They were disgusted by this terrible act and were incredibly angry. They could have had him instantly killed but they decided on another fate more drawn out fate. Tantalus was taken to the underworld and made to stand in a pool of water. If he were to reach down for a sip of the water it would quickly retreat from reach.
Above his head were many marvellous and tasty fruit, if he were to try and grab at them the branches would be raised just out of his reach. Here he would live for eternity. As for his son Pelos, who had been killed and cooked.
They took pity of him and brought him back to life. However, upon his family was placed a curse. Many members of the family would suffer greatly at the hands of other members of the family and this would continue for generations to come. After Pelos, the first to suffer was his sister Niobe whose 7 sons and 7 daughters were killed at the hands of the gods. Next was the saga between the sons of Pelos, Thyestes and Atreus.
It involved a violent back and forth between the two parties. Then the story arrives at Agamemnon, the son of Atreus. Menelaus, the brother of Agamemnon, sought his brothers help in his war against Troy. The armies of Greece had amassed in the east of the country and just before they planned to set sail a hunting party had shot and killed a number of sacred forest creatures including a beautiful white stag.
The goddess of the hunt, Artemis, was angered by this destructive behaviour and had sent a strong wind from the north into the harbour to stop the ships from sailing. The Greeks waited and waited but the winds would not change direction. Agamemnon sought the advice of an oracle and they said that the goddess Artemis was angered. The oracle said he must sacrifice the most beautiful of his daughters, Iphigenia. Agamemnon sent word to his daughter to come and meet him under the pretext of a potential marriage to the hero Achilles.
Once she arrives, Agamemnon handed her over to a priest. Clytemnestra attempted to intervene but the priest sacrificed Iphigenia upon an alter. Thus continues the pattern of slaughter and the curse of Atreus. Agamemnon spent 10 years fighting the Trojans and with the help of the gods and a certain wooden horse they were victorious. But a lot had changed back in Greece, in particular in his kingdom of Mycenae.
He claims that his henchmen and the treasury will enable him to control the city. He promises to have the Chorus killed. As they trade threats, Clytemnestra acts as a peacemaker, telling the Chorus that she and Aegisthus could not have acted any other way, and that peace must now reign in Argos under her rule.
The defeated Chorus accepts their authority, but declares that when Orestes returns, he will exact vengeance for his father's murder. Aegisthus and Clytemnestra dismiss these words as empty threats, and together they take up the reins of the state.
Many versions of Agamemnon's story circulated in Aeschylus' time. In some, Aegisthus, not Clytemnestra, stabs the King. Aeschylus chose to celebrate the heroine at the expense of her lover, however, and so Aegisthus appears here as a strutting fool, a poor match for his bold mate.
He has skulked in the shadows while she committed the murderous deed, and now he emerges only to bluster and threaten the Chorus. The terrible story of his family and his brothers' miserable fate wins him some sympathy from the audience, but now that his years in exile have ended, it seems that the only thing he learned in the wilderness was how to bully others into submission.
Indeed, Clytemnestra herself appears diminished by her connection to Aegisthus, and their affair is a necessary step in shifting the audience's sympathy from Clytemnestra to her son Orestes in the next play. Several critics have questioned why Clytemnestra's plot succeeded; why does the Chorus, and all of Argos, submit to a husband- murderer, a blustering braggart and his group of thugs?
He claims that his henchmen and the treasury will enable him to control the city. Aegisthus helps Clytemnestra in order to rule the kingdom of Mycenae alongside with Clytemnestra. Agamemnon had sacrificed Iphigenia to appease the anger of the goddess Artemis. She was angered because Agamemnon had hunted and killed one of her sacred stags before he planned to set sail to Troy. While Agamemnon lay siege to Troy, his estranged queen Clytemnestra took Aegisthus as a lover.
Menelaus soundly beats Paris, but before he can kill him and claim victory, Aphrodite spirits Paris away inside the walls of Troy. Achilles is the brave warrior and great fighter.
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