#Aegisthus

[whencyclopedia]

Electra by Sophocles

Electra is a play written by the 5th-century BCE Greek tragedian Sophocles. Similar to Aeschylus' Libation Bearers, Electra focuses on the return of Electra's brother Orestes from exile and the plot to murder their mother. Years earlier, their mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus killed their father Agamemnon upon his return from the Trojan War. In this version of the story, Electra has been treated as a slave since the death of her father. She tries to procure the assistance of her sister Chrysothemus in her plot but fails. With the return of Orestes and his friend Plyades, Electra is able to successfully avenge her father's murder.

Sophocles

Sophocles (c. 496 BCE - c. 406 BCE) is considered one of the most successful tragedians of his time. He wrote at least 120 plays but, unfortunately, only seven have survived. Of his surviving plays, the most famous is Oedipus the King, part of a thematic trilogy along with Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus. He won 20 victories in play competitions; 18 of them were at the Dionysia. Writing almost until the day he died, his final play Oedipus at Colonus was presented by his son Iophon in 401 BCE.

Sophocles was born to a wealthy family in the suburb of Colonus outside the city of Athens and was extremely active in Athenian public life, serving as a city treasurer in 443-42 BCE and a general with the statesman Pericles 441- 40 BCE. When he was in his eighties, he was named a member of the group of special magistrates assigned to the dubious task of organizing both financial and domestic recovery in 412-11 BCE after the disastrous Athenian defeat at Syracuse on the island of Sicily. He had two sons by his wife and one by his mistress. Two of them would eventually become playwrights.

Although active in Athenian politics, his plays rarely contain any references to current events or issues. Classicist and author Edith Hamilton in her The Greek Way wrote that he was a passionless, detached observer of life. She believed the beauty of his plays was in their simple, lucid, and reasonable structure. He was the embodiment of what we know to be Greek. Moses Hadas in his Greek Drama said that Sophocles represented his characters as they should be while Euripides saw them as they were. Editor David Grene in his translation of Oedipus the King said that his plays had tightly controlled plots with complex dialogue, character contrasts, an interweaving of spoken and musical elements, and the fluidity of verbal expression.

Continue reading...

[katerinaaqu]

POLL TIME!!!!! (To determine a story)

Sooooo possible storytime so let's see what you shall choose for a setting! (A quick poll possibly for 3 days this time for the funs!)

So the setting will settle how the murder shall happen! Hahaha! I will probably end up combining some elements but the vote will ultimately (possibly) determine the setting of the scene I shall write! So let's wonder;

Did he get murdered as he himself said in the Odyssey; the hall drenched in blood of his men, Cassandra slain by his side and him dying while rushing to reach for Clytemnestra? OR Potentially Agamemnon altering details of his death and his death was in fact done in the bath as Aeschylus or Clytemnestra herself claims in the play?

There is no right or wrong answer here by the way! ^_^ I will ultimately consider BOTH of them as unreliable narrators or at least that both share some part of the truth but what do you guys wanna see?

A more sneaky murder in the bath or a full on bloody mayhem in the hall?

If you have time please let me know on your decision! I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on your choice!

[incorrecthomer]

Aegisthus: Are you mad? Clytemnestra: No. Aegisthus: So sharpening knives at 2am is just a hobby?

[apollosgiftofprophecy]

IT'S 11:30 PM BUT I AM HAVING THOUGHTS

THOUGHTS ABOUT APOLLO AND ORESTES

I HAVE NOT READ THE ORESTIEA BUT DW I HAVE IT AND I'M GONNA READ IT AFTER THE ILIAD

I MAY HAVE MORE THOUGHTS AFTER THAT WE SHALL SEE

I made my Apollo & Cassandra post a while back so now it's time for Orestes :)

just. ahhhh. how do i begin.

at the beginning i guess.

Orestes is a young child when he's smuggled out of Argos. By his sister to keep him safe when their father is murdered by their mother. He's a young boy exiled from his home because of the actions of a vengeful queen.

Years later, he receives a mission from Apollo - kill his mother to avenge his father. And he does just that.

Apollo was a young god, not even born yet, when he was exiled from the very earth by a vengeful queen. His mother fought and ran to find a place to deliver him and his own sister to safety. In his mother's honor, he goes out of his way to kill those who dare to harm her - Python and Tityus, to name a few.

The parallels get me okay? Even if it's not a deadringer, they are sill there.

Apollo defends his mother while Orestes kills his.

Orestes was ordered to kill his mother while Apollo murdered others for Leto on his own accord.

And what REALLY gets me is their different motivations in this situation - Orestes believes he's avenging his father, the man he never quite knew. Apollo meanwhile wouldn't loose sleep over Agamemnon's death.

Apollo wasn't aiming to avenge Agamemnon. He was avenging Cassandra.

But he couldn't tell Orestes that, now could he? After all, what was a mere slave girl from Troy to Orestes? Especially since he didn't know her at all.

Avenging Cassandra wouldn't be enough to convince Orestes to commit matricide. So Apollo uses Agamemnon's death as incentive for Orestes.

And it works. Apollo's goals are met - Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are killed, and Cassandra's soul can rest easy now in Elysium.

He could cut his losses and leave Orestes to the Furies. He no longer has anything to do with this.

But Apollo stays with Orestes. He helps him rest in Delphi before getting him a headstart to Athens. He defends him in court from the Furies, in front of the jury of Athenians and Athena herself. He puts himself firmly on Orestes's side and uses whatever means necessary to get him off the hook.

And if that means manipulating the city of Athens via their sexist ideologies? It's free real estate. When you're in court, you use whatever you can to help your client.

And Apollo wins. Orestes is free to go, and the curse of the House of Atreus is gone for good.

just. vibrating from this. the similarities between Apollo & Orestes in their youth that diverges in stark ways. How Apollo could have dropped Orestes the moment his own goal was finished, but chose not too - he chose to take it a step farther and get rid of that curse for good. So Orestes and his family could live in peace.

When I first heard about the Oresteia, and what Apollo says to free Orestes, I had a hard time reconciling it. Apollo just didn't give off those sexist vibes to me (as a matter of facts, very few gods do - after all, they appear how they want when they want. gender is meaningless to gods.).

But I did some digging. Some thinking. And really, Apollo is quite in-character during the trial - he's in Lawyer Mode. He manipulates the system to his advantage as well as the Athenian citizens with their misogynistic beliefs.

Because think about it. Apollo uses the argument, in brief terms, that a mother has no claim on the child because they are only for making babies. This gets half of the Athenian jury to immediately side with Orestes.

Is this a bullshit argument? Absolutely. But sometimes a bullshit argument gets your client out of trouble and that's the job of a lawyer - to help their client.

For a closing statement, I also want to say that I don't think Apollo himself believes that sexist opinion. After all, Leto was the one running around the world to find a safe place to deliver him and Artemis - Zeus did very little to help.

It was his mom who did all the work, and Apollo is very clearly a mama's boy.

Plus, 99.9% of the people Apollo hangs out with are women. Leto, Artemis, the Muses, Athena, Hecate, Aphrodite, ect ect

There's no way he actually buys that argument. He just used it to gaslight the very-sexist Athenians into voting in Orestes's favor because godsdammit that curse needs to go!

thank you for coming to my TEDTalk. I have feelings. goodnight now. happy new year. i shall post a snippet of a storyboard idea for my mythology series tomorrow that features apollo & orestes because I HAVE FEELINGS.

[tangoboheme]

Clytemnestra and Aegisthus

[longspacerat]

I need a Kevin Day as Clytemnestra and Riko as Agamemnon style scene.

Kevin hatching a plot to murder Riko upon his return from a press trip. Fawning over him and stroking his inflated ego, only to lure him inside to brutally murder him.

And then of course a long and beautiful monologue about how deserving of this fate he was, and that Kevin doesn’t regret it in the slightest.

Jean is Aegisthus and gets to monologue to Riko’s dead body about how he wronged him.

I just know Kevin Day read the Orestia and Agamemnon and fantasized about it.

[necromancer-at-abattoir]

More PJO bullshit, this time regarding Hera

I was just reading the Iliad and I came to the part where Athena tells Achilles that Hera loves both him and Agamemnon and so she sent Athena to stop them from fighting.

And I thought about PJO Hera who's stated to love only perfect families, and how untrue it was.

Agamemnon first kills his wife's first husband and son and then rapes her and forces her into marriage. He then deceives his wife and killed his daughter Iphigenia to set sail for Troy and his devastated wife Clytemnestra plots revenge against her husband and takes a lover Aegisthus. She then murders Agamemnon when he comes back.

Not the image of a perfect family, eh? But Hera still loves Agamemnon.

And Achilles' parents were separated because Thetis was an immortal and Peleus was mortal, so they couldn't stay together forever, but Hera still loves Achilles.

They both come from imperfect families, but she still loves them.

Now I wonder what the extent of Rick Riordan's knowledge regarding Greek Mythology is. Did he ever read the Iliad or the Odyssey? Is he Classics Scholar? Did he ever get a degree in anything related to Greek Mythology or did he just read the myths and was like, 'Oh yeah I can do this.'

[eelsinatrenchcoat]

i'm so deeply normal about the prophet cassandra i swear... cursed to know the truth but never be believed because she rejected a man? desperate to save her people-despite ridicule-and being held back and dismissed as a hysterical woman? killed by an envious wife for her transgression of being captured and enslaved as a prize of war? facing her ire but having done nothing wrong, women pitted against each other again and again? it's all so fucking tragic

she's so painfully symbolic of so many things i can't articulate rn but just wow. what a figure.

[ghostwithwings]

Zeus: "Aegisthus did not listened to my warnings when I sent Hermes to announce Agamemnon's son will return to kill him if he sticks to his wife's side AND kill him. Not even Hermes with his long tongue could change his mind!"

Athena:"Who cares about that mf,he deserved it! Let's talk about the divine 💫 Odysseus 💫 instead. Let's send Hermes to Calypso."

Hermes:"I didn't even sit down in fact, as every story starts with me sent Hades knows where!!"

Zeus:"What are you saying?"

Hermes:"To your orders, my Lord Zeus."

Hermes *kilometres of ocean later* "Dammit!"

[iampresent]

Actually Curses (by Crane Wives) is about the entire House of Atreus Clusterfuck. To me.

[amostcuriousmythicist]

The Infant Sons of Cassandra and Agamemnon

There is the grave of Atreus, along with the graves of such as returned with Agamemnon from Troy, and were murdered by Aegisthus after he had given them a banquet. As for the tomb of Cassandra, it is claimed by the Lacedaemonians who dwell around Amyclae. Agamemnon has his tomb, and so has Eurymedon the charioteer, while another is shared by Teledamus and Pelops, twin sons, they say, of Cassandra whom while yet babies Aegisthus slew after their parents.

Pausanias 2.16.6-7

[katerinaaqu]

Others: Hahaha Hollywood has the best catchphrases of cheeky or sneering heroes

Aeschylus: *Orestes to Clytemnestra over the body of Aegisthus like a hunter over a deer*

Orestes: I was looking for you! This one here has had enough already!

(Translation by me)

Like...DUDE! 😆👌🏻 "he has had enough"! Dude! And gets even better!

Clytemnestra: Oh no, my beloved Aegisthus! You have been slain so violently!

Orestes: Oh, you love this man? Then you will lie in the same tomb together so death will never do you part!

(Translation by me)

Dunno about you guys but THIS is the real stuff! Don't tell me you don't imagine Orestes pointing at the body nonchalant while saying that!

[likethexan]

Something about Chrysothemis’ “they are masters to be obeyed” when referring to her own mother and stepfather says a lot about their dynamic

[incorrecthomer]

Clytemnestra: Come on boys, focus! You have everything you need to defeat him! Aegisthus: The ability to believe in ourselves? Clytemnestra: No, axe! Kill him!

[tangoboheme]

[measureformeasure]

Aigisthos in Mycenae, Casey J. King