King of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War. His insistence on taking from Achilles his slave Briseis precipitated Achilles' withdrawal from battle. When he returned, with the captive daughter of Priam, Kassandra, he was murdered by his wife Klytaimnestra and her lover Aigisthos: the subject of a play by Aeschylus. He was avenged by his son Orestes, with the help of his sister Electra.
Above left: Agamemnon intervening between the quarelling Ajax and Odysseus. Detail from an Athenian red-figure clay vase, c.5th century BC. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum © Kunsthistorisches Museum
Above right: Death of Agamemnon, Aegisthos with sword. Detail from Athenian red-figure clay vase about 500-450 BC. Boston. Museum of Fine Arts 63.1246 W.F.Warden Fund © Boston. Museum of Fine Arts
