Hero Biography 6 - Agamemnon
present...
Agamemnon
Agamemnon, son of Atreus and Aerope, was born into a family of bad blood and feuding. His early life, along with his brother Menelaus, was overshadowed by struggles between his father Atreus and his uncle Thyestes. When he was still young, he and Menelaus were sent by their father to arrest Thyestes. The two brothers captured him in Pytho, the seat of the famous oracle of Apollo, and brought him in chains to Mycenae where Atreus was king. Atreus heaped up false accusations on Thyestes and tried to kill him. However, Thyestes' son Aegisthus murdered Atreus before he was able to carry this out, and Thyestes was made the king of Mycenae.
Agamemnon and his brother fled a certain death in Mycenae and went into exile. First they took refuge with King Polyphides of Sicyon and then with King Oeneus of Calydon. Finally they came to the court of King Tyndareus of Sparta, where they found a welcome home. In the end, being unable to bear a life of exile anymore, Agamemnon and Menelaus decided to retake power in Mycenae. King Tyndareus, who was very fond of the two brothers, provided them with an army of Laconian warriors, and they returned to Mycenae in arms. After a brief battle, Thyestes and Aegisthus fled to the island of Cythera, and Agamemnon and his brother took power in Mycenae once more.
Having seized power in their home town, Agamemnon and Menelaus cemented their friendship with Tyndareus of Sparta by marrying his daughters. While Menelaus was lucky enough to receive Helen, the most beautiful mortal woman in the world, Agamemnon married Clytaemnestra and took the throne of Mycenae (since he was the elder of the two brothers). However, the marriage did not start on strong foundations; Clytaemnestra had already been promised in marriage to Tantalus, a son of Agamemnon's hated uncle Thyestes, and she already had a child by him. Therefore Agamemnon had to kill both Tantalus and the child before he could marry Clytaemestra. This was the first of many deep grudges that she would come to bear against her new husband. Agamemnon had several children with Clytaemnestra, though the epic and tragic poets disagree about their names. Traditionally it is said that Agamemnon was the father of one son, Orestes, and the three daughters Iphigenia, Electra and Chrysothemis. Homer, on the other hand, gives Agamemnon's daughters as Chrysothemis, Iphianassa and Laodice. After ruling relatively peacefully in this manner for some time, the story of Aristeia begins at about this point in Agamemnon's life.
(3ds max renders)
Then came the fateful visit of Paris to Sparta. While Menelaus was away in Crete Paris kidnapped his wife Helen and took her to Troy to be his own wife (having been promised this by Aphrodite). When Menelaus had married Helen the rival suitors all swore the Oath of Tyndareus, promising to give military aid to Menelaus if ever his marriage should be threatened. As Menelaus' older brother, Agamemnon had the ultimate command over all Atreid forces; with the declaration of the Trojan War, this effectively gave Agamemnon command over all the Achaean princes who had sworn the oath. Agamemnon now faced a huge war against a mighty foreign opponent, yet he relished the power that this gave him over the Achaeans.
On Agamemnon's orders the Achaean invasion force gathered at the harbour of Aulis in North-Western Boeotia. A thousand warships were gathered at his command, yet for some reason the wind was constantly blowing in the wrong direction and kept the fleet from leaving the harbour. Agamemnon's prophet Calchas said that Artemis was behind this; it is assumed that she was angry after Agamemnon had shot a deer and claimed that the goddess herself could not have done any better. The only way to appease Artemis' jealous wrath was for Agamemnon to sacrifice his own daughter Iphigenia. Agamemnon wavered at this, but Menelaus and Odysseus urged him on, and so they sent a deceitful letter back to Clytaemnestra in Mycenae, persuading her to send the girl out to them in order to marry Achilles. The king overcame the father, and Agamemnon killed his daughter, offering her up to Artemis, though the poet Euripides claims that Artemis saved Iphigenia at the last moment, spiriting her away to the land of Tauris (modern-day Crimea) and replacing her with a deer. The winds changed, and at once the fleet was able to set sail for Troy. Clytaemnestra now had a second deep grudge against her husband.
The war dragged on for ten years, and in the tenth year Agamemnon captured Chryseis, the daughter of the Trojan Chryses, a priest of Apollo from Thebe. Chryses came to Agamemnon, blessed the whole Achaean army and offered him a ransom for Chryseis. Although the Achaean soldiers applauded Chryses, Agamemnon insisted on keeping Chryseis. So Chryses left the Achaean camp and prayed to Apollo to wreak vengeance on Agamemnon and the Achaeans, whereupon the god grew angry and spread a deadly plague through the whole army. The prophet Calchas told Agamemnon of the cause, and so he agreed to release Chryseis after all. However, he insisted on taking another girl in her place, and so he came to take Briseis, a slave girl who had been awarded to Achilles, for his own. Achilles, not surprisingly, became enraged and refused to help the Achaeans in battle until Agamemnon had learned his lesson. Eventually Agamemnon did come to regret his wilful display of power and offered to restore Briseis to Achilles along with a huge treasure of gifts, though Achilles still refused. He would only return to the fight when Hector had killed Patroclus. Even so, Agamemnon insisted that he was not really to blame, for his reason he had been clouded by the goddess Ate (the personfication of blind folly), who is even capable of overcoming Zeus' wits.
At any rate, Achilles eventually killed Hector, though in the end it fell to Odysseus to come up with the plan that captured the city, the so-called 'Trojan Horse'. Agamemnon himself was one of the heroes who hid in the belly of the wooden horse and then escaped at night when the Trojans had brought it into their city, opening the gates to the Achaean army. Agamemnon had finally achieved his aims, the grand objective for which he had slain his own daughter and driven the largest army in history across the sea to fight a ten-year war. He was awarded the royal Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his prize, and sailed away home to Mycenae. However, Cassandra, being able to see the future, knew that she was sailing home to a doomed household. For, while Agamemnon had been away at Troy, Clytaemnestra had been having a love affair with Aegisthus, the son of Agamemnon's uncle Thyestes. When he returned home, Clytaemnestra lured Agamemnon into his bath, and that was where she and Aegisthus ambushed him and stabbed him to death - an inglorious end for a glorious military leader.
(in game shots)
Reply With Quote
(Okay, just once)
