#aegisthus and clytemnestra

[katerinaaqu]

I don't remember the source in which it says that Agamemnon and Menelaus killed Atreus can you please remind me? Thanks in advance!

But boy oh boy you are up for something here! Yeah, the whole story sounds so intriguing and messed up in so many different ways and not just about the story of the trail of murders and such!

Taking it from where you left it; the possibility of Aegisthus looking insanely like Agamemnon for example makes you think when Clytemnestra also fell in love with him (she says she loved him in Oresteia) and in a way it almost felt like her vengeance in one twisted way "replaces her husband" in her life. As if she tries to press a "replay button" or something as if going back before the hatred erupted.

Or even more tragic; Orestes murdering Aegisthus so violently and in cold blood if Aegisthus looked like his father (especially his father from like decades ago given how Aegisthus was younger potentially).

Aegisthus could potentially look like the father he potentially vaguely remembered all those years back in Aulis before his whole family was torn apart!

In one way Orestes with your trail of thinking killed BOTH his parents visually at that time (one actual parent and one that potentially looked like him) and BOTH versions are connected to a past that used to be happy or at least not dysfunctional and now turned into something monstrous and tragic!

That could potentially make the madness of Orestes even deeper than it could be and you are so right in a way I don't think that the fact that Thyestes and Agamemnon being twins according to that line of narrative is a coincidence or that Thyestes was born out of incest with Thyestes's daughter. I think as you say it was indeed left to be assumed that Thyestes was supposed to look like Agamemnon and/or Menelaus in this one!

Sometimes I think about how Aegisthus must look so much Agamemnon and Menelaus because their fathers were twins. About how Atreus raised Aegisthus alongside his own sons. How Aegisthus murdered him because Thyestes told him despite his horror and disgust to find out that his mother was also his sister because Thyestes raped his own daughter. How Aegisthus was only born to kill Atreus. Aegisthus kills his own father and yet doesn't. And in a similar but not at all similar way, Agamemnon and Menelaus kill their own father when they take Mycenae back from Thyestes.

[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.

[hermesmoly]

for the House of Agamemnon, hesitation was a form of love

[tangoboheme]

Clytemnestra and Aegisthus

[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.

[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

[mysterious-secret-garden]

Auguste-Hyacinthe Debay - Aegisthus believing he discovered the body of the dead Orestes, discovers that of Clytemnestra, 1823.

[chronomally]

In the expensive and insanely over-the-top version of The Oresteia that torments me in all my waking hours, I imagine Clytemnesta played by someone with Gwendoline Christie's height/build

[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!

[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!

[clytemnestraenjoyer]

I was like. Drawing doodles with a more somber tone but then Aegisthus and Clytemnestra ruined everything. Idk what possessed me to make this I'm sorry please don't take it seriously

[hermesmoly]

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

[tangoboheme]

[luminouslumity]

Watch "Why Are So Many People Cooking Their Kids? The FULL Curse On The House of Atreus In Greek Mythology" on YouTube

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I would love an entire series on the whole House of Atreus! This family is so messed up, but it's so fascinating too!