Agamemnon is the first play in the Oresteia, the only trilogy of Greek tragedies that has survived intact from classical times. The trilogy is also Aeschylus' masterpiece: more so than any of his other surviving plays, the Oresteia moves Greek drama into new directions. Indeed, we might go then far as to say that, with these plays, Aeschylus essentially invented classic Greek theatre.

Earlier nosotros offer an analysis of Agamemnon, the first book in the trilogy, it might be worth briefly recapping the plot of the play.

Agamemnon : summary

The activity of Agamemnon takes place at the end of the ten-yr Trojan War. The Greek hero Agamemnon has been heavily involved in the fighting against Troy, and back domicile his wife Clytemnestra eagerly awaits his return.

However, although she is making a show of welcoming her husband, in truth she plans to murder him when he returns to the marital home, in retribution for what Agamemnon did on his way out to war. In order to persuade the gods to provide him and his ship with fair winds on the way to Troy, Agamemnon had sacrificed Iphigenia, his ain daughter by Clytemnestra. Now, Clytemnestra is out for revenge.

As if the killing of their own daughter wasn't enough to brand Clytemnestra out for her husband's blood, when he arrives dorsum at the palace, he has his concubine, Cassandra, in tow. When the god Apollo took a shine to her, Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy, in return for her virginity. Just when she went back on the deal, Apollo was aroused; he could non retrieve the gift he had given her, but he could ensure that nobody always believed her prophecies.

Sure enough, when Clytemnestra greets her husband and his lover, Cassandra foretells that Clytemnestra will murder them both. And Clytemnestra duly does so, stabbing Agamemnon in the bath and and so killing Cassandra.

Clytemnestra's lover, Aegisthus, arrives and joins her. Aegisthus reveals that the plot to impale Agamemnon was his idea: he devised information technology equally revenge for the death of his father, Thyestes, who was tricked into eating 2 of his sons by his brother Atreus. Atreus was the father of Agamemnon, so through Clytemnestra's killing of Atreus' son, Aegisthus believes that his male parent has been avenged.

Agamemnon : analysis

One of the nearly prominent themes in Agamemnon is revenge. Agamemnon has killed Iphigenia, therefore Clytemnestra demands his life as payment. Aegisthus' father was killed by Agamemnon's male parent, therefore the son tin can avenge his father'south death by killing the son of his father's killer.

The trilogy every bit a whole invites u.s. to question whether such vengeance is just. Is Clytemnestra right to avenge her daughter's death by killing Agamemnon herself? Should the law not accept been followed? But are 'police' and 'justice' the same matter? Agamemnon, being a powerful lord, may well have been considered above the police force. And besides, he had sacrificed Iphigenia to win a war, for gods' sake (literally). If that isn't a noble reason for bumping off your own girl, what is? (Answer: this is a terrible defence, fifty-fifty in the world of classical myth, and Agamemnon deserved justice; whether he deserved a knife in among his chimera bath with his safety duck is quite another thing.)

Agamemnon represents a development in the history of classical theatre, at least as it'due south represented by those plays which have survived and come downward to the states through the centuries.

In Aeschylus' ain earlier plays, such as The Suppliants and The Persians, the 'action' of the plays is hardly that at all: rather than dramatic dialogue between fully rounded characters with relatable emotions and motives, instead characters deliver long speeches which the Chorus of the play and then responds to past filling in the 'plot'. It's all also orderly, as if people are delivering prepared speeches at a formal occasion, rather than acting upon the spur of the moment as they respond to existent life and existent events.

Agamemnon marks a shift towards this new manner of writing a more vital kind of drama. The shifts between the Chorus and the speeches of the fundamental characters, and the differences in tone betwixt, for instance, Clytemnestra's quiet fury and Cassandra'south raving fearfulness at the fate she knows awaits her, as she realises the trap she and Agamemnon have walked right into, all brand the play a rich and exciting slice of theatre.

And fearfulness dominates the play, from the opening scenes in which Clytemnestra waits for the flame that will point the end of the Trojan War (only with doubtfulness over who volition have triumphed, her husband's army or the enemy) to Cassandra's fearfulness over the decease she knows is coming to her.

The cardinal characters of Agamemnon are morally complex. Clytemnestra murders her own husband, the hero of the Trojan State of war, but she does then to avenge Agamemnon's killing of their girl, Iphigenia. Agamemnon is a murderer for sacrificing his own daughter, but he did so in order to aid win the state of war – a state of war which, if it had been lost, would accept resulted in many more deaths. Whose 'side' do we take? We cannot choose one easily, even if we don't believe in gods commanding fair winds and the idea that human sacrifice tin can lead to divine intervention in our favour.

Agamemnon can be analysed equally an example of a common trope found throughout various cultures and their myths: the killing of the rex. Agamemnon, Rex of Mycenae in some versions of the story but Lord of Argos in Aeschylus' play, must be slaughtered at the finish of the war he had helped to win, to brand fashion for the new. Certainly, the Oresteia as a whole has been interpreted every bit the journey from barbarism to civilisation. In order for a new, meliorate world to be born, the old must first die to make way for it. In the side by side 2 volumes of the trilogy, we will run across what happens next in that long and bloody journeying.

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