#AND TRY TO STRUCTURE IT SANELY DFGHJKL;'

[menelaiad]

Can we please talk about how the daughters Agamemnon list in Iliad book 9 are almost totally different from the tradition? Alright, I can imagine Iphianassa is like Iphigenia 1.0 and she never got sacrificed. But Laodike? Is she a prototype of Electra???? I find it very fascinating

laodike is actually the simple one! she was literally just replaced by elektra! we don't know why? if it was just a renaming thing, if their stories were so similar they got lumped together - we don't know! but they do seem to be .... interchangeable to an extent.

iphianassa is trickier! yes, she shares a lot of traits with iphigenia, so people often just substitute them too (euripides and aeschylus seem to anyway!) but sophocles keeps her! she's an extra sister alongside iphigenia, which like you said is interesting cause she doesn't get sacrificed, so here her story differs and sophocles seems to think that's enough of a difference to keep her as her own entity!

perhaps, that's why euripides doesn't kill iphigenia - simply sends her to tauris, because iphianassa doesn't technically die, so iphigenia can't die either, if you're gonna have them be the same person. (and in euripides aga is aware that iphi doesn't die. so him claiming to have three daughters makes sense. he knows she's still alive BUT he does say three daughters 'in my halls' which is ...... annoying because iphi/iphianassa isn't there anymore)

BUT THEN - it makes me even MORE fascinated by aga's hatred of calchas in book one. OBVIOUSLY the iliad predates all the texts WE HAVE about iphigenia and her sacrifice cause calchas says so --- so why does he hate calchas in the iliad? there's clearly something missing that explains that. could it be iphianassa and iphigenia were seperate entities??? and iphigenia DID die?? aeschylus seems to follow that narrative the closest, but again just removes mention of iphianassa entirely.

BUT AGAIN aga says he has THREE daughters not the he HAD four??? did iphi die and he just ..... doesn't mention her anymore? out of grief?? anger??? guilt??? or literally because he doesn't HAVE four daughters anymore. he just has three living ones.

STILL HOMER ACKNOWLEDGES that cly kills aga - why? he doesnt tell us in the odyssey. he just says that cly and aeg did it. OBVIOUSLY when we get to the tragedians we learn it's because of iphi (or cassandra??? but again. that follows the. cassandra was not claimed by aga for ... sexual purposes. and people don't like that narrative for some reason????) - did homer think the same? is there something missing that tells us that? iN WHICH CASE - there has to be four???? and iphi IS dead and iphianassa is just .... another alive daughter.

it's a minor nuance, really! because the answers are lost to us (probably) for now. so the classic four of iphi, elektra, orestes and chryso is pretty safe to use (and, no offence, they're mentioned like .... twice in the whole iliad. hardly anchoring plot points) BUT it is certainly fun to ponder!