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| The Curse |
| Sacrifice of Iphigenia |
| The Trojan War |
| Death of Agamemnon |
| Death of Clytemnestra |
| Iphigenia in Tauris |
This online exhibit counteracts the assumption that there is a single, monolithic canon of ancient Greek mythology. Instead, ancient poets, writers and artists reworked, subverted, and augmented a range of mythological material - unaffected by the the modern preoccupations with religious truth
and heresy.
myth-makingundertaken by the three prominent Athenian playwrights of the 5th century: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Aeschylus’s trilogy the Oresteia, which focused on the house of Atreus, premiered in 458 BCE, comprising Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides. Toward the end of the 5th century, the younger playwrights Sophocles and Euripides returned to the same set of myths: Sophocles in Electra and Euripides in Orestes, Iphigenia in Aulis, and Iphigenia in Tauris. Through comparative analyses of these plays, this exhibit highlights the diversity of three playwrights’ use of mythic material. For a basic introduction to the myths surrounding the House of Atreus, see below. To explore the various episodes of the myths in chronological order, use the navigation menu above. Each section analyzes a specific episode as depicted by one, two, or three of the playwrights. The images accompanying each section hint at the continuous reimagining of myth in visual art, during and after antiquity.
The myths surrounding the House of Atreus focus on an ancestral curse, which manifests in the generations of Agamemnon, King of Argos, and his children. When Agamemnon's sister-in-law Helen vanishes to Troy, Agamemnon is chief among the confederation of Greek-speaking kings mobilizing to recover her. However, on their way to Troy, the armies are stranded at Aulis through the anger of the goddess Artemis; Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia to propitiate the goddess and open the way to Troy. A decade later, upon his return from the Trojan War, Agamemnon is killed by his wife Clytemnestra, claiming vengeance for their sacrificed daughter. The couple's son, Orestes, then kills Clytemnestra to avenge his father, supported by his sister Electra.
Euripides adds a final episode in his Iphigenia in Tauris: Iphigenia, saved from death to serve as a human-sacrificing priestess of Artemis, encounters her brother Orestes. Reunited, the siblings steal the statue of Artemis from Iphigenia's barbarian temple and escape together to their home in Argos.