Tauris

Tauris

Tauris was a place in the Crimean Peninsula, which appeared in the story of Iphigenia in Greek mythology. The Greeks had established a colony there, but they considered its original inhabitants, the Tauri, as savages. In the Greek myth of Iphigenia, Agamemnon, one of the Greek leaders in the Trojan War, was told to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia because the goddess Artemis was angry with him for killing one of her sacred deer; as a punishment, no wind blew in order for the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. Agamemnon eventually accepted, and when Iphigenia was brought to the altar to be sacrificed, she was secretly exchanged for a deer by the goddess.

Artemis brought Iphigenia to Tauris, where she served as a priestess to her at her temple. Many years later, her brother Orestes was told to go to Tauris to retrieve a statue of goddess Artemis, in order to be relieved of the Erinyes who chased him after he killed his mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. There, he was reunited with his sister, and together they escaped the savage Tauri and returned to Greece.

See Also: Iphigenia, Trojan War, Agamemnon, Artemis, Orestes, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus

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