The New International Encyclopædia/Agamemnon

AG′AMEM′NON (Gk. Ἀγαμέμνον). Son of Atreus, and brother of Menelaus. Agamemnon is a prominent figure in Greek heroic legend, and the details of his story differ. He ruled at Mycenæ and exercised lordship over much of the Peloponnesus. Therefore, when Paris carried off Helen, the wife of Menelaus, Agamemnon was the natural leader of the expedition against Troy. His quarrel with Achilles is the starting-point of the Iliad. Later writers told of the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia (q.v.) at Aulis to secure favorable winds for the voyage to Asia. In his share of the booty of Troy he received the prophetess Cassandra (q.v.), daughter of Priam. On his return he was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra (q.v.) and her paramour, Ægisthus (q.v.). His son, Orestes (q.v.), aided by his daughter Electra, subsequently avenged his father. This tragedy of the house of Atreus was a favorite subject of the Greek dramatists. Consult: The Oresteia, especially the first play, the trilogy of Æschylus called the Agamemnon.