He, the Atreid, remembered how he had turned away from the altar when the priest grasped the flint knife he would use to open the vein of her neck. He had to be present so that the sacrifice would be accepted, so the gods would be satisfied with his pain and with the life of a still-innocent child.
He thought of how the demon of power invades the soul like a disease. A king is branded by the gods, cursed by a destiny impossible to avoid. Kings are made to do things that no other man could do, in good and in evil. They give death like the gods and suffer like mortal men, and they cannot count on one or on the other.
I have long pondered on what Agamemnon did to achieve his ends and I have asked myself if it is possible for a man to go so far solely to lay claim to power. Still today I cannot answer that question. But in the light of what happened later, perhaps an explanation does exist; perhaps his intentions were good, perhaps he thought he could save his people from total disaster and ward off the end awaiting them all.
As king, he knew that the war would bring death to thousands of his people’s sons. As king he showed them that he was prepared to offer the life of his most beloved daughter.
If this is true, then his death was a terrible injustice. After suffering all that a man could suffer in his life, he was made to suffer the most shameful death, the same that would have befallen Diomedes had he not been so prudent.
Agamemnon had the Trojan prisoners disembark, and among them Cassandra, daughter of Priam, but left the spoils of war on board the ships; he would send men and carts the next day from Mycenae to load it all up and bring it to his palace. His charioteer accompanied him, as did all his most trusted comrades, the noblemen who had fought by his side during the whole war. The others remained on the beach to sleep and wait for the booty to be divided up the next day so they could return to their families. They could not go home empty-handed after having been away for so long.
Silence shrouded the countryside, but as the armed column passed, the dogs sleeping in front of the sheep pens and the farms awoke and started barking, and a horn sounded from on high. But its long, wavering blow was full of anguish, as if it signalled the passage of an invading enemy.
When Agamemnon came within sight of Mycenae, he realized that the city was expecting him: armed guards on the bastions held flaming torches, and more torches were burning at the sides of the great gate. The coat of arms of the Mycenaean kings, two gold-headed lions facing each other on either side of a red column over a field of blue, stood out on the huge architrave, on the gigantic jambs, over the wide black opening. The king was moved to see his emblem, the symbol of the mightiest dynasty of the Achaeans, but the dark gateway below loomed before him like the door to the House of Hades. The soldiers on the bastions clanged the spears against their shields to greet him, as his horses plodded up the ramp that led to the palace.
Beyond the gate, to his right, more torches illuminated the tombs of the Perseid kings, the first to have reigned over the city. They had descended from Perseus, the city’s founder, he who had defeated Medusa. The sacred enclosure had been restored when the new Pelopid dynasty had come to power, signifying continuity and respect for tradition. On the other side of the valley, the enormous stone dome of Agamemnon’s own tomb rose on the mountainside, the tomb he had prepared for himself before he had left for the war. One day he too would rest under that immense vault, wrapped in white linen, his face covered by a golden mask that would perpetuate his features through eternity. . if it was the will of the gods to grant him a dignified death and the honour of solemn funeral rights, at the end of his existence.
But no one stood along the street, the sounds of the horses’ hoofs and the chariot’s wheels rang against dark walls and closed doors. The hinges of the gate groaned behind him and it swung shut suddenly with a loud clang. Many of his comrades put their hands to the hilts of their swords. The eyes of Cassandra, who stood beside him on the chariot, were as empty as the circle of the new moon. But as he was about to descend in front of his home, she touched his arm. He turned towards her and she whispered something into his ear. Agamemnon’s face turned white with the pallor of death: only then did he realize that he had been tricked. He realized that the Achaeans had fought for ten long years in vain and he understood that the princess was giving him the chance to save his life. But his was a life worth nothing now.
He entered the palace and the maidservants knelt and kissed his hands as though he had been away just a few days, off hunting boars. Then they led him to the bath chamber to ready him for meeting the queen. Cassandra and his comrades were taken to the throne room.
Agamemnon allowed them to remove his armour, to undress him and bathe him. The girls’ hands lingered on his hard body, furrowed with scars, they squeezed hot water on his shoulders from big sea sponges, they poured scented oil on his head.
He died that night.
They say that the queen’s lover, Aegisthus, smote him down during the banquet, as he ate. He lowered the axe on his neck and Agamemnon fell to the ground like a bull slaughtered at the manger. But he did not die then. He dragged himself across the floor, bellowing and spurting blood from the wound. He tried to defend Cassandra as the queen murdered her with a dagger. He died at her feet as the palace rang with the cries of his comrades who were falling one after another under the blows of their assailants. They fought to the very end, bare-handed, even with arms maimed and legs crippled, because they were the best of the Achaeans, chosen by Agamemnon to depart with him for Troy.
The floor was slick with their blood and the commander of the guards could barely stand upright as he passed from one to the other to cut the throats of those who were still alive. Their bodies were all buried together in a large empty cistern, before the sun rose and the people of the city could discover what had happened. Then the maidservants washed the throne room floor and purified it with fire and sulphur.
On that same night, other armed men left on war chariots, directed towards Nauplia, where the fleet was anchored. Queen Clytemnestra had ordered them to seize the king’s ship but her designs were not to be fulfilled. Before entering the city, Agamemnon had ordered his shield-bearer Antimachus to climb up on to the hill that overlooked the city. He had told him: ‘I fear that some sort of misfortune may befall me. I do not know if the queen’s heart is still true to me. Go all the way up to the top of the hill; you’ll be able to see the palace perfectly. When the banquet is finished and the lights are extinguished in the rooms, I shall go up to the tower that stands over the chasm with a lit torch in hand. When you see me, you may enter the palace yourself, you may eat and drink and take your rest. But if you do not see me, this will mean I have been betrayed. Light a fire on the top of the hill. The wind will lick up the flames and make them visible from the sea. The men will know what to do.’
Thus had said the king, and Antimachus had obeyed him. When he heard the cries of the wounded, when he saw his comrades’ corpses being carried out of the palace, he understood what had happened. He lit a fire and the flames rose high, driven by the wind that blows all night on the hilltop, and his signal was seen from afar by the sentries standing watch on the deck of the king’s ship. They knew what Agamemnon wanted and they set fire to the ship, burning it with all its treasures. The other ships weighed anchor and sailed off into the night.
No one was ever to know what became of his men. Perhaps some of them sought a new land to settle, perhaps others became pirates and brought ruin to the coast dwellers. Perhaps others still found a hidden landing place and secretly reached their homes and re-embraced their wives and children.
One day later, a messenger from Queen Aigialeia arrived at Mycenae bearing news of what had happened at Argos.
Clytemnestra received him alone, towards evening, in a throne room dimmed to hide the signs of her sleepless night, the circles under her eyes and her ashen cheeks. She learned that Diomedes had barely managed to escape death but that his fate would certainly catch up with him on the sea where he had sought refuge; the hostile wind and waves would take care of him. Clytemnestra had the messenger report back to Aigialeia that Agamemnon had died in expiation for his crimes and that Menelaus had not yet made return. And in Crete they had had no further news of Idomeneus. She had even sent a ship to Ithaca, to her cousin Penelope, and was awaiting her answer. As soon as Helen returned, the queens would once again reign over the Achaeans.