Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Chrysothemis is daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, sister of Electra, Orestes, and (in epic lists) Iphigenia / Iphianassa and Laodice. In Homer she is little more than a name in Agamemnon’s offer of marriageable daughters to Achilles. Sophocles gives her a full tragic function: the sister who chooses survival inside the usurpers’ house. In *Electra* she enters carrying funeral offerings Clytemnestra has sent to Agamemnon’s tomb after a frightening dream; Electra turns her to pour them instead as hostile gifts, or to omit the queen’s intent. Chrysothemis urges moderation—obedience to those in power, hope that Orestes may yet return—while Electra insists on public mourning and hatred. Later, when Chrysothemis finds a lock of hair and other signs at the tomb and rushes back with joy that Orestes lives, Electra (already broken by the false death-report) will not believe; the sisters clash again over whether to act. Chrysothemis refuses to join a plot against Aegisthus, pleading womanly weakness and the certainty of failure; she exits into compliance, leaving Electra the solitary will that meets the returning brother. Sophocles does not kill or marry her onstage; she remains the road not taken—domestic prudence against Electra’s absolute fidelity to the dead father. Later mythography rarely develops her beyond the daughter-list; her classical life is almost entirely this foil in the Argive palace.