Aeschylus vs. Euripides: The Game of the Worse Agamemnon’s

What I enjoy so much about Classics is that there are multiple perspectives of myth, legend, etc. over thousands of years of poets and now in modern day writers and playwrights. Reading Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis was a striking contrast to Agamemnon, which I read previously for my Greek Drama class. Aeschylus’ in studying of Greek drama was never my favorite and out of all of his works I enjoyed Agamemnon the least. Agamemnon as a character in the Greek tradition is one of my least favorite characters due to his arrogance and particularly the way that his intense need for power is portrayed in both Homer and Agamemnon. He is selfish, I never quite got why people blamed Helen for everything when if Agamemnon just never opened his mouth or, did anything things might have worked out better for everyone. In Homer, he disregards the safety of Greece for himself. When I read Aeschylus’ I noticed a similar Agamemnon when he returns to Argos and Clytemnestra with Cassandra. Agamemnon expects all to be accepting of his choices in war, including the sacrifice of his daughter, and since Aeschylus’ utilizes the chorus to give background not so much to give emotion of say Agamemnon. The audience receives a tone of the weariness of a long ending war and then the brewing anger and revenge of Clytemnestra. Therefore, when I read those opening lines of the chorus and then fast forward to Clytemnestra stabbing Agamemnon I felt there was some divine retribution.

However, when I began to read Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis the characters’ conflicting emotions especially Agamemnon in the opening lines while sealing and unsealing the letter for Clytemnestra and Iphigenia, glory or family? Naturally, as people, I do not think it would be easy to sacrifice your child be it for religious purposes or not. It goes against our instincts, but Agamemnon’s conflict as he laments between Greece and his family still shows he is selfish, his lamenting becomes whining. Is he the one going to die? He also if he did want to save Iphigenia sent the letter before. Similar to Agamemnon is Menelaus his quest is for revenge and glory over Paris and the return of Helen. When Menelaus is talking to his brother the loss of his wife is not solely his, but an insult to all of Greece. One that must be rectified at any cost, and he is selfish in his pursuit of Helen, not because he misses her, but because her absence and captor are seen as an attack on his glory and efficient leadership.

Finally, that leaves the two most conflicted characters in the play, Iphigenia, and Clytemnestra. While Iphigenia eventually accepts her fate to be a sacrifice that will save all of Greece it is bittersweet, and just for the fact of the fake wedding. Iphigenia clearly is fond of her father and missed him. They had a close parent-child relationship, and she came to Aulis to celebrate leaving her fathers’ house as a woman he would be proud to give away to Achilles. Instead, she is to be given to a sacrificial altar. Iphigenia does not accept her fate as an attempt to make peace; she does it to please her father even after her death. Clytemnestra knows of her daughter and her husband’s close relationship, and after she learns of the plot and finds and plan to stop it, I think her greatest fear might be that Iphigenia will end up following along with her father anyway because she would like to please him. So, when Iphigenia asks Clytemnestra to ask her not to hate Agamemnon, it will only lead to her hating him more because she feels as if Agamemnon caused her death and no matter what she did even if she had Achilles, or she dragged Iphigenia away she would always want to follow her father.