Clytemnestra
3 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Clytemnestra. All 3 are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
A daughter of Tyndarus, king of Sparta , and Leda , married Agamemnon , king of Argos, during whose absence in the Trojan war she fell in love with his cousin Aegysthus. On the return of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra murdered him, as well as Cassandra , whom he had brought with him. After this Clytemnestra ascended the throne of Argos. In the meantime her son Orestes , after an absence of seven years, returned, resolved to avenge the death of his father Agamemnon. On an occasion when Aegysthus and Clytemnestra repaired to the Temple of Apollo , Orestes, with his friend Pylades, killed them. Clytia or Clytie. A daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, beloved by Apollo. She was changed into a sunflower. Cnidus or Gnidus. A celebrated city of Asia Minor, on the promontory of Triopium on the coast of Caria. Cocles, P. Horatius. A celebrated Roman who alone opposed the whole army of Porsenna at the head of a bridge while his companions were cutting off the communication with the other shore. When the bridge was destroyed, Cocles, though wounded by the darts of the enemy, leapt into the Tiber and swam across it, armed as he was. For his heroism a brazen statue was raised to him in the Temple of Vulcan. Lord Macaulay, who has written a noble poem on this heroic deed of Horatius Cocles, says, "There are several versions of the story, and these versions differ from each other in points of no small importance." According to his version Horatius had two companions who stood by his side defending the bridge; these were Spurius Lartius and Herminius. The final quatrain of the poem records how- "With weeping and with laughter Still is the story told, How well Horatius kept the bridge, In the brave days of old."
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
kli-tem-nes'tra, in Greek legend, the wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and mother of Orestes. While her husband was absent at the Trojan War, Clytemnestra bestowed her favors upon Aegisthus, and the two succeeded in putting the husband to death after his return. After seven years Orestes avenged his father's death by slaying both Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Clytemnestra was sister to Helen of Troy, and to Castor and Pollux . See Agamemnon ; Helen ; Castor And Pollux
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in Greek mythol- , daughter of ogy King Tyndareus and Leda, and half-sister of Helen. During the absence of Agamemnon in the war against Troy she bestowed her favors on Ægisthus, and, in connection with him, murdered her husband, Agamemnon, on his return from Troy, and with her paramour, governed Mycenæ for seven years. Her son Orestes killed them both .
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The legend itself has not moved: Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon and Cassandra, rules with Aegisthus, and is killed by Orestes, exactly as Aeschylus set it down in the Oresteia of 458 BC. What has shifted is emphasis. All three accounts here lead with the adultery ","bestowed her favors upon Aegisthus," as Aiton's put it in 1910, and Collier's calls Aegisthus her "paramour" ","while none mentions that Agamemnon had cut the throat of their daughter Iphigenia at Aulis to buy a wind for Troy. That motive, which Aeschylus and Euripides both give her, is now standard in any account, and the anonymous editor's note added to the 1900 page in 2026 supplies it. Since the mid-twentieth century Clytemnestra has been read less as a faithless wife than as an avenging mother, and novelists such as Colm T coibin in House of Names (2017) have retold the story from that angle.
Written for this edition, 2026.