Agamemnon
“Hi Clytie, I'm home from Troy”
Agamemnon was the supreme Greek commander in charge during the Trojan War. He declared war against the Trojans for stealing Helen of Sparta and turning her into Helen of Troy. He was arrogant, conceited and — Spoiler Alert! — was murdered the moment he returned home to Mycenae with his war trophies.
Take one, leave one[edit]
In Homer's The Iliad, Agamemnon comes across as a real bad-ass, only matched by his brutish brother Menelaus, whose wife Helen had run off to Paris (the Trojan prince). The brothers had rallied the other Greek kings on the grounds that Paris's behaviour insulted all of them. The Greeks built an armada and headed off to Troy, though none was too sure in which direction to head.[1] Whilst blundering about, a crewman killed a deer sacred to the goddess Artemis.
The virgin hunter demanded a human blood restitution from the Greeks: a high-ranking virgin to assuage Artemis's anger over the death of Bambi. Agamemnon urged the other Greek leaders to sacrifice a 'surplus daughter' for the cause, but he had no takers. Determined to get to Troy, Agamemnon told his wife Clytemnestra to send their eldest daughter Iphigenia to the Greek encampment to be married off to Achilles. But instead, Iphigenia was sacrificed on a bloody altar. A dense mist descended so no one saw what happened. A dead dear was found where Iphigenia had last been seen. It was presumed Artemis had changed the luckless princess into an animal to mask the murder. Agamemnon was happy to get on the move again. Clytemnestra privately swore revenge on her husband the moment he came home, but it would be a long, ten-year wait.
Stuck outside Troy[edit]
On arriving outside Troy, the Greek leaders hoped the city would surrender or hand over Paris with his head stuck on a pole. However, Agamemnon's counterpart, King Priam of Troy, told the Greeks to get stuffed. That was about as diplomatic as it got for the next ten years. Things got more interesting when Agamemnon and Achilles fell out over an issue of concubine ownership. The Greek leader pulled rank on his chief warrior and took Achilles's bedtime squeeze, Briseis, in exchange for one of Agamemnon's slaves who had been working as a priestess in a local temple dedicated to Apollo. That god had given the Greeks a bad attack of the runs to make them amenable to the swap.
Victory and murder[edit]
In the tenth year, Troy was finally destroyed. Most of its population was killed or enslaved. Agamemnon as leader got the pick of the booty. He chose Cassandra, a former high priestess and daughter of Priam. He then had his ships loaded with gold and silver and sailed back home. Cassandra predicted doom for herself and her new master, but Agamemnon ignored her. Flushed with victory, Agamemnon told his wife Clytemnestra to get his bubble bath ready and unpack his wooden ducks.
Agamemnon was blissfully unaware that his wife had taken up with a lover called Aegisthus. When Agamemnon arrived in his palace with Cassandra, Clytemnestra insisted on some 'Aggy time' with her husband in the privacy of their bathroom. She dismissed the palace servants and insisted on sponging Agamemnon alone. Whilst Agamemnon droned on about his 'adventures' at Troy, Clytemnestra threw a net over him. She caught him like a fish, then cleaned him with an axe. When she heard Cassandra wailing away, she dragged her Trojan rival into the bathroom and killed her too. Aegisthus turned up to mop up the blood.
In Hades[edit]
Our last glimpse of Agamemnon is the Land of the Dead. There he is seen with the shades of Achilles and others when Odysseus comes to visit. Agamemnon tells Odysseus never to trust a woman to give you a back scrub — It could be your last.
