Luke D’Ancicco

Professor Eva Jones

8/18/2017

Agamemnon as a Tragic Hero

In the ancient Greek play Agamemnon there are few things that could be called heroic,

but that does not mean that there is no a hero. The titular character Agamemnon, present for only

a few scenes in the second half of the play, is not the main character of the plot. However, his

presence permeates the play and drives the action. He is the hero of the story- a tragic hero, one

who is brought low in classic Greek tradition.

What defines a tragic hero? First, to have a tragic hero, one must have a tragedy. A

tragedy is, according to Aristotle in Poetics, “the imitation of an action that is serious and also, a

s having magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language;... in a dramatic

rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a

catharsis of these emotions.” (Aristotle, Poetics 6a) To have a tragedy there must be a shift in

fortune, known as peripeteia, resulting in the hero falling from a lofty position, evoking fear or

pity in the intended audience.

In Aristotelian tradition, a tragic hero is a literary character who makes a judgment error

that inevitably leads to his or her own destruction, a person who has everything and loses it

through their own hubris. The hero in question is defined by inherent virtue, a character flaw,

and a recognition of their hamartia, which Aristotle defines as causing peripeteia “not by vice or

depravity, but by some error or frailty.” In other words, a character flaw. The tragic hero does

not need to be particularly noble, but they must lose everything because of their tragic flaw.
 In Agamemnon, the only two characters with any true weight or backstory are

Agamemnon, the returning war hero, and Clytemnestra, the dutiful spouse. Agamemnon is the

title character but is only present for one scene, if you don’t count a blood curdling scream later

on, leaving only a few things to directly analyze. However, other characters talk about him

constantly, so it’s more then possible to piece together how he fits the tragic archetype through

second hand information.

The chorus provides description of how before the Trojan war Agamemnon and his

brother Menelaus were “honoured by Zeus with their double throne and double scepter, the

sturdy yoke-pair of the Atreidae,” (Aeschylus, 42-43), thus marking him as a ruler that is favored

by the gods. He has a beautiful wife, two daughters and a son, and the respect of both his peers

and the Gods.

However, when the mighty Greek fleet prepares to launch, the winds to fill their sails are

stymied by Artemis, who demands the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenia. He either

kills his daughter or has her killed, it’s not clear which, by luring her and her mother with

trickery and deception, thus laying the seeds for his eventual downfall.

When Agamemnon returns from the war he is arguably better off than he ever was

before, laden with honor, treasure and bearing the concubine princess Cassandra. During the

Greek victory however, Agamemnon and his men have not only sacked the treasury of Troy, but

also its temples and holy places, an act that the chorus had previously identified as something

that could bring about divine retribution.

However, Agamemnon’s kingdom, represented by the chorus, rejoices in his triumphant

return and so the King is unable or unwilling to notice that things have changed in his homeland
in his long absence. Blinded by his success, Agamemnon falls victim to the tragic flaw of hubris-

an excess of pride.

Agamemnon’s hubris makes him unable to see through Clytemnestra’s web of lies even

with Cassandra’s warnings. He does not notice that Clytemnestra has become bitter in his long

absence, and even, at his wife’s urging, walks on a purple cloth, completely ignoring how

Clytemnestra is obviously using it as a symbol for a vendetta.

Throughout the course of their conversation his Queen makes dozens of thinly veiled

metaphors about revenge which completely fly over Agamemnon’s, though not the chorus’,

head. The only person surprised at Agamemnon’s death is Agamemnon. Mighty warrior,

conqueror of Troy, he dies alone in his bath, screaming in fear.

Clytemnestra’s peripeteia begins the moment Agamemnon sacrifices their daughter,

Iphigenia. Heartbroken and grieving, Clytemnestra schemes, plotting vengeance for her

daughter’s death, until it consumes her entire character. When she first enters the play, the Queen

of Argos remains silent for several lines, leaving the Chorus to explain her backstory. Dutifully,

her entire attention is focused on the system of beacons that will notify her of her husband's

return. Indeed her first real meaningful lines, apart from an explanation of how the beacon

system works, is to gloat to the audience about her upcoming vengeance.

Clytemnestra's desire to avenge is her Hamartia. Her reaction to Iphigenia's death is

understandable - but a few circumstances taint what we might perceive as an otherwise heroic

act. First, in Agamemnon's absence Clytemnestra took a lover - Aegisthus. Nevermind the fact

that Agamemnon has returned with a concubine, the ethics of Ancient Greece prized the

faithfulness of wives over husbands. Clytemnestra’s infidelity is a major black mark on her

character from such a perspective.

 Secondly, Clytemnestra's murder of her husband is committed while he is unaware in the

bath at his most defenseless. In the process the relatively innocent Cassandra is murdered as

well. Finally, of course, we must consider the fact that Clytemnestra’s need for vengeance

doesn’t preclude her from also grabbing political power as well by installing her husband's

relative and her lover Aegisthus on the throne with herself as his new queen.

The murder of Agamemnon will dictate the rest of the events of the Oresteia cycle,

driving the action of her son, Orestes, who returns from the banishment his mother imposes on

him in The Libation Bearers to strike her and Aegisthus down. Orestes himself will not be able

to escape this cycle of revenge unharmed, as the action of killing his mother sets the mystical

force of the Furies to torment him until the gods themselves are required to step in The

Eumenides.

However, looking at Agamemnon as a stand alone play there is no comeuppance for

Clytemnestra. There is no other way to look at the ending but as a straight victory, one where her

lover now assumes the throne, her enemies lie dead at her feet or banished, and she has finally

brought her daughter's murderer to justice. The end of Agamemnon represents the height from

which she will tumble.

In the end, it is left up to the viewer whether Clytemnestra delivered a dish best served

cold or made an arrogant mistake .It is clear to the audience though that Agamemnon has

suffered perhaps the greatest reversal of fortunes imaginable. Agamemnon was the king of a

prosperous nation who embarked on a war of revenge by murdering his own daughter to satisfy

the gods, but by achieving victory over the Trojans he dishonored the very gods he had placated,

and returns to his home after a decade of war an unknowing cuckold, to be struck down by his

wife and supplanted by her lover. In the words of Clytemnestra “With the sword he struck; with
the sword he paid for his own act” (Aeschylus 73).

References

Aeschylus. Agamemnon. Aeschylus II 3rd Edition, edited by David Grene, Richmond Lattimore,
Mark Griffith, and Glenn W. Most; University of Chicago Press, 2013, pp. 20 - 79.

Halliwell, Stephen, and Aristotle. Aristotle's Poetics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1998. Print.