Ch. 15: The Line of Tantalos
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♠ Ag 1568-73 – Aischylos, Agamemnon
As for me, however, I am willing to make a sworn compact with the Fiend of the house of Pleisthenes [1570] that I will be content with what is done, hard to endure though it is. Henceforth he shall leave this house and bring tribulation upon some other race by murder of kin. Greek Text
♠ Ag 1598-1602 – Aischylos, Agamemnon
Now, discovering his unhallowed deed, he uttered a great cry, reeled back, vomiting forth the slaughtered flesh, and invoked [1600] an unbearable curse upon the line of Pelops, kicking the banquet table to aid his curse, “thus perish all the race of Pleisthenes!” Greek Text
♠ Ag 60 – Aischylos, Agamemnon
Zeus, lord of host and guest, sends against Alexander the sons of Atreus Greek Text
♠ Ag 1583 – Aischylos, Agamemnon
Atreus, lord of this land, this man’s father Greek Text
♠ Tzetzes, Exegis in Iliadem – Fragmenta Hesiodea, p. 93, ed. R. Merkelbach and M. L. West. Oxford 1967.
Tzetz. Exeg. Iliad. p. 68. 19 Hermann
According to Hesiod and Aischylos (cf. Ag. 1569, 1602), Agamemnon as well as Menelaos are considered sons of Pleisthenes, son of Atreus, but according to the poet (i.e. Homer) and everyone, they were simply sons of Atreus himself. . . . According to Hesiod, Aischylos, and some others, Pleisthenes was the son of Atreus and Aerope, and the children of Pleisthenes and Dias’ daughter Kleola were Agamemnon, Menelaos, and Anaxibia. But since Pleisthenes died young, having been brought up by their grandfather Atreus, they were considered by many Atreides. (Transl. E. Bianchelli)
♠ Ag 1598-1602 – Aischylos, Agamemnon
see above
♠ Ai 1291-97 – Sophokles, Aias
Are you not aware of the fact that your father’s father Pelops long ago was a barbarian, a Phrygian? That Atreus, your own begetter, set before his brother a most unholy feast made from the flesh of his brother’s children? [1295] And you yourself were born from a Cretan mother, whose father found a stranger straddling her and who was consigned by him to be prey for the mute fish. Greek Text
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Edited by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, April 2024.
