Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/195

 AGAMEMNON AND MLNELAUS. 163 During his absence, the unwarlike ^gisthus, son of Thyestes, had seduced his wife Klytaemnestra, in spite of the special warn- ing of the gods, who, watchful over this privileged family, had sent their messenger Hermes expressly to deter him from the attempt. 1 A venerable bard had been left by Agamemnon as the companion and monitor of his wife, and so long as that guar dian was at hand, JEgisthus pressed his suit in vain. But he got rid of the bard by sending him to perish in a desert island, and then won without difficulty the undefended Klytaemnestra. Igno- rant of what had passed, Agamemnon returned from Troy vic- torious and full of hope to his native country ; but he had scarcely landed when -ZEgisthus invited him to a banquet, and there with the aid of the treacherous Klytasmnestra, in the very hall of fes tivity and congratulation, slaughtered him and his companions " like oxen tied to the manger. " His concubine Kassandra, the prophetic daughter of Priam, perished along with him by the hand of Klytcemnestra herself. 2 The boy Orestes, the only male offspring of Agamemnon, was stolen away by his nurse, and placed in safety at the residence of the Phokian Strophius. For seven years JEgisthus and Klytsemnestra reigned in tran quillity at Mykenae on the throne of the murdered Agamemnon. But in the eighth year the retribution announced by the gods over- took them : Orestes, grown to manhood, returned and avenged his father by killing ^JEgisthus, according to Homer ; subsequent poets add, his mother also. He recovered the kingdom of My- kenae, and succeeded Menelaus in that of Sparta. Hermione, the only daughter of Menelaus and Helen, was sent into the realm of the Myrmidons in Thessaly, as the bride of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, according to the promise made by her father during the siege of Troy. 3 Here ends the Homeric legend of the Pelopids, the final act of Orestes being cited as one of unexampled glory. 4 Later poets made many additions : they dwelt upon his remorse and hardly- 1 Odyss. i. 38 ; iii. 310. avfamdor Alyiadoto. 2 Odyss. iii. 260-275; iv. 512-537 ; xi. 408. Dcinias in his Argolica, and other historians of that territory, fixed the precise day of the murder of Agamemnon, the thirteenth of the month Gamelion (Schol. ad Sophokl Elektr. 275). 1 Odyss. iii 30C ; iv. 9 4 Odrss. i. 299.