Information On The Sacrifice Of Iphigenia

In Homer’s epic poem the Iliad, gods and goddesses play an important role in influencing the lives of humans, and Athena is an important part of the war. The goddess Athena is written mostly as a mortal, where she signifies the personification of war. Both sides of the war know that with Athena, they will not lose. This is probably why she is the most significant minor character. Athena is the most significant minor character because she is brave, wise, and she is a warrior. Athena plays a significant role in the unfolding drama, because both the Greeks and the Trojans know that her favor, they cannot be defeated.

The women in Agamemnon are as powerful as men but slaves to the divine. Clytemnestra’s early sacrifices parallel her vengeful slaughter of Agamemnon. After Clytemnestra makes sacrifices in celebration of Greece’s victory, the chorus cries, “hope glows through your victims” (Agamemnon, 658). They reference both hope for Greece 's victory and hope for avenging Iphigenia 's death. Sacrifices of thanksgiving make Clytemnestra an ambassador of victory and the sacrifice of Agamemnon makes her an ambassador of Justice. Agamemnon’s slaughter is an act in the name of heavenly Justice; it is a retributive sacrifice to Fate. Despite its moral significance, the murder of the war hero invokes a cycle of death within the house of Agamemnon. Like the

The Exaltation of Inanna reads as an ode filled with several flatteries given to Inanna in the same way a child flatters a mother before asking for a piece of candy. Enheduanna immediately addresses Inanna after describing Inanna’s beauty and how great her powers are. Enheduanna finally claims ownership after telling Inanna that she's aware of all the powers Inanna possesses and as the High Priestess she prayed to her. Enheduanna explains how Lugalanne was once an ally of hers until he kicked her out of the priesthood and now the people that are controlled by him are sinners and hate her Nanna. Enheduanna wants Inanna to haunt Lugalanne into giving Enheduanna back her position as High Priestess. Enheduanna also describes how she has come to

In book three of Iliad, “illustrious king” (9.126) and his Achaean armies fight the Trojans to stop wife stealing but despites that he still dishonors and takes Achilles prize, Breseis. Agamemnon in the Iliad can be seen as the mortal Aphrodite. In book three of Iliad, Helen disobeyed Aphrodite and she responds with rage and so does “lord of men” (9.112) in book one. Agamemnon feels that Achilles disobeyed him, so he answers with wrath just to show “how much greater [he] [is] than [him]…. for hoping to rival [him] strength for strength” (1.219-221). His statement makes Achilles furious with rage. “Why, why in the world if not for Helen with her loose and lustrous hair? Are they the only men alive who love their wives, those sons of Atreus? Never!” (9.411-414). Achilles expresses his feeling on how contradicting the whole Trojan war is and that is he going to involve himself, it will be for Bresies only. Bresies is who he loves not

Both Clytemnestra and Antigone are driven by their passionate transgressions and desires due to conflicts within their families, and they are incapable of bearing the consequences they bring upon their nations and societies. There are times when personal sacrifices are necessary to the greater social progress, and the death of Iphigenia is an example in which case her death contributes to the victory of the Greek army. Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek army, decides to sacrifice the life of his own daughter in exchange of the wind that carries the Greek army to the land of Troy, which eventually leads to a glorious victory. However, Clytemnestra is overwhelmed by the death of her daughter, and she is not capable of perceiving the death of Iphigenia as a sacrifice to secure the Greeks’ victory with help from the Gods. Her husband Agamemnon, who lies to Iphigenia and sends her

The first book of the Iliad begins with the beginning of Achilles’ rage, the rage that will eventually cause his own people so much grief and is also the force for Homer’s version of the story of the Trojan War. Whereas the taking of Helen is the focus of the larger, traditional story, the feud between Agamemnon and the hero Achilles over a kidnapped girl defines the Iliad. Both feature a conflict over a woman, Helen and Chryses’ daughter, and a need for resolution as well as a breach of social contract: Paris steals the wife of Agamemnon, ruining the bonds of the guest relationship, while Agamemnon denies Chryse his right to ransom and invokes the wrath of the gods in the form of a plague. In both cases, however, it becomes clear that the conflict will not be resolved quickly, but will continue through the very heart of the story. By “singing of Achilles’ rage” from the first line, the narrator is clearly showing the audience that this Trojan war is not the war of Hector or Paris or Helen, but of the proud Achilles and his hero-sized enemy.

During that entire time, Achilles’ justification for wallowing in self-pity is that he has been “dishonored”. This argument becomes null and void when Agamemnon offers lavish compensation for the affront. In addition to returning Briseis, Agamemnon offers Achilles seven unfired tripods, ten gold bars, twenty burnished cauldrons, a dozen horses, seven beautiful women from Lesbos, twenty Trojan women, his daughters’ hand in marriage along with a rich dowry, and the ownership of seven populous cities. Any reasonable person would have taken the offer but not prideful, bitter Achilles. Instead he continues on with the same old rhetoric and refuses to fight. As if standing idly by while his countrymen were being killed was not enough, Achilles has his mother call in a favor to Zeus asking him to help the Trojans so that even more Greeks would die during his absence. Not only did he abandon his comrades, he actually prayed for them to die because his pride had been hurt.

“Oh Hephaestus- who of all the goddesses on Olympus, who has borne such withering sorrows in her heart? Such pain as Zeus has given me, above all others! Me out of all the daughters of the sea he chose to yoke to a mortal man, Peleus….Zeus also gave me a son to bear and breed...but only to send him off in the beaked ships to Troy to battle Trojans!” (P. 481)

Achilles is also angry at having to fight another man's battle. The Trojan War is being fought because Paris stole Helen, Agamemnon's sister-in-law. In his argument with Agamemnon, Achilles points out "It wasn't Trojan spearmen who brought me here to fight. The Trojans never did me damage, not in the least" (107). Achilles' rage heightens in the argument and he declares "No, you colossal, shameless--we all followed you, to please you, to fight for you, to win your honor back from the Trojans---Menelaus and you, you dog-face!" (108). Achilles is also angry because even though he and many other soldiers are there risking their lives for Agamemnon and Menelaus, Agamemnon is sly enough to avoid personal injury. Achilles says to Agamemnon, "Never once did you arm with the troops and go to battle or risk an ambush packed with Achaea's picked men--you lack the courage, you can see death

She talks Achilles into using his words to fight Agamemnon instead of his sword. To obey the gods Achilles verbally lashes him calling him a drunkard and a coward who stays behind the fight letting other men die while he reaps the glory because he feared death even though he will take the prize of any man that disagrees with him. He will not fight any more and that Agamemnon has brought the destruction of the Greek army on himself for failing to honor the best of the Greek warriors. He would give up Briseis because it was Agamemnon that gave her to him but if he touched anything else of his he would kill him. Achilles gave up Briseis to Agamemnon’s men telling them that one day they would need his help for their leader didn’t know how to see how his actions affected everyone. In the movie of Troy after taking the beach outside of the city of Troy Achilles is given Briseis as his prize of honor the leaders met together giving gifts to Agamemnon. Achilles spoke to the king telling him that he had won a victory that day. Agamemnon told him that he had won the beach of Troy from Prium that morning, that history remembers kings not warriors and even though he was there to fight for the continuation of his name his wouldn’t be the one who was remembered. Achilles tells him to be careful because he needs to win the war first. Agamemnon recounts that Achilles men had taken the temple of Apollo. Achilles tells him that he can take all of the gold for

The Iliad: Book I, is about the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon in the beginning of the Trojan War. It shows how vigorous Achilles’ rage was and that he is no one to mess with. The book states “Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed”. This shows his fury in just a few words. Achilles was a Greek hero who was the son of a Goddess named Thetis. He was an incredible solder; brave, violent and godlike. However, Agamemnon was the commander of the Achaean Army. He was greedy, aggressive and selfish. He was described as “the most grasping man alive”. He absolutely hated Achilles. I feel that he was jealous of how respected Achilles was among the ranks in the army because of his superior skills in the field of battle. Agamemnon claimed Chryseis as his prize, after sacking a Trojan town. Chryseis was a daughter of a Priest of Apollo, Chryses. He offered an enormous ransom to get his daughter back. At first Agamemnon didn’t want it but the people round him persuaded him that it would be best to let her go so they could be released from the plague that Apollo put on them. Agamemnon then poised to Achilles that he is going to steal Achilles prize, Briseis. This is when Achilles’ rage shows at its best. He nearly draws his sword to kill Agamemnon but he is stopped by the goddess, Athena.

His brother Hector and he were on a peace mission in Sparta on behalf of Troy visiting the king, Menelaus, when Paris ran off with Menelaus’ wife, Helen. This action divides the Gods who constantly meddle with the mortal’s lives. Naturally, Aphrodite is on the Trojans’ side, as was her lover and God of War, Ares, and Apollo. Although Zeus, King of Gods, tried to be neutral, he was pro-Trojan. Hera, Queen of Gods, and Athena help the Greeks because they were mad that Paris chose Aphrodite. Poseidon, God of the Sea and Zeus’ brother, also sided with the Greeks whenever Zeus was not looking. An example of this constant intrusiveness of the Gods in the Iliad was when King “Menelaus hurls his spear, lightly wounding Paris. Paris’ helmet strap becomes caught at his chin and Menelaus has nearly dragged him away before Aphrodite intervenes, breaking the strap. She then wraps Paris in a mist, sets him in his own perfumed bedchamber, and hurries to catch Helen” (Bloom 13). Of course, in the movie version, when Paris becomes wounded he crawls to Hector’s ankles. King Menelaus becomes angered and says Paris is not worthy of royalty nor his wife Helen. Hector is then forced to defend his little brother and kills Menelaus. The elimination of the Gods from Troy, although unsatisfactory, does simplify the movie compared to the complicated plot of the Iliad. Wolfgang Petersen may have had motivation to remove the Gods because it

Sacrifice is a common theme in Greek Mythology.  Sometimes a sacrifice is made for the greater good of a situation, and sometimes the sacrifice is a person.   In one myth, a girl named Iphigenia is sacrificed to gain better results for the Trojan army.  

The Iliad opens in the predicament of the Greeks who have somehow incurred the wrath of the gods. It is here that Agamemnon, supreme commander of the Grecian army, demand that Achilles give up his “prize” (Briseis) to replace his own “prize” (Chrysies) which he has to give up to appease the gods. Agamemnon has to

In reading texts that describe the mythical story of the Trojan War, it would be difficult to ignore the tragedy that the story emanates in its character’s actions and their consequences. Homer’s Iliad explores the tragedy of Achilles, whose preoccupation with glory has its tragic consequences of death and grief. It also shows the War’s resounding effect on those outside of the battlefield and the families of the warriors, as does Euripides’ Women of Troy, reflecting on family as the unforeseen victims of war. Furthermore, the play Rhesus is shown to give a more elaborated perspective of tragedy for individual characters. An examination of the Trojan War from the Trojan and Roman perspective further reveals tragedy on both sides. The gods’