Iphigenia- Greek FigureMortal"Princess of Mycenae"

The Gathering at Aulis

Iphigenia was the eldest daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. When the Greek fleet gathered at Aulis to sail for Troy, over a thousand ships strong, Artemis stilled the winds and trapped the armada in port. In the Cypria, Agamemnon had killed a deer in the goddess's sacred grove and boasted that his aim surpassed her own. The seer Calchas delivered the price of the goddess's forgiveness: Agamemnon must sacrifice his eldest daughter on her altar. The weight of command and his own ambition drove him to accept.

The False Marriage

Agamemnon sent word to Clytemnestra at Mycenae that Iphigenia was to be married to Achilles. Clytemnestra brought her daughter to Aulis in joy. When they arrived at the camp, they found no wedding preparations. Achilles himself knew nothing of the supposed marriage and was outraged when he learned his name had been used as bait. He offered to protect Iphigenia, pledging to fight anyone who tried to take her to the altar. Clytemnestra confronted Agamemnon with fury and grief, begging him to find another way. He would not relent. The army demanded sailing, and he would not sacrifice his command for one life, even his daughter's.

The Willing Sacrifice

Iphigenia at first begged for her life, clinging to her father's knees and asking what Helen's adultery had to do with her, a girl who had never wronged anyone. She invoked her childhood, the songs she had sung for him, the kisses she had given him as a little girl.

When she saw that nothing would change her fate, that the army would take her by force if necessary, she chose to accept her death willingly. She asked her mother not to hate Agamemnon and declared that her single life was worth less than the cause of all Greece. She forbade anyone to mourn her and walked to the altar with her head held high.

The Miracle at the Altar

In the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, Iphigenia died. Her mouth was gagged to prevent her from cursing her father's house. Her saffron-dyed robe fell to the ground as she was lifted onto the altar like a goat. There was no rescue, no consolation. The winds came because the blood was real.

In Euripides and the Cypria, the ending changed. As the priest brought down his blade, Artemis snatched Iphigenia away and left a deer in her place upon the altar. The witnesses saw animal blood flow, believed the sacrifice complete, and the winds began to blow. The fleet sailed for Troy, and Iphigenia vanished from the world of the living. She was not dead.

Priestess Among the Taurians

Artemis transported Iphigenia to the land of the Taurians, on the northern shore of the Black Sea. There she installed the girl as her priestess in a temple with a grim rite: all Greek strangers who landed on those shores were sacrificed on Artemis's altar. Iphigenia, saved from one altar, now presided over another.

She served for years, cut off from her homeland. She did not know that Troy had fallen, that Clytemnestra had murdered Agamemnon on his return, or that her brother Orestes had killed their mother in revenge.

Reunion with Orestes

Years later, Orestes arrived in Tauris, driven there by Apollo's command. To complete his purification for the matricide, he had to retrieve the sacred wooden image of Artemis from the Taurian temple and bring it back to Attica. He was captured along with his companion Pylades and brought before the priestess for sacrifice.

Brother and sister did not recognize each other. Iphigenia questioned the Greek captives, desperate for any word from home, and pieced together the catastrophic history of her family. Recognition came when she composed a letter to be carried to Greece and revealed its contents to Pylades: words that only Orestes's sister could know. He spoke his name. The siblings embraced.

Together with Pylades, they devised an escape. Iphigenia told King Thoas that the statue had been polluted by the presence of a matricide and must be washed in the sea along with the prisoners. Under cover of this ritual, they boarded their ship and fled. Athena intervened to ensure their passage, commanding Thoas to let them go and ordaining that the image of Artemis be established in a new sanctuary in Attica.

Return to Attica

Iphigenia came to the sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron, on the east coast of Attica, where she served as priestess and was eventually buried. Young Athenian girls between five and ten performed the arkteia at the sanctuary, donning saffron robes and "playing the bear" for the goddess. Excavation of the site has yielded krateriskoi, small painted vessels showing girls running and dancing in these rites. The garments of women who died in childbirth were dedicated at Iphigenia's grave.

In the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, Artemis made her immortal, and she married Achilles in the Isles of the Blessed. The false bridegroom became the true one.