Chapter 16, The Trojan War
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♠ NA 7.39 – Aelianus, De Natura Animalium
And Euripides in his Iphigenia says ‘But I will place in the very hands of the Achaeans an antlered hind, which they will slay and boast they have slain thy daughter’. Greek Text
♠ ApE 3.21-22 – Apollodoros, Epitome
But when they had put to sea from Argos and arrived for the second time at Aulis, the fleet was windbound, and Calchas said that they could not sail unless the fairest of Agamemnon’s daughters were presented as a sacrifice to Artemis; for the goddess was angry with Agamemnon, both because, on shooting a deer, he had said, “ Artemis herself could not （ do it better）,” and because Atreus had not sacrificed to her the golden lamb. [22] On receipt of this oracle, Agamemnon sent Ulysses and Talthybius to Clytaemnestra and asked for Iphigenia, alleging a promise of his to give her to Achilles to wife in reward for his military service. So Clytaemnestra sent her, and Agamemnon set her beside the altar, and was about to slaughter her, when Artemis carried her off to the Taurians and appointed her to be her priestess, substituting a deer for her at the altar; but some say that Artemis made her immortal. Greek Text
♠ Fab 98 – Hyginus, Fabulae
IPHIGENIA: When Agamemnon with his brother Menelaus and chosen leaders of Asia were going to Troy to recover Helen, wife of Menelaus, whom Alexander Paris had carried off, a storm kept them at Aulis because of the anger of Diana. Agamemnon had wounded a deer of hers in hunting, and had spoken rather haughtily against Diana. When he had called together the soothsayers, and Calchas had declared that he could expiate in no other way than by sacrificing his daughter, Iphigenia, Agamemnon at first refused. Then Ulysses by his advice won him over to a fine scheme. The same Ulysses along with Diomede was sent to get Iphigenia, and when he came to Clytemnestra her mother, he falsely said she was to be given in marriage to Achilles. When she was brought to Aulis, and her father was about to sacrifice her, Diana pitied the girl, cast mist about her, and substituted a deer in her place. She bore Iphigenia through the clouds to the Tauric land, and there made her a priestess of her temple. Latin Text
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Edited by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, January 2023
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