Troy 7
by CTCWeb Editors
Winds of War
The Greeks’ expedition to rescue Helen nearly failed before it its ships left the beach. Especially boastful remarks by the commander, Agamemnon, angered the goddess Artemis. Agamemnon boasted that his skill in slaying a deer was so great that Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, could not match it. Artemis was furious and took her revenge by prevent the wind from pushing the Greek ships to Troy. The fleet was stranded by Agamemnon’s hubris.
Agamemnon spoke to the seer Calchas about the fleet’s predicament. Calchas told Agamemnon only the sacrifice of his eldest daughter, Iphigenia, could placate the goddess. Despite his sorrow, Agamemnon tricked Iphigenia (image) with the promise of a marriage to Achilles and sacrificed her for a strong wind to drive the fleet to Troy.
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Girl's Sacrifice Interupted
In Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris, an alternate version of the girl’s story is proposed. At the moment when she was supposed to be sacrificed, Artemis substituted a deer for Iphigenia. She then swept the girl away to Tauris and made her one of her priestesses there. While wishing for a return to Mycenae, Iphigenia meets two strangers who are about to be sacrificed for the attempted theft of a statue of Artemis, not realizing that one of them is her own brother, Orestes. Orestes and Iphigenia are reunited and the two, along with Orestes’ companion Pylades, flee Tauris for Greece with the statue.
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