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Pronunciation:
kly-tem-nes'-truh

Etymology:
Praiseworthy wooing

Clytemnestra was the wife of the king who lead the Greeks against Troy in the Trojan War, Agamemnon. She is the daughter of Tyndareus and Leda and mother of Iphigeneia, Orestes, Chrysothemis, and Electra.

Agamemnon followed his brother Menelaus after Menelaus' wife Helen was stolen by Paris, thus igniting a great war fought between Greece and Troy; the Greeks sailed to Troy to recover Helen of Troy, the beautiful wife of Menelaus who had been abducted by Paris; after ten years the Greeks (via the Trojan Horse) achieved final victory.

While Agamemnon was away, Clytemnestra weakened her resolve and began a torrid love affair with Aegisthus, seducer of Clytemnestra and murderer of Agamemnon who usurped the throne of Mycenae until Agamemnon's son Orestes returned home and killed him. She was bitter towards her absent husband for having sacrificed their daughter, Iphigeneia, Artemis.

At the end of the war, Agamemnon returned to Mycenae where his kinsman, Aegisthus, who in the interval had seduced his wife Clytemnestra, invited him to a banquet at which he was treacherously slain. Princess Cassandra of Troy, who had been taken by Agamemnon as a war trophy, was also put to death by Clytemnestra. According to the account given by Pindar and the tragedians, Agamemnon was slain by his wife alone in a bath, a piece of cloth or a net having first been thrown over him to prevent resistance. According to Aeschylus, Clytemnestra placed a piece of purple cloth and asked the returning Agamemnon to step over it. He refused at first but then gave in, while Cassandra, who had been endowed with the gift of prophecy but with the curse of no one believing her, waited outside, knowing doom awaited. She stayed outside until she heard Agamemnon scream as he died, then ran inside and was killed by Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra's wrath at the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigeneia, and her jealousy of Cassandra, are said to have been the motives of her crime. The murder of Agamemnon was avenged by his son Orestes.

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