Led to the Altar: Marriage, Sacrifice & Initiation in the Iphigeneia Story

Abstract

In Greek mythology Iphigeneia is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra who is sacrificed by her father at Aulis before the Greeks sail for Troy. She is also a figure in Greek religion and is particularly associated in cult with the goddess Artemis. Her sacrifice is the most famous of tales of virgin sacrifice from antiquity, and may thus be taken as a paradigm for this type of event. This thesis examines the presentation of the Iphigeneia figure in three Attic tragedies, namely, the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, the Iphigeneia in Aulis by Euripides and also Euripides' Iphigeneia in Tauris. It explores the interplay between the mythical Iphigeneia presented in the plays and the Iphigeneia of cult, focusing specifically on the depiction of the motifs of marriage, sacrifice and cult. Depictions of Iphigeneia's sacrifice demonstrate the aberrant nature of human sacrifice in a culture where animal sacrifice was a familiar event.