A Companion to Euripides by McClure Laura K.;

Author:McClure, Laura K.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
Published: 2017-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

4 Marriage and Sacrifice

Marriage and sacrifice are important and interrelated themes in Iphigenia at Aulis where both are dysfunctional. Helen’s adulterous relationship with Paris is a “marriage” (gamos: 271, 468–9). Agamemnon’s marriage to Clytemnestra originates in violence and will end in murder. Agamemnon treats Iphigenia’s sacrifice as her marriage to Hades, god of the Underworld (460–2, 540). Animal sacrifices were conducted at significant moments in Greek society such as before entering battle and at marriage celebrations. In its essence, the sacrifice of Iphigenia is a pre‐battle sacrifice since Artemis demands it only if the expedition is to sail against Troy (89–93, 358–9, 879, 1262–3). Iphigenia and Clytemnestra, however, believe that the “sacrifice” will be an animal one for the marriage celebration. The ritual of animal sacrifice involved garlanding the victim and leading it to the altar, where its head was sprinkled with sacred water in order to elicit a “nod” which symbolized the animal’s consent to its sacrifice. Participants also sprinkled barley on the victim. These elements constituted the consecration of the victim. The animal’s throat was then slit with the sacrificial knife over the altar. A reluctant victim was a bad omen (see further Burkert (1983) and (more briefly) Burkert (1985) 55–9).

After the truth has been revealed, Iphigenia is explicitly compared to a calf by the Chorus (1083) and is garlanded before sacrifice like an animal (1477–9, 1513–14). The involvement of Artemis affords opportunities for ambiguity since marriage and war both require preliminary sacrifices to this goddess (Foley (1985) 69). The conflation of marriage and sacrifice is further emphasized by situating the sacrifice in a meadow (1463, 1544), a traditional location for the abduction of young women in Greek myth (cf. Foley (1982) 161). Most famous among these was Persephone, abducted from a meadow as an unwilling bride to Hades (in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter), a powerful analogue for Iphigenia who is a metaphorical “bride of Hades” (460–2, 540). The Chorus refer to a beautiful meadow as the location of the Judgment of Paris, thus emphasizing his passivity also as a victim of the goddesses’ guile (1291–1301). The fact that Iphigenia eventually goes to her death willingly might suggest that her sacrifice is well‐omened were it not for the fact that she will be dragged to the altar by her hair if she refuses to go (1361–66). Iphigenia’s experience is the focus of our attention much more so than that of other young individuals in Euripides who offer their lives as a human sacrifice for the greater good of the community (Michelakis (2006) 68). Iphigenia is the only one of these young individuals who is at first extremely unwilling to die (Gibert (1995) 203), and her death is also the only example of a sacrifice exacted for a war of aggression. In Phoenician Women and The Children of Heracles a young person volunteers to be sacrificed because their city is under threat of destruction. In Iphigenia at Aulis the “threat” has to be extrapolated from Paris’ elopement with

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