Everything about Aegistheus totally explained
» For the opera by Francesco Cavalli, see Egisto
In
Greek mythology,
Aegisthus (
Ancient Greek: Αίγισθος, "
goat strength" — also
transliterated as
Aegisthos or
Aigísthos) was the son of
Thyestes and of his daughter,
Pelopia.
Thyestes felt he'd been deprived of the
Mycenean throne unfairly by his brother,
Atreus. The two battled back and forth several times. In addition, Thyestes had an affair with Atreus' wife,
Aerope. In revenge, Atreus killed Thyestes' sons and served them to him unknowingly. After eating his own sons' corpses, Thyestes asked an
oracle how best to gain revenge. The advice was to father a son with his own daughter, Pelopia, and that son would kill Atreus.
When Aegisthus was born, his mother was ashamed of her incestuous act. She
abandoned him and he was raised by shepherds and suckled by a goat, whence his name Aegisthus (from αίξ). Atreus, not knowing the baby's origin, took Aegisthus in and raised him as his own son.
In the night in which Pelopia had shared the bed of her father, she'd taken from him his
sword which she afterwards gave to Aegisthus. This sword became the means by which the
incestuous intercourse between her and her father was discovered, whereupon she
put an end to her own life. Atreus in his enmity towards his brother sent Aegisthus to kill him; but the sword which Aegisthus carried was the cause of the recognition between Thyestes and his son, and the latter returned and slew his uncle Atreus, while he was offering a sacrifice on the sea-coast. Aegisthus and his father now took possession of their lawful inheritance from which they'd been expelled by Atreus.
Aegisthus and Thyestes thereafter ruled over
Mycenae jointly, exiling Atreus' sons,
Agamemnon and
Menelaus to
Sparta, where King
Tyndareus gave the pair his daughters,
Clytemnestra and
Helen, to take as wives.
Homer appears to know nothing of all these tragic occurrences, and we learn from him only that, after the death of Thyestes, Aegisthus ruled as king at Mycenae and took no part in the Trojan expedition. While
Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, was absent on his expedition against Troy, Aegisthus seduced
Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, and was so wicked as to offer up thanks to the gods for the success with which his criminal exertions were crowned. In order not to be surprised by the return of Agamemnon, he sent out spies, and when Agamemnon came, Aegisthus invited him to a repast at which he'd him treacherously murdered. After this event Aegisthus reigned seven years longer over Mycenae, until in the eighth
Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, returned home and avenged the death of his father by putting the adulterer to death.
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