Aegisthus

In Greek mythology, Aegisthus was the lover of Clytemnestra and the son of Thyestes and Pelopia. He took part in the murder of Agamemnon after the Trojan War, ruled Mycenae for seven years, and was killed by Agamemnon’s son Orestes. His story belongs to the feud between the sons of Pelops, Atreus and Thyestes.

Birth and Family

Thyestes had a long rivalry with his brother Atreus, king of Mycenae. According to Apollodorus, after Atreus served Thyestes the flesh of his own sons, Thyestes consulted an oracle and was told he could take revenge by having a child with his own daughter. He did so, and Aegisthus was born (Apollodorus, Epitome 2.14). Hyginus names the mother as Pelopia and says she exposed the child; shepherds gave him a goat to suckle him, and he was called Aegisthus from the Greek word for goat, aix (Hyginus, Fabulae 87–88). In the same account Atreus later married Pelopia, thinking she was a daughter of King Thesprotus, and raised Aegisthus as his own son. Pelopia had taken a sword from Thyestes in the dark, and kept it (Hyginus, Fabulae 88).

Aegisthus and Atreus

Hyginus says that when Atreus had Thyestes captured, he sent Aegisthus to kill him. Thyestes recognized the sword Aegisthus carried as the one he had lost, and learned from Pelopia that Aegisthus was his own son. Pelopia seized the sword and drove it into her own chest; Aegisthus brought it, bloody, to Atreus, who thought Thyestes was dead. Aegisthus then killed Atreus as he sacrificed on the shore, and returned with Thyestes to the ancestral kingdom (Hyginus, Fabulae 88). Apollodorus gives a shorter version: Aegisthus, grown up and told he was Thyestes’ son, killed Atreus and gave the kingdom back to Thyestes (Apollodorus, Epitome 2.14). In Aeschylus, Aegisthus describes himself as Thyestes’ third child, driven out as a baby in swaddling clothes and brought back by Justice (Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1583–1611).

Agamemnon and Menelaus, the sons of Atreus, were taken away as children. Apollodorus says their nurse took them to Polyphides of Sicyon and then to Oeneus in Aetolia; Tyndareus brought them back, and they drove Thyestes out to Cytheria. Agamemnon became king of Mycenae and married Clytemnestra, the daughter of Tyndareus, after killing her first husband Tantalus, a son of Thyestes, and Menelaus married Helen, daughter of Zeus and Leda, and ruled Sparta (Apollodorus, Epitome 2.15–16; Library 3.10.7).

The Murder of Agamemnon

While Agamemnon was away at Troy, Aegisthus stayed at home in Argos and charmed his wife with words. Clytemnestra at first refused, for she had a good mind, and a singer whom Agamemnon had left to watch her was with her; Aegisthus took the singer to a deserted island and left him to the birds, and brought Clytemnestra to his house willingly (Homer, Odyssey 3.262–275). The gods had warned him: Hermes was sent to tell him not to kill Agamemnon or marry his wife, since Orestes would take vengeance when he grew up. Aegisthus did not listen (Homer, Odyssey 1.29–43).

In the Odyssey, Aegisthus sets a watchman on a lookout for a year, paid with two talents of gold, to see Agamemnon return. When the king landed, Aegisthus chose twenty of the best men in the land, hid them in ambush, and had a feast prepared. He invited Agamemnon, who did not suspect his death, and killed him at dinner “as one kills an ox at its manger”; Agamemnon’s companions and Aegisthus’ men were all killed in the hall (Homer, Odyssey 4.524–537). Agamemnon’s ghost tells Odysseus that Aegisthus killed him together with his accursed wife (Odyssey 11.409–411).

In tragedy Clytemnestra strikes the blow. In Aeschylus she says she cast a robe around him like a fishing net so that he could neither flee nor fight, struck him twice, and gave him a third blow as he lay (Agamemnon 1379–1387). Hyginus says Clytemnestra and Aegisthus killed Agamemnon with an axe while he was sacrificing, together with Cassandra (Fabulae 117). Apollodorus says that Agamemnon, who had come home to Mycenae with Cassandra, was murdered by Aegisthus and Clytemnestra; she gave him a shirt without sleeves or a neck opening, and he was cut down while putting it on. They killed Cassandra as well (Apollodorus, Epitome 6.23). In Aeschylus, Aegisthus says that he plotted the killing though he was not himself present at the deed (Agamemnon 1608–1609). Pausanias adds that Aegisthus murdered Cassandra’s twin infant sons after their parents (Pausanias 2.16.6–7).

Rule and Death

Aegisthus ruled Mycenae for seven years, but in the eighth year Orestes came back from Athens and killed him; then Orestes held a funeral feast for the Argives over his hated mother and the cowardly Aegisthus (Homer, Odyssey 3.303–310). Apollodorus says that Electra smuggled the young Orestes away to Strophius of Phocis, who raised him with his own son Pylades. When Orestes was grown he went to Delphi, and the god allowed him to take vengeance, so he went secretly to Mycenae with Pylades and killed both his mother and Aegisthus (Apollodorus, Epitome 6.24–25). Hyginus has Orestes and Pylades come to the palace in disguise, with the story that Orestes was dead, and kill them both by night (Hyginus, Fabulae 119).

Pausanias cites the poet Cinaethon for a daughter of Aegisthus named Erigone, who was the mother of Penthilus, a son of Orestes (Pausanias 2.18.6). Pausanias says Clytemnestra and Aegisthus were buried a little outside the wall at Mycenae, because they were thought unworthy to lie inside it with Agamemnon and those who were killed with him (Pausanias 2.16.7).

Aegisthus Sources

Homer, Odyssey 1.29–43, 3.262–275, 3.303–310, 4.524–537, 11.409–411; Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1379–1387, 1583–1611; Apollodorus, Epitome 2.14–16, 6.23–25, and Library 3.10.7; Hyginus, Fabulae 87–88, 117, 119; Pausanias 2.16.6–7, 2.18.6.

See Also: Thyestes, Clytemnestra, Pelopia, Atreus, Agamemnon, Orestes, Electra, Menelaus