Agamemnon

Agamemnon and Menelaos, the sons of Atreus, came into the story in the previous part. This is the story of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, the daughter of the king of Sparta.

Agamemnon met Clytemnestra for the first time in a royal reception. Clytemnestra was seating next to her husband with their baby in her arms and they all looked very happy. But Agamemnon was quite a greedy spirit and he decided he wanted her – now. So he took his sword, kicked the baby off her arms, cut it into pieces, beheaded her husband and, not satisfied yet, raped Clytemnestra in front of all the crowd and took her as his wife. No need to say that their love was never reciprocal… And about her father, the king Tyndareus, he was given a generous amount by Agamemnon to forget the abominable events and keep out of the story. Clytemnestra gave birth to Iphigenia, Electra and Orestes.

One day, at the beginning of the Trojan war, Agamemnon shot a divine hind. The Gods punished him and all the Greek fleet by stopping the wind. When they asked the prophet Kalchas, he advised them to sacrifice Iphigenia. Her father would not think twice and laid her on the altar. But just on time the Goddess Artemis felt pity for her and set her free, an unusual kind of intervention from a God. After this, the wind started again and the fleet could arrive to Troy.

In Agamemnon’s’s absence came back Aigisthos, the son of Thyestes, who had been killed by Agamemnon. Aigisthos wanted revenge and, as it is easy to imagine, it was not really difficult to persuade Clytemnestra to kill her husband at his return. After days of waiting impatiently, the day came when the ships of the fleet appeared in the horizon and Agamemnon arrived full of pride because of his victory in Troy. After the celebrations Clytemnestra invited him for a bath and, as he laid down, they threw a net over him and his wife killed him with an axe.

But their daughter Electra saw the crime and left to find her brother Orestes, who was living with their grandparents. She told him what she had seen, and Orestes decided he would go to see the Oracle of Delphi.

The answer of the Oracle was that he should continue the blood revenge. Immediately he dressed up as a stranger and went to Mycenae. There he met his mother and Aigisthos, who was there by chance to sacrifice an animal. He identified himself, took Aigisthos’ sword out of his hands, and cut his head off. After this his mother started to plead and to scream, but Orestes had already raised the sword and decapitated her as well.

This could be the end of the blood revenge, but it doesn’t look like this…