The Argument.
An oracle declared that Iphigenia, daughter
of Agamemnon, King of Mycenæ, must
be sacrificed to Artemis, to procure a passage
to Troy for the Grecian fleet lying becalmed
at Aulis. Iphigenia was brought to Aulis
under pretence of a marriage with Achilles,
and was about to be put to death when
Artemis substituted a hind in her place, and
conveyed her to Tauris in Scythia, where she
became priestess. The Greeks believed that she
had been actually sacrificed, and it was partly in
revenge for this deed that Agamemnon was
murdered on his return from Troy by his wife
Clytemnestra. When Agamemnon's son
Orestes had grown up, he took vengeance on
Clytemnestra and her paramour Ægisthus by
the help of his sister Electra; and then,
being persecuted by the Furies on account of
the death of his mother, repaired to Delphi to
ask counsel of Apollo. He was directed to go
to Tauris and carry off the statue of Artemis.
In this he succeeded by the aid of Iphigenia,
and returned in her company to Delphi, to be
purified from the murder of Clytemnestra.
Meanwhile Electra, who was ignorant of the
existence of Iphigenia, had also repaired to
Delphi to inquire respecting the fate of her
long absent brother, and to consecrate the axe
with which Clytemnestra had slain Agamemnon,
and with which she had in turn been
destroyed by Orestes.
