Iphigenia

Iphigenia or Iphigeneia (Ἰφιγένεια) was the heroine of a couple of tragedies written by Euripides – Iphigenia at Aulis and Iphigenia among the Taurians. Homer only knew her as Iphianassa.

Usually, Iphigeneia was seen as the eldest daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, but some said her real mother was Helen, sister of Clytemnestra.

They say that the Athenian hero Theseus, with the help of his friend Peirithous, abducted Helen when she was a young girl about 13. Helen's twin brothers Castor and Polydeuces, known as the Dioscuri, rescued her, but Helen was already pregnant with Theseus' child. Since Helen was too young to raise the infant, her sister Clytemnestra took and adopted her niece as her own daughter.

Whoever Iphigeneia's real parents were, it was Agamemnon and Clytemnestra who brought her up. Iphigeneia was the sister of Electra, Chrysothemis and Orestes. As I said, Homer called her Iphianassa, but in the Cypria (Epic Cycle), Iphianassa and Iphigeneia were distinguished as two different daughters of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.

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In Euripides' tragedy titled Iphigeneia at Aulis, the Greek fleet suffered from unfavourable strong winds which kept the Greek army from sailing to Troy. Agamemnon had offended the goddess Artemis, so the Greek seer named Calchas foretold that the Greeks could never leave Greece unless Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter, Iphigeneia. As commander-in-chief of the Greek forces and brother of Menelaus, his command was at stake. Menelaus and Odysseus forced Agamemnon to choose between losing his command and losing his daughter. Agamemnon reluctantly agreed.

Odysseus devised that Agamemnon would send Iphigeneia to Aulis on the pretence of marrying her to Achilles, the youngest leader of Greek forces. When Achilles learned of them using his name to trick Clytemnestra into sending Iphigeneia to Aulis, Achilles fought against the Greeks, but Iphigeneia willingly agreed to her sacrifice rather than have a brave defender killed.

Euripides' original play may actually have Iphigeneia killed on the altar, by the sacrificial knife, but the play was later modified so that the goddess Artemis spirited her away instead to the land of the Taurians. Artemis replaced Iphigeneia with a fawn. Whichever was true, the sacrifice was performed and the Greeks sailed to Troy with favourable winds.

See Sacrifices at Aulis, in the Trojan War.

It seemed that Homer didn't know the myth of Iphigeneia's sacrifice because in the Iliad, Agamemnon had any of his three daughters for Achilles to marry if the hero would cease his quarrel with him and return to the war.

According to the Catalogues of Women, Hesiod said that Artemis transformed Iphigeneia into the goddess Hecate at Aulis. The geographer Pausanias also referred to this passage in the Catalogues of Women, mentioning Iphigeneia's deification. According to Pausanias, any foreigner landing on the Tauric shore was sacrificed to their virgin goddess; the virgin goddess being Iphigeneia/Hecate, not Artemis.

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Her daughter's sacrifice may have been the motive for Clytemnestra committing adultery with Aegisthus, Agamemnon's cousin. During her husband's absence, they plotted together to murder Agamemnon if he were to ever return home from Troy.

Years after Agamemnon's murder, Orestes, Iphigeneia's brother, returned to Argos to avenge his father's death by killing Aegisthus. However, the oracle from Delphi told him that he must also kill his mother. Orestes reluctantly obeyed Apollo and the oracle, killing his mother. The Furies or the Erinyes inflicted madness upon Orestes. Though, acquitted in Athens with Athena deciding in Orestes' favour, Apollo told him that he could only properly atone for his mother's murder if he brought back the wooden statue of Artemis from the land of the Taurians.

The Taurians were inhospitable to strangers, sacrificing them to the goddess Artemis. Pylades, Orestes' faithful companion, joined Orestes in this journey, but they were captured and due to be sacrificed. The high priestess was reluctant to sacrifice any stranger, particularly these two young men. She asked them if they would help her carry a message to Argos, she would help them to escape.

When Orestes found out the message was for him and the identity of the high priestess, he was joyous that his eldest sister was alive. Together they plotted to escape from Tauric with the statue of Artemis. The Taurians would have pursued the fleeing fugitives had not the goddess Athena intervened on their behalf. The goddess ordered them that the human sacrifices must end. Brother and sister returned to Greece with the statue. The curse of the Erinyes had come to an end, and Orestes was cured of his madness.

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Hyginus wrote that Iphigeneia's return to Argos would have ended in tragedy because Electra heard news that her sister had sacrificed her dear brother. Electra would have murdered her older sister had Orestes not returned in time to save Iphigeneia from a new tragedy in the family.