See Also: Iphigeneia(encyclopedia)

Iphigeneia (sh)




In Greek mythology, the eldest daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra and sister of Electra and Orestes.

When the Achaean fleet was becalmed at Aulis, Iphigeneia's father sacrificed her to Artemis in order to secure favourable winds to carry the ships to Troy. Her mother later avenged her death by murdering Agamemnon. Iphigeneia's story is treated in plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. According to Euripides, she did not die but was saved by Artemis; she went to the land of Tauris, where she became a priestess, and she saved Orestes from madness and death when he fled there after killing their mother.