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EuripidesIphigenia in Aulis
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 410A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Human Inconsistency
One of the central themes of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis is the inconsistency exhibited by nearly all the characters of the play. Iphigenia herself represents a particularly notable example of this inconsistency of characterization. In the first part of the exodos, when Iphigenia begs her father Agamemnon to spare her life, she declares that “it is better that we live ever so / Miserably than die in glory” (1252). Not much later, though, Iphigenia resolves to die “well and gloriously” (1376) for the sake of Greece. This jarring change of opinion was noted over two millennia ago by Aristotle, who wrote in his Poetics that the Iphigenia who implores Agamemnon to spare her life in the first part of the exodos “is not at all like her later character” (Aristotle, Poetics 1454a (translated by W. H. Fyfe in the 1932 Loeb Classical Library edition of Aristotle’s works).
Iphigenia’s inconsistency, though particularly obvious, is not the only inconsistency of characterization in the play. Agamemnon, for instances, changes his mind about the sacrifice of Iphigenia, resolving not only to go through with the sacrifice but deciding over the course of the play that the sacrifice benefits all Greece by enabling their Panhellenic war against Troy. Clytemnestra, who is the picture of the devoted wife when she first enters the stage, has decided by the exodos that she will punish Agamemnon for sacrificing her daughter (something that she accomplishes in the traditional continuation of the myth). Already perceiving the change that is occurring in herself (and her husband), she pleads with Agamemnon as she asks him to spare Iphigenia:
By the gods, do not
Force me to become a woman of evil!
And you, do not become evil yourself! (Lines 1183-84)
Achilles, finally, is presented initially as a vain youth interested only in his honor and his good name, but he too undergoes a shift. Though he at first agrees to help Iphigenia only because he feels insulted by Agamemnon’s use of his name to lure Iphigenia to Aulis (even remarking that he would have willingly let Agamemnon use his name if he had asked first), he is later won over by Iphigenia’s bravery and virtue and seeks to protect her even if it means his own ruin.
Though some have seen these inconsistencies as a consequence of the play’s problematic textual transmission and the fact that the play was changed and revised on at least one occasion (and probably more). However, the play can also be interpreted as an exploration of the inconsistencies of human character and behavior, inconsistencies that reveal themselves above all when dramatic events force a person’s incompatible values into direct conflict.
The Meaning of Duty
When the characters of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis clash, it is because they disagree about the meaning of duty or virtue. Similarly, when individual characters (such as Iphigenia) behave inconsistently, it is because they vacillate between contradictory duties. Duty is often construed in the play as burdensome, and it is especially burdensome to those who are powerful or who seek honor and glory. Agamemnon, who must decide in the play to sacrifice his own daughter, laments the grief that comes with being a king and leader: “High honors are sweet, but ever / They stand close to the brink of grief” (22-23). Agamemnon eventually comes to see the sacrifice of his daughter as necessary to ensure that his supposedly noble “Panhellenic” cause triumphs over the supposedly lawless barbarism of the Trojans. Agamemnon must make sacrifices, that is, not only to win glory, but also to benefit all Greece. For Agamemnon, that is his duty.
Other characters in the play understand duty differently. Clytemnestra, for instance, clearly prioritizes her duty to her family and her children. She cannot understand why Agamemnon would be willing to sacrifice their daughter for Greece (nor does she even interpret the Trojan War as benefiting a noble cause), and thus implicitly puts her duty to her family before her duty to Greece. Clytemnestra also puts her duty to her child before her duty to her husband. Even as she begs Agamemnon to spare Iphigenia, she warns him of the “hatred […] and the retribution” (1178) that he will inspire in her if he does not do as she asks. Achilles, on the other hand, is like Agamemnon in being eager for war and seeing the war as noble, but he also values his honor above all things and resists Agamemnon because he sees his actions as dishonorable. Even the Old Man has his own sense of duty. Proclaiming himself “a good man and a loyal servant” (45), the slave takes special pride in his loyalty and obedience to his masters.
In the end, it is the idea of Panhellenic duty—that is, the patriotic subordination of each of the characters’ individual interests to the interests of Greece—that wins out, at least temporarily. For the sacrifice of Iphigenia does finally take place so that the Greeks can sail to Troy. Even Iphigenia embraces the sacrifice, saying that she must die “to bring the Greeks / Salvation and triumph” (1473-74). But this view, which is still challenged or rejected by some of the characters (especially Clytemnestra) as the play ends, does not win an unambiguous victory, leaving the audience with important questions about the meaning and consequences of duty.
The Nature of War
The theme of duty is closely tied to the play’s exploration of the idea of Panhellenism and the nature of war. The play is set on the eve of the Trojan War, the cause of which Agamemnon details in the prologue. The war is being fought for the wife of Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus, Helen, who ran off with a Trojan prince. The most important leaders of Greece had sworn an oath to protect the marriage of Helen and Menelaus. It is this oath—the so-called “Oath of Tyndareus”—that brought the Greeks together, so the war, as Agamemnon explains, is essentially being fought over a woman.
On the other hand, the Trojan War is viewed by many characters as a patriotic war that opposes foreign aggression. The united Greek army becomes a symbol of Greece, of Panhellenic ideals and their noble opposition to the Trojans, viewed by the Greeks as “barbarians.” This idea is first introduced by Menelaus in the debate scene (agon) of the first episode, where he attacks Agamemnon for trying to back out of the war:
Oh, how I groan
Now on behalf of Greece in her affliction;
For she was ready to perform a noble deed,
But on account of your daughter and you,
She’s letting those worthless barbarians slip away
And mock her name! (Lines 370-73)
Agamemnon initially dismisses Menelaus’ claim, telling him that he wants only “to hold a lovely woman / In your arms” (385-86). However, Menelaus’ framing of a Panhellenic war is not so lightly dismissed, and Agamemnon himself is soon won over by this notion when he decides that Iphigenia must die for the sake of Greece. Indeed, Agamemnon will spend the rest of the play championing the idea of the Trojan War as a worthwhile crusade, telling Iphigenia when she begs him for his life that the war is being fought not for Menelaus but for Greece:
Not am I here
At Menelaus’ will, but Greece lays upon me
This sacrifice of you beyond all will
Of mine. It’s Greece that rules me. (1269–72)
Which is the real cause of the war? Is the war being fought for a woman or for a Panhellenic ideal? Every character has a different view, and many (like Agamemnon) change their minds. At the same time, the war is repeatedly characterized as a kind of madness, as a “terrible passion” (807) or a “mighty passion” (1264), being waged by a Greece that has been “driven mad” (411). If the Greeks long so irrationally for the war, do they even need a reason, or does every cause, however noble or ignoble, become a mere pretext?
Some have interpreted the play as a patriotic and Panhellenic call to arms against the foreign “barbarian” enemies of the contemporary Greeks (such as the Persians). However, this call to arms is not without ambiguity, and many of the characters (especially Clytemnestra) acts as spokespersons for the view that the war is being fought for a meaningless cause. Consequently, scholars continue to debate whether the play itself is supportive or critical of war and Panhellenism.
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