Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra’s ghost roused the sleeping Erinyes and called on them to pursue her son, Orestes. In one telling, her ghost appeared among the dead. In another, she appeared in a dream. The Erinyes answered her call because Orestes had killed a close blood relation. Their ancient law demanded punishment for the killing of a mother. Orestes had committed matricide, although he said that Apollo had ordered him to avenge the murder of his father, Agamemnon.

The Erinyes pursued Orestes after he killed Clytemnestra and Aigisthos. The killing drove him into madness, and he went to Athens while the Furies harried him. In Aeschylus’ Eumenides, the Erinyes appeared as real and physical beings. They had come from darkness and Tartarus beneath the earth. Blood filled their eyes, serpents covered their hair, and wings carried them. They fed on blood and demanded punishment for Orestes. They chased him from Delphi as he travelled to Athens and sought protection from Athena.

Athena ordered the case to be judged at the Areopagus. The Erinyes questioned Orestes and accused him. Apollo defended him and repeated that the killing had avenged Agamemnon’s death. The votes at the trial were evenly divided, so Orestes was acquitted. Athena and Apollo then calmed the Erinyes. They were called the Eumenides, which meant Kindly Ones.

Their form differed between tellings. In Euripides’ Orestes, the Erinyes existed only in Orestes’ mind, and he was the only person who saw them. He said that they first appeared at night. At the end of Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, they likewise appeared as a manifestation of his madness. In Eumenides, they appeared as physical figures. Orestes then faced the court in Athens, and his acquittal ended their pursuit of him.

While Agamemnon was away at Troy, Aegisthus came to Mycenae and began a relationship with Clytemnestra. He was the son of Thyestes and, in one account, Agamemnon’s cousin. Clytemnestra had first been married to Tantalus, son of Thyestes, but Agamemnon killed Tantalus and took her as his wife. She later bore Agamemnon Iphigeneia, also called Iphianassa, Electra, also called Laodice, Chrysothemis, and Orestes.

Clytemnestra’s hatred of Agamemnon was linked to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. When adverse winds held the Greek forces at Aulis, the seer Calchas declared that Artemis was angry because Agamemnon had killed a deer sacred to her. He said that Iphigeneia had to be sacrificed so that the Greeks could sail to Troy. Agamemnon summoned his daughter by claiming that she would marry Achilles. After the sacrifice, Clytemnestra did not forgive him. Another account presents her anger as connected with Agamemnon’s infidelity with Trojan women, including Chryseis and Cassandra.

During Agamemnon’s long absence, Aegisthus took his place in Clytemnestra’s household and court. The two lovers plotted against Agamemnon. When he returned from Troy, he brought Cassandra with him. In one account, Aegisthus and Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon, Cassandra, and the twin boys Cassandra had borne to him. Aegisthus attacked Agamemnon with a sword while he was trapped in the bath, and Clytemnestra cut off his head. Another account says that Aegisthus killed Agamemnon at a feast, with Clytemnestra’s help.

The tragedian Aeschylus gives Clytemnestra alone responsibility for Agamemnon’s death. In that version, she kills him herself, and later authors also use this account. Orestes eventually returned and avenged his father by killing Aegisthus and Clytemnestra.

Agamemnon returned to Mycenae after the Trojan War with Cassandra, the Trojan priestess, as his concubine. Clytemnestra had never forgiven him for the death of their daughter Iphigeneia. Agamemnon had sent Iphigeneia to Aulis under the false claim that she would marry Achilles. The Greek forces needed her sacrifice to Artemis before they could sail for Troy, after adverse winds had stopped them there. Agamemnon accepted the prescribed deed, and Clytemnestra kept her anger through the long years of his absence.

Clytemnestra was the daughter of Tyndareus and Leda. Agamemnon had killed her first husband, Tantalus, son of Thyestes, and then taken her as his bride. She bore him Iphigeneia, Electra, Chrysothemis, and Orestes. During Agamemnon’s absence, she took his cousin Aegisthus as her lover, and together they planned revenge.

Cassandra was the daughter of Priam and Hecuba. Apollo had given her the power to foretell the future, but after she rejected him, he ensured that nobody would believe her prophecies. She had warned the Trojans about the danger brought by Paris and Helen, and later recognised that the Trojan Horse concealed Greek soldiers. After Troy fell, she arrived at Mycenae with Agamemnon.

Clytemnestra then arranged Agamemnon’s death. In the account that places the killing in the bath, she stabbed him there. She also engineered Cassandra’s death after Cassandra’s arrival. Thus the return from Troy ended in the destruction of both the returning king and the Trojan priestess. Agamemnon’s death was later avenged by his son Orestes.

Agamemnon kills Tantalus, son of Thyestes, and kills the child born to Tantalus and Clytemnestra. The account does not name the child. It gives no description of the killing or any other detail about Tantalus.

This follows the return of Agamemnon and Menelaos to the Peloponnese. Their nurse first took them to Polypheides, king of Sicyon. Polypheides sent them to Oineus, the Aetolian. Tyndareus later brought them back. The brothers expelled Thyestes and exacted an oath from him at the altar of Hera. He was required to settle in Cythera.

Tyndareus had earlier fled Lacedaimon after Hippocoon and his sons expelled him and Icarios. He took refuge with Thestios and married Thestios’ daughter, Leda. Heracles later killed Hippocoon and his sons, allowing Tyndareus to return and succeed to the throne.

After Tantalus and the child have been killed, Tyndareus compels Clytemnestra to marry Agamemnon. The present account gives no reason for the order and says nothing about Clytemnestra’s response. The Library passage states more briefly that Agamemnon married her after killing Tantalus and his child. It does not describe the marriage as compelled.

Agamemnon then became king of Mycenae. Clytemnestra bore him Orestes and three daughters, Chrysothemis, Electra, and Iphigeneia. Menelaos married Helen and became king of Sparta after Tyndareus entrusted the kingdom to him.