Editing Agamemnon (section)

== Return to Greece and death ==
[[File:The Murder Of Agamemnon - Project Gutenberg eText 14994.png|thumb|The assassination of Agamemnon, an illustration from ''Stories from the Greek Tragedians'' by Alfred Church, 1897]]
[[File:Aegisthus.jpg|thumb|[[Orestes]] slaying Clytemnestra]]

After a stormy voyage, Agamemnon and Cassandra land in [[Argolis]], or, in another version, are blown off course and land in Aegisthus's country. Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, has taken Aegisthus, son of [[Thyestes]], as a lover. When Agamemnon comes home he is slain by Aegisthus (in the oldest versions of the story)<ref>Homer, ''[[Odyssey]]'' 3:266</ref> or by Clytemnestra. According to the accounts given by [[Pindar]] and the tragedians, Agamemnon is slain in a bath by his wife alone, after being ensnared by a blanket or a net thrown over him to prevent resistance.<ref>[[Aeschylus]], ''[[Agamemnon (play)|Agamemnon]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0085.tlg005.perseus-eng1:1372-1406 1381{{ndash}}1385] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220319224214/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0085.tlg005.perseus-eng1:1372-1406 |date=19 March 2022}}.</ref> This is the case in [[Aeschylus]]' ''Oresteia.''<ref>Aeschylus, ''Oresteia'', edited by C. (Christopher) Collard, [[Oxford University Press]], 2017.</ref>

In Homer's version of the story in the ''Odyssey'', Aegisthus ambushes and kills Agamemnon in a feasting hall under the pretense of holding a feast in honor of Agamemnon's return home from Troy.<ref name=":3">{{cite book |title=The Odyssey |author=Homer |publisher=[[Barnes & Noble]] |date=2003 |pages=48–49, 140 |location=New York |isbn=9781593080099}}</ref> Clytemnestra also kills Cassandra. Her motivations are her wrath at the sacrifice of Iphigenia (as in the ''[[Oresteia]]'' and ''Iphigenia at Aulis'') and her jealousy of Cassandra and other war prizes taken by Agamemnon (as in the ''Odyssey'' and works by [[Ovid]]'')''.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Haynes |first=Natalie |date=28 March 2022 |title=Is Clytemnestra an Archetypically Bad Wife or a Heroically Avenging Mother? |url=https://lithub.com/is-clytemnestra-an-archetypically-bad-wife-or-a-heroically-avenging-mother/ |access-date=15 May 2023 |website=lithub.com |publisher=[[Literary Hub]]}}</ref>

Aegisthus and Clytemnestra then rule Agamemnon's kingdom for a time, Aegisthus claiming his right of revenge for Atreus's crimes against Thyestes (Thyestes then crying out "thus perish all the race of [[Pleisthenes]]!",<ref>Aeschylus, ''Agamemnon'', [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0085.tlg005.perseus-eng1:1577-1616 1602].</ref> thus explaining Aegisthus' action as justified by his father's curse). Agamemnon's son [[Orestes]] later avenges his father's murder, with the help or encouragement of his sister Electra, by murdering Aegisthus and Clytemnestra (his own mother), thereby inciting the wrath of the [[Erinyes]] (English: the Furies), winged goddesses who track down wrongdoers with their hounds' noses and drive them to insanity.