The Assassination of Agamemnon (Animated Documentary)

After ten years of ruthless war and devastating losses on both sides, the city of Troy was burned to the ground and King Agamemnon was victorious. What was left of his army, however, were the decimated Achaean contingents desperate to return home. Unlike many of his generals and lieutenants who either fell during the war or suffered ill fate on their subsequent voyages, Agamemnon was able to safely return to his kingdom. But eventually, even the king of Mycenae and ruler of all Argos fell victim to a conspiracy that would further accelerate the Mycenaean decline and uphold the everlasting curse to approaching Peloponnese, the signal was given and the Argai watchmen notified the nobles in Argos and Mycenae. While Agamemnon was away in the Trojan war, he had left a council of elders behind to watch over the kingdom together with his wife Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra and Agamemnon had one son, Orestes, and three daughters, Electra, Chrysothemis, and Iphigenia. It was none other than Iphigenia that had fell victim to the human sacrifice ordered by Agamemnon as he sacrificed his own daughter, as advised by his priest Calchas, before sailing to Troy. This atrocity was something that Clytemnestra never forgave her husband. Besides the Mycenaean queen, there was another person holding a grudge against the returning king. That person was Aegisthus, son of the previous ruler, Theseus. During the previous struggle for the Mycenaean throne, the two brothers, Atreus and Theseus, created a blood feud within the family, which was never ultimately resolved. At first, Atreus had the three sons of Theseus murdered, and after forcing his brother to flee the city, assumed the throne for himself. However, while in exile, Theseus had another child, which was with his own daughter, a son named Aegisthus. Aegisthus eventually returned to Mycenae, and in a royal conspiracy, murdered Atreus, thus enabling Theseus to return and declare himself the Mycenaean king. Following this development, Atreus' sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus, fled to Sparta, gathered their armies and eventually came back, defeating Theseus and assuming power, with Menelaus becoming Basileus in Sparta and Agamemnon the Aenex or High King in Mycenae. Afterwards, Theseus was banished to the island of Cithara, where he soon died, while Aegisthus was apparently forgiven the murder of Atreus and was allowed to live. While Agamemnon was on the ten-year-long Trojan campaign, his wife Clytemnestra, the queen of Mycenae, started having an affair with Aegisthus, and eventually, a secret plot to assassinate the king began slowly developing. As the Trojan war dragged on, Aegisthus became an increasingly important figure on the Achaean court, becoming somewhat of a according to Homer, in the absence of Agamemnon. As Agamemnon's ship was spotted on the horizon, the first to be notified was Aegisthus himself. Aegisthus, having bribed the watchman with two talons of gold in order to avoid being surprised by Agamemnon's return, wanted to have enough prep time for the assassination before the king found out about either the love affair or the treacherous plot against him. Subsequently, the plan was now put in motion, and a welcoming royal feast was organized in Agamemnon's honor. In the meantime, twenty of Aegisthus' best men were placed in the hall of the palace, where the triumphant feast was to be organized. As Agamemnon disembarked from his ship, he was met by a delegation, including the Argive elders and Queen Clytemnestra, who all greeted the Mycenaean king with full honors. However, together with Agamemnon was his concubine, Cassandra of Troy, which the king brought home with him as a spoil of war. This further angered Clytemnestra, only convincing her further that her participation in the plot was justified. The queen provided husband with a warm welcome and gave him a royal purple fabric, after which Agamemnon, according to Homer, grabbed a handful of soil of his land and kissed it with a joyful tear in his eye, and then together with his followers proceeded to the royal palace. There, the king finally met with Aegisthus, who welcomed Agamemnon with full respects, and the royal feast could begin. Unsuspecting Agamemnon was probably unarmed at this point, together with his royal followers, all of them unaware that Aegisthus' assassins are hidden nearby and waiting in the royal hall. Once the feast was over and Agamemnon stood and started walking away, twenty of Aegisthus' men quickly crowded the room and instantly attacked the unarmed king with swords and daggers. Agamemnon, the high king of Mycenae, was murdered together with all of his present companions. It was soon revealed that Aegisthus and Clytemnestra were behind the plot, and Agamemnon's concubine, Cassandra, was soon murdered as well. With nobody to immediately oppose them, the conspiring couple quickly declared themselves the rulers of the kingdom. The assassination of Agamemnon is generally attributed to three things. The first two, connected to his wife Clytemnestra, are Agamemnon's sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia prior to the Trojan War, and then his return with a concubine Cassandra, both things unacceptable for the Mycenaean queen. The third thing, connected to the curse of the house of Atreus, is the blood feud between royal families' factions, the royal houses of Atreus and Theseus. Aegisthus here saw a perfect opportunity to avenge his father's defeat and take the throne for himself. In other versions of the story, most famously portrayed by the later Greek tragedians, such as in Oresteia by Aeschylus, Agamemnon was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra while he was having a bath, where the queen used either a blanket or a fishnet to trap her husband before ultimately stabbing him to death. Following Agamemnon's death, Aegisthus and Clytemnestra arranged a marriage, formally declaring themselves king and queen of Mycenae and all of Algolis. The couple would even have three children of their own, a son Alethes, and two daughters, Erigone and Helen. The murder of Agamemnon did little to keep the Achaeans unified, as the only person able to exercise such hegemony was now dead, and many princes and rulers across Greece highly disapproved of such horrible act. This was WinexTV, and we'll see you again soon.