Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

At Aulis Artemis had snatched Iphigenia from the sacrificial altar and carried her to the land of the Taurians (Crimean coast in Greek geography), where the princess became priestess of a cult that sacrificed shipwrecked strangers. Years later Orestes, still hounded despite the Athenian trial—or ordered by Apollo to fetch the Tauric wooden image of Artemis to Attica for final cleansing—came with Pylades to that shore. They were captured and brought to Iphigenia for sacrifice. Brother and sister did not know each other. Iphigenia, grieving for Greece, agreed to spare one captive if he would carry a letter home; the contest of friendship between Orestes and Pylades—each refusing to let the other die—led to recognition through the letter’s contents and shared memories of Argos, the loom, and Aulis. They plotted escape: Iphigenia pretended the strangers must be purified in the sea because of blood-guilt, took the sacred image, and fled with them by ship. King Thoas pursued; Athena appeared as *dea ex machina*, commanded Thoas to yield, and directed Orestes to establish the image at Halae Araphenides (and Iphigenia as priestess at Brauron) in Attica—etiology of Attic Artemis cults. The play turns the Atreid curse toward rescue and cult foundation: the girl thought sacrificed at Aulis saves her brother and brings the Tauric goddess to Athens’s shore.