Agamemnon
（
Ἀγαμέμνων). The son of Atreus and brother of
Menelaüs. Driven from Mycenae after the murder of
Atreus (q.v.) by Thyestes, the two young princes fled to Sparta, where King Tyndareos
gave them his daughters in marriage—Clytaemnestra to Agamemnon, and Helen to
Menelaüs. While the latter inherited his father-in-law's kingdom, Agamemnon not only
drove his uncle out of Mycenae, but so extended his dominions that in the war against Troy for
the recovery of Helen the chief command was intrusted to him, as the mightiest prince in
Greece. He contributed one hundred ships manned with warriors, besides lending sixty to the
Arcadians. (On the immolation of his daughter Iphigenia at Aulis, see
Iphigenia.) In Homer he is one of the bravest fighters before Troy; yet,
by arrogantly refusing to let Chryses, priest of Apollo, ransom his daughter
Chryseïs, who had fallen to Agamemnon as the prize of war, be brought a plague on the
Grecian host, which he afterwards almost ruined by ruthlessly carrying off Briseïs,
the prize of Achilles, who henceforth sulked in his tents and refused to fight. After the fall
of Troy, Agamemnon came home with his captive, the princess Cassandra; but at supper he and
his comrades were murdered by his wife's lover, Aegisthus, while the queen herself
killed Cassandra. Such is Homer's account; the tragic poets make Clytaemnestra, in revenge for
her daughter's immolation, throw a net over Agamemnon while bathing, and kill him with the
help of Aegisthus. In Homer his children are Iphianassa, Chrysothemis, Laodicé, and
Orestes; the later legend puts Iphigenia and Electra in the place of Iphianassa and
Laodicé. Agamemnon was worshipped as a hero. His name is the title of a play by
Aeschylus (q.v.). See the articles
Achilles;
Orestes;
Pelopidae;
Trojan War.
