Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

After Odysseus has spoken with the heroines, the shade of Agamemnon son of Atreus comes forward, followed by those who died with him in Aegisthus’s house. Odysseus weeps and asks how he perished—by Poseidon at sea, or by enemies on land over cattle and city? Agamemnon answers with the nostos crime: Aegisthus invited him, feasted him, and cut him down as a man fells an ox at the manger; Clytemnestra shared the killing; the comrades fell about him; Cassandra was slain over him as he died, and he heard her cry. He curses his wife’s treachery and contrasts Penelope’s virtue, yet the bitterness generalizes: no longer trust women wholly; come home in secret; women are dangerous after war. Odysseus hears the warning that will color his own disguised return. Agamemnon asks news of Orestes; Odysseus can give none—he has wandered since Troy—and the conversation ends in shared grief. This entry extracts the Atreid shade’s speech from the nekyia overview so Agamemnon’s underworld testimony—murder narrative, misogynist caution, unanswered question about the son—stands as its own heroic-cycle document.