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Books about Agamemnon :
Agamemnon, the Choephori, the Eumenides Notes
Most of what is known of the ancient Greek hero Agamemnon is narrated in the Homeric legend of the 'Iliad' and
in the dramas of Aeschylus. The son of Atreus, who was the king of Mycenae in Greece, Agamemnon was probably a
historical personage, a king who ruled either at Mycenae or at nearby Argos during the Trojan War. From the mythic
tales of the ancient Greeks, however, it is impossible to separate fact from legend.
The stories relate that Agamemnon was the brother of Menelaus, king of Sparta, whose wife, Helen, was carried off
to Troy by Paris, a prince of that city in Asia Minor. This event led Agamemnon to muster the military might of
the Greek city-states in a war of revenge. After the long war and the eventual destruction of Troy, he sailed home
to his wife, Clytemnestra, and his family. Upon arriving, he was murdered either by his wife or by her lover, Aegisthus.
To avenge this treachery, Agamemnon's son, Orestes, killed both Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. The story of this revenge
and its outcome is told in three plays by Aeschylus--'Agamemnon', 'Choephoroi', and 'Eumenides'. It is also the
basis of the plot in the 'Electra' of Sophocles and the 'Electra' of Euripides. All three of these playwrights
lived in the 5th century BC. The 20th-century American playwright Eugene O'Neill wrote an adaptation of the Agamemnon
legend entitled 'Mourning Becomes Electra'.
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