Cassandra and Agamemnon

by

Laura Fitton

(Paper submitted to Images of Women in the Ancient World: Issues of Interpretation and Identity, Spring 1998)

    Aeschylus's Agamemnon tells the story of the Greek hero Agamemnon's fateful return home to Myceneae, where his wife Clytaemnestra waits to kill him. Cassandra is a powerful figure in this play, foretelling the doom of the hero and herself through visions of a curse upon his household.

    The tragedy begins with Clytaemnestra awaiting Agamemnon's return from Troy, her secret lover and accomplice Aegisthus waiting for her instructions in the palace. Clytaemnestra has perfectly legitimate reasons for despising Agamemnon; he killed her former husband, Tantalus, and her baby, he married her by force, he ordered the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigeneia in order to calm the winds when the Greeks prepared to set sail for Troy, and he left her alone, sailing away to a war which lasted ten years. (Euripides Iphigeneia in Aulis 1148, Sophocles Electra 531) Plus, Clytaemnestra hears that Agamemnon is bringing back with him a concubine who was said to be a prophetess. There is even information leading to the notion that Cassandra bore Agamemnon twin sons, named Teledamus and Pelops. (source ref.)

    When Agamemnon and Cassandra arrive, Clytaemnestra greets them warmly and tries to comfort her in her misery of slavery. But Cassandra ignores Clytaemnestra, ready to face her fate. When Agamemnon follows his wife inside the palace, Cassandra remains outside, caught in a trance, refusing to enter the palace. She claimed that she can smell blood, and sees visions of Thyestes, who unknowingly ate his own son. No one understands her, as always, and she is ignored as a lunatic as usual. (1214-1391)

    Cassandra runs into the palace and wanders the halls, ranting and raving. Meanwhile, Clytaemnestra beheads Agamemnon with an axe, and chases Cassandra to kill her with the same weapon. (Electra 99, 445-6, Agamemnon 1372, 1535) Cassandra's head rolls to the ground, and Aegisthus is said to have killed her twin sons by Agamemnon. As to where the bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra are buried, the Spartans claim that Agamemnon is buried at Amyclae, where the tomb and statue of Clytaemnestra and the sanctuary and statue of Cassandra are found. Another story tells how Agamemnon's tomb stands among the ruins of Myceneae, close to those of his charioteer, his comrades murdered with him by Aegisthus, and of Cassandra's twins. source ref.)