Agamemnon

King of Mycenae and commander-in-chief of the Achaean expedition against Troy — eldest son of Atreus, brother of Menelaus, heir to the Pelopid curse. To win fair winds at Aulis he sacrificed his own daughter Iphigenia, an act his wife Clytemnestra never forgave. His quarrel with Achilles over the war-prize Briseis in *Iliad* 1 nearly costs the Achaean army its champion; only Patroclus's death restores Achilles to the field. Aeschylus's *Agamemnon* dramatises his return to Mycenae: Clytemnestra spreads the red tapestry, lures him into the bath, and kills him with the help of her lover Aegisthus. His shade tells the story directly to Odysseus in *Odyssey* 11.

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