed the soil and wept with joy. Aegisthus welcomed the chance he had awaited, laid his plot, and killed Agamemnon. After the deed, he sacrificed to the gods and offered them woven cloth and gold.

In one telling, Aegisthus carried out the killing while Clytemnestra stood beside him. In another, Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon herself. She acted because he had sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia and had returned from Troy with captive women, including Chryseis and Cassandra. Later tellings named Clytemnestra and Aegisthus together as the killers. Some tellings also differed over the tunic used in the murder.

Orestes later avenged Agamemnon by killing Aegisthus. The telling in which Aegisthus plotted and killed Agamemnon gave him the chief part in the deed, while other tellings gave Clytemnestra the greater part or made the pair act together.

After Atreus expelled Thyestes from the land, Thyestes sought revenge. He consulted an oracle and received this answer: he would succeed if he fathered a son by his own daughter. Thyestes therefore went to Pelopia, though the accounts differ about how this happened. In one version, Pelopia submitted out of duty. In another, Thyestes raped her unknowingly at Sicyon during nocturnal rites. Their child was Aegisthus.

Atreus and Thyestes were sons of Pelops. Atreus’s wife, Aerope, had been in love with Thyestes and had given him a golden lamb. Atreus had found the lamb among his flock, after failing to sacrifice it to Artemis as he had vowed. He had throttled it and hidden it in a chest. When the Mycenaeans sought a Pelopid to rule them, Thyestes declared that the man who possessed the golden lamb should become king. Atreus agreed, and Thyestes produced the lamb.

After Thyestes was expelled, Aegisthus grew to manhood. Atreus then sent him against Thyestes. Aegisthus carried a distinctive sword. When Thyestes saw it, he recognised it as the weapon connected with his union with Pelopia. He understood that Aegisthus was his own son and Pelopia’s child. The discovery changed the purpose of the encounter. Aegisthus learned the truth about his birth and turned against Atreus.

Aegisthus killed Atreus and restored the kingdom to Thyestes. He was therefore both Thyestes’s son and the instrument of his revenge. The discovery of his parentage came through the sword, which exposed the identity concealed since his birth.