The story of the death of Agamemnon is told in both the Homeric epic Odyssey and in AeschylusÕ tragic trilogy the Oresteia. Although the basic plot remains the same, differences in presentation, emphasis, and details show how myth is fluid and can be adapted to suit a particular author, performance, and audience. This myth serves in the Odyssey as  an example of failed nostos caused by the breakdown of the heroÕs household, and so it provides a foil for the successful return home of the epic hero Odysseus to his intact household. On the other hand, in the Oresteia, the myth illustrates the overarching theme of the nature of justice. Here the death of Agamemnon both illustrates the curse on his household and also provides the necessary background for OrestesÕ important role in the transformation of justice from oikos-based revenge to polis-based trial by jury.

The Odyssey was composed in the 8th century BC  and was performed for a society which was still somewhat centered on the individual household. The Odyssey  is the story of a household under threat in the absence of its ruler. The story of AgamemnonÕs death and the faithlessness of Clytemnestra is not the main focus of the Odyssey, but it is still featured quite prominently. Zeus refers to AegisthusÕ adulterous affair with Clytemnestra, his murder of Agamemnon, and his death at the hands of Orestes in the very beginning of the poem, where he tells it to the other gods as an example of how humans, through their own folly, bring destruction upon themselves. This not only illustrates one of the poemÕs themesÑfolly vs. self-restraintÑ but it also foreshadows the punishment which the suitors will receive in return for their similar attempts to destroy OdysseusÕ household. Parallels are set up between the returning heroes Agamemnon and Odysseus, their wives Clytemnestra and Penelope, and their sons, Orestes and Telemachus. Note in particular that Aegisthus, not Clytemnestra, is named here as the murderer of Agamemnon.

Soon after this, Athena, in disguise, meets with Telemachus and tells him the story of  OrestesÕ murder of Aegisthus. Orestes is here offered as a heroic model for Telemachus, who, as he comes of age, is being exhorted to take action to preserve his household in the absence of his father. Note that here there is no mention of OrestesÕ murder of his mother. His punishment of Aegisthus remains a morally uncomplicated act of justice against a man who violated his household and murdered his father.

When Odysseus visits the underworld in Book 11, he meets the ghost of the dead Agamemnon. Agamemnon tells Odysseus the story of his death to warn him of the threat posed by a faithless wife and hostile usurpers. Here again, Clytemnestra's crime is infidelity. Although this facilitates Aegisthus' plan to take AgamemnonÕs place, she is not the murderer of Agamemnon. The crime is committed by Aegisthus in AegisthusÕ house. As a result of this warning, Odysseus takes great care, in his arrival home, not to fall into any such traps, but the audience also knows that his wife, Penelope, is doing all she can to ward off her suitors and to keep herself and the household intact for Odysseus.

In the Odyssey, then, Clytemnestra is presented as a weak and faithless wife, easily seduced by AgamemnonÕs enemy. As such she is AegisthusÕ tool, but she is hardly presented as an agent of her own will. Indeed, since in the Odyssey  there is never any mention of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, Clytemnestra is not driven by revenge and has no motive to murder her husband.  Her infidelity serves as a simple foil to PenelopeÕs faithfulness and strength of character.  What emerges at the happy ending of the poem is the successful household, one which has avoided the folly and fate of the failed household of Agamemnon.

In the Oresteia, written some 300 years later for an Athenian audience proud of its newly-evolving democratic institutions, the story of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra is much more complex. Clytemnestra is now portrayed as the dominant partner in the adulterous affair with Aegisthus. It is she who shrewdly plans and carries out the murder of her husband. Agamemnon is no longer the innocent war hero of the Odyssey, but his character is laden with a complex history resulting from an ancestral curse on his family. This has led to his sacrifice of Iphigeneia, his daughter. This violation of the oikos for the sake of the project of the larger community rouses ClytemnestraÕs grief and desire for revenge, which she treacherously exacts as soon as Agamemnon returns home. His own hybris is illustrated by IphigeneiaÕs death, by the violation of things held sacred at Troy, and by his treading on the purple cloths as he enters the household that he violated and that will now destroy him in turn. ClytmemnestraÕs murder of her husband then, in this version, is justified to some extent by her rage over a lost daughter. (We might compare DemeterÕs rage with Zeus at the loss of Persephone to Hades.)

OrestesÕ reaction to his fatherÕs death is also much more complex in the Oresteia than in the Odyssey. He is now obliged to enact justice in the form of a murder of revenge committed not only against a male outsider to his household, but also against his own mother. This imposes on him a moral dilemma in which he is torn between the need to avenge his fatherÕs death and his horror at killing his own mother. This dilemma is dramatized in the divine realm as well, with Apollo supporting Orestes, while the Furies, goddesses of revenge, persecute him mercilessly for matricide. This moral problem, which is essentially about the nature of justice, is resolved in the final play of the trilogy by AthenaÕs intervention and the introduction of a new form of justice, based not in the householdÕs need for revenge, but in the cityÕs need for stability. The first law court is established in a celebration of an Athenian democratic institution. The polis has taken over the role of administrator of justice from the oikos.

In summary, the differences between the two versions of the story of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra are to be explained by the differences in the thematic concerns of the two texts: preservation of the oikos in Odyssey; the transfer of the administration of justice from oikos to polis in the Oresteia. These thematic concerns can be related to the time and place of composition and performanceÑthe epic was composed in the still quite oikos-centred Archaic period, interested in preserving the values of the oikos, while the tragic trilogy was performed in a city-sponsored festival in democratic Athens, interested in celebrating polis-based values.