#now we've talked about 3/4 of the children of leda woo

[avicebro]

The House of Pelops

Hello everyone. Today we’re going to talk about another child of Leda: Clytemnestra. Besides having the name I constantly misspell, her story is very interesting so let’s go. 

This will go off on a lot of tangents I’m sorry.

Agamemnon’s Ancestors

 We’ve already discussed the birth of Clytemnestra (if you would like to read it you can do so here) so we’re going to talk about her husband, Agamemnon. With that we can talk about one of my favourite things in Greek Myth: family sagas. Often times in myth, if you look at the parents and grandparents of the character, it can tell you something about the character themselves. We’ve seen this with the descendants of Io continuing the cow theme with Minos and Europa, and now we see it here with the House of Pelops.

The House of Pelops is defined by their first son of Zeus: Tantalus. He’s famous for how he must spend the rest of his days: always thirsty and hungry, and always just in arm’s reach of water and food. Why did he end up in such torture though? Well, he wanted to prove that the gods didn’t know anything. So, he invited them to a dinner party where the main dish was his boiled son, Pelops. Zeus was quick to notice that he had served his grandson and punished Tantalus for his imprudence. They bring Pelops back to life but this was only the beginning of the bad.

(Side note: Demeter actually ends up accidentally eating a part of him because she was a little depressed over her daughter being abducted. They make him a new arm and she feels really bad.)

Pelops would have a fling with Poseidon, before going to find a bride. He fell for Hippodameia, but there was a problem. Her father was very protective of her. Only the one that would be able to beat him in a chariot race (the horses a gift from Ares) would be given her hand in marriage. If you lost, you would be killed. 

Not wanting to die and to get the girl, Pelops bribes the charioteer to tamper with the axels. When the father crashed and is on death’s door, he curses the charioteer. The charioteer then turned on Pelops by trying to steal Pelops’ new girl, but he gets yeeted into the ocean, but not before cursing Pelops and his descendants. This would continue haunting the family. 

Pelops and Hippodameia would have three sons. One of these three sons was not a piece of shit: Pittheus. Pittheus was a good king and grandfather to Theseus. Everyone loved him. But his two brothers, Atreus and Thyestes, were the complete opposite to him: vengeful, wicked and violent. 

When Heracles’ commissioner of labours accidentally gets himself boiled alive, an oracle says that a son of Pelops will now rule over Mycenae. But the question is: will it be Atreus and Thyestes? It is decided that whichever son brings the golden fleece will rule. Atreus tells Artemis that he will sacrifice the golden lamb to her if she gives it to him. Like a bro, she does, but then not like a bro, Atreus hides the lamb and sacrifices another lamb instead.  

This ends up backfiring when Atreus’ wife, who had been cheating on him with Thyestes, finds this out and brings the golden fleece to her bae. As the rules are whomever has the fleece rules Mycenae, Thyestes shows up with the fleece and becomes the king. 

Since Zeus was invested in this family and was annoyed that Atreus was not king, he told his great grandson to make a counter bargain. If the sun could be reversed, so it would set in the east, Atreus would be king. Thyestes agrees, Zeus makes it happen, and then Atreus is king again. 

But Atreus is still angry that he’s being cucked by his brother, so he pulls a page from his grand daddy’s book by inviting his brother to a meal. Like Tantalus, son is on the menu. This time it is up to three sons. 

Thyestes would end up gaining the throne again when his son, Aigisthos (who was born by his daughter by the way) kills Atreus, and then he banishes Atreus’ sons—Agamemnon and Menelaus. 

Now We Can Actually Talk About Agamemnon

With the help of their father-in-law, Agamemnon and Menelaus successfully take over Mycenae once more. Menelaus goes back to rule over Sparta with Helen. Some versions of the myth suggest that Agamemnon actually won Helen’s hand, but he gave her to his brother Menelaus as a gift (which is why some adaptations of the myth include Agamemnon ‘taking’ Helen during the fall of Troy, suggesting he wanted her for himself the whole time). Other versions have Menelaus winning her for himself. Agamemnon marries her sister, Clytemnestra, who is known as being hot, but like, not Helen hot. 

Agamemnon would have 4 kids with Clytemnestra, but only three matter to us: Elektra, Iphigeneia, and Orestes. 

Helen’s non-deity daddy made everyone who fought for her love to vow that if someone were to steal her away, everyone would fight to bring her back. So, when she is successfully seduced and or stolen depending on the variant of the myth, Menelaus comes crying to his brother Agamemnon to help him get her back. Agamemnon becomes the head of the Greek army.  

Right as they’re about to head off to fight Troy, Agamemnon does the great job of saying that he’s a better hunter than the goddess of hunt herself, Artemis. This does not make the goddess very happy.  

Artemis retaliates by making it impossible for them to leave for Troy. When asked how they could please her, the oracle tells them that they will have to sacrifice Agamemnon’s daughter, Iphigeneia. Depending on the telling, she is brought to the Greek camp under the pretense that she is being married to Achilles, and that a wedding will bless their travels. She is sacrificed like an animal. Depending on the version of the telling, Artemis can save her and turn her into one of her huntresses or not. 

This makes Clytemnestra mad. 

(side note – some modern retellings of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia include Agamemnon actually being sad and torn over killing his daughter? These retellings also refuse to explain why the Greeks are stranded in Greece in the first place, just leaving it to “Poseidon hates us”. This is to probably make Agamemnon a more complex and complicated character while not realizing what makes him either of those things in the original texts.) 

Return of Agamemnon 

Agamemnon is one of the first people to return from the Trojan War. He comes back, heralded by praises of his military prowess, wearing the royal purple and throwing the spoils of war around. One of these spoils of war is Cassandra. 

Very quickly but for those who are not aware of her myth: Cassandra is one princess of Troy. She catches the eye of Apollo (which makes sense because Troy did like Apollo, which ends up fucking things up for the Greeks during the war) and he tries to get her as his new bae. She says sure: just give me the sight of the oracle, thus to be able to see the future and I’ll date you. Apollo gives her this, and in return Cassandra ditches him. The god is very angry that a mortal played him. So, he makes it so that while she can see the future, no one believes her. 

When Agamemnon is told to come inside by his wife, Cassandra is begging him not to do it. With her curse, no one listens to her. 

Let’s talk about Clytemnestra. So, at this point she’s spent the entirety of her life as the hot-but-not-Helen-hot sister, watching her brothers go on adventures and such, and being married to Agamemnon, which just based on how he is in in the Iliad, isn’t the nicest thing to be married to. Then her husband is roped into a war because her sister gets abducted again. Then when you think your daughter is going to be married to the famed hero Achilles she’s sacrificed because your husband is an idiot. And even when he returns from war and things seem to be fixed, he comes back with a girl. 

All I’m saying is I understand Clytemnestra’s choice to a) cheat and b) convince her new bae to kill Agamemnon. 

Surely her new bae wouldn’t need much convincing: it’s none other than Aigisthos—the guy who exiled Agamemnon and Menelaus in the first place! 

His wife runs a bath for him, and it is there where he is killed by Aigisthos. At the same time, Cassandra is killed by Clytemnestra. 

(Side note: the death in the bath is symbolic for the end of the war.) 

She later has a recurring nightmare of giving birth to a snake. Then, her son Orestes comes home from exile. 

Orestes 

There is a list of things that you do not do in Ancient Greece—having sex with Zeus, trusting Theseus, not sacrificing the thing that you promised the gods you were going to sacrifice to them. In the criminal justice system of Greek Myth, killing family members is considered especially heinous. And at the top of the worst family member you can kill is your mother. Those who capture those who do these crimes are called The Furies. 

Orestes learns that his mother and her new bae have killed his dad. He, in return, pretends to be a bearer of his own death. When Clytemnestra calls for her new lover to share the news, he kills them both. 

(Side note: depending on the version, he doesn’t do it alone, but with Elektra. She isn’t chased by The Furies, however. The Elektra complex is supposed to act as the father-daughter version of the Oedipus complex because she avenges her father.) 

The Furies learn of this matricide and start chasing Orestes so he can be dragged to Tartarus and he can meet his ancestor Tantalus. They chase him from Mycenae all the way to Athens.  

(Side note: it should be mentioned that these myths are from a series of plays, called The Oresteia, written by Aeschylus. It should also be mentioned that the author is from Athens. As everyone loves the myths around the Trojan War, and with The Odyssey, we know that Agamemnon was killed, Aeschylus [and later on others would add on to what happens to Orestes] made it his job to tell the story.) 

Orestes begs Apollo, who feels partially responsible with the whole Cassandra thing and because he also persuaded him to kill Clytemnestra, to help him with dealing with The Furies. He sends him to Athena, because she’s the goddess you go to if you need a plan.  

Athena steps in and decides that he should be put on trial. Apollo acts as his defendant. The judges end in a tie. As the patron goddess of Athens, Athena is given the final ruling. 

She lets him go. Now: why. 

For those who don’t know about Athena’s backstory, a quick summation: Zeus is told that his wife will bear him a son that will usurp him. But she’s already pregnant. So, like any sane King of the Gods, he eats her whole. Then about 9 months later he has this splitting headache. He asks Hephaestus (or Prometheus, depending on the story) to just hit his forehead with an axe. As you do. From his forehead Athena springs out, fully grown up and in battle armour. And everything’s fine.  

Athena rules that since she was technically born from only her father, that for her, and thus in Athens, the father was all that mattered. So, if you want to commit matricide, do it in Athens. 

She renames The Furies into The Friendlies (which sounds more menacing in my opinion) and Orestes is allowed to go free! Yay! 

Notes 

I don’t think I have many notes for this one. Just um, I should write about The Iliad. 

Also the ruling by Athena always annoyed me as a kid.