CLYTAEMNESTRA : the daughter of Leda and Tyndareos, king of Sparta; wife of Agamemnon and paramour of Aegisthus, mother of Iphigeneia, Orestes and Electra, and queen of Argos.
DAULIS: a district in Phokis on the road from Thebes to Delphi; see LB n. 657.
DELOS: the island birthplace of Apollo and one of his chief sanctuaries.
DELPHIC ORACLE. the supreme oracular seat of Greece, originally sacred to Mother Earth but later presided over by Apollo. It is located on the southern slopes of Parnassus and towers above the Gulf of Corinth.
DELPHOS: the eponymous hero of Delphi.
DIONYSUS: the son of Semele and Zeus, god of fertility, wine and ecstasy; see Introduction, pp. 17ff , 52f., 70, 72f., 94.
DOG STAR: Sirius (from Seirios, the Scorcher), the brightest star in the heavens, whose summer appearances are associated with madness and intense heat.
ELECTRA: the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, sister of Orestes and Iphigeneia.
ERECHTHEUS: an early king of Athens whose house, called the Erechtheum, was on the Acropolis.
FATES: the Moirai (‘the Apportioners’), shadowy but potent figures who ultimately controlled men’s destiny. How far their powers and those of Zeus overlapped was a major problem in Greek religion and formed part of the theme of Aeschylus’ Prometheus trilogy; see Introduction, pp. 85ff.; A n. 131, E notes 335, 972, 1055.
FURY: Vengeance personified; see Introduction, throughout.
GERYON: a mythical giant with three bodies and three lives; see A n. 859.
GORGON: a fabulous female monster whose glance could turn a person into stone; see LB n. 818, E n. 51ff.
HADES: the lord of the underworld and arbitrator of the dead.
HARPIES: winged female demons; see E n. 51ff.
HELEN: the daughter of Zeus and Leda, half-sister of Clytaemnestra; her abduction by Paris produced the war between the Greeks and Trojans.
HEPHAISTOS: the god of fire and mechanical crafts.
HERA: the consort of Zeus, with whom she presides over marriage and its rites.
HERMES: the god of heralds in A, of messages and stratagems and the Escort of the Dead in LB; see A n. 505, LB notes 1, 126, 803; E n. 93.
INACHOS: the chief river of Argos.
IPHIGENEIA: the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, sister of Orestes and Electra.
IXION: traditionally the first Greek to slay a kinsman; see E notes 455, 726ff.
KRONOS: the youngest son of Sky and Earth, leader of his brother Titans against the Olympians, and father of Zeus, deposed by him in turn.
LEDA: the mother of Helen, Castor and Pollux, by Zeus, and of Clytaemnestra by Tyndareos, king of Sparta.
MENELAUS: the son of Atreus, brother of Agamemnon, husband of Helen.
MOTHER EARTH: the offspring of Chaos, husband of the Sky, mother of the Titans, and the original possessor of the shrine at Delphi.
NAVELSTONE : the omphalos at Delphi, supposed to mark the centre of the Earth.
NIGHT: born of Chaos, mother of the Day and the Furies.
ODYSSEUS: the son of Laertes, husband of Penelope, father of Telemachus, and king of Ithaca; see A n. 827.
ORESTES: the son of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, brother of Iphigeneia and Electra, in exile throughout the action of A but later the avenger of his father, the executioner of his mother and Aegisthus, and prince of Argos.
ORPHEUS: the legendary musician and singer; see A n. 1662ff.
PARIS: the son of Priam and Hecuba, prince of Troy, abductor of Helen.
PARNASSUS : the great mountain massif in Phokis, made sacred by the Muses and the oracle and temple of Apollo on its slopes.
PELOPS: son of Tantalus, ancestor of Atreus and Agamemnon.
PENTHEUS: the king of Thebes who rejected Dionysus and was torn in pieces by his mother and other followers of the god; see E n. 24.
PERSEPHONE: the daughter of Demeter and consort of Hades; see Introduction, pp. 71ff.
PERSEUS: the legendary hero of Argos who killed the Gorgon, Medusa; see LB n. 818.
PHINEUS: a legendary king of Thrace and victim of the Harpies; see E n. 51ff.
PHOEBE: the Titaness generally associated with the moon, the grandmother of Apollo; see E n. 7.
PHOKIS: a region in central Greece along the Gulf of Corinth.
PLEIADES: a major constellation that sets in autumn; see A n. 8.
PLEISTHENES: an unidentified figure among the ancestors of Agamemnon; see A n. 1634.
PLEISTOS: a river that rushes below the heights of Delphi.
POSEIDON: the god of earthquakes, water and the sea; see Introduction, p. 94; E n. 27.
PRIAM: the king of Troy and father of Cassandra, Paris, Hector and many others.
PYLADES: the son of Strophios and prince of Phokis, comrade of Orestes.
PYTHIA: the priestess of Apollo at Delphi; see E n. 37f.
SCAMANDER: the chief river of the Trojan Plain.
SCYLLA: the legendary sea-witch of the Odyssey (see A n. 1244), or the daughter of Nisos and princess of Megara (see LB n. 597).
SCYTHIA: a region in South Russia inhabited by nomads who were renowned warriors and archers.
SIMOIS: the second river of the Trojan Plain.
STROPHIOS: a legendary king of Phokis and the father of Pylades; see A n. 869ff., LB n. 661f.
TANTALUS: a Lydian king and founder of the line of Pelops, Atreus, Agamemnon, and Orestes. His Asian origin perhaps implied a streak of un-Greek brutality in him and his descendants.
THEMIS: Tradition, the Titaness whose province is established law and custom.
THESEUS: the great national hero of Athens; see E n. 413.
THRACE: a mountainous region north of Greece, in the eastern half of the Balkan peninsula.
THYESTES: the son of Pelops, brother of Atreus, father of Aegisthus, and invoker of the curse upon his brother’s house.
TROY: a city near the Aegean entrance to the Dardanelles, the capital of the Troad and the Trojans.
ZEUS: the son of Kronos, the father of the Olympian gods, and the most powerful among them. His spheres include hospitality and the rights of guests (Zeus Xenios), the possessions of the house (Zeus Ktêsios), the public assembly (Zeus Agoraios), rituals and their fulfilment (Zeus Teleios) - especially the ritual of marriage, which he oversees with his consort, Hera - the accomplishment of justice or revenge (Zeus Dikêphoros), the harmonization of the Olympian gods and the spirits of the dead (Zeus Sôter or Third Saving Zeus), and the governance of the universe, which was controlled to some extent by Fate as well; see Introduction, throughout; A notes 161, 245, 796; E notes 210, 726ff., 983, 1055.
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Garry Wills in The New Yorker calls Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation, “the best living translator of ancient Greek drama, lyric poetry, and epic into modern English.”
THE ODYSSEY
Homer
Introduction and Notes by Bernard Knox
Odysseus’ perilous ten-year voyage from Troy to his home in Ithaca is recounted
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THE ILIAD
Homer
Introduction and Notes by Bernard Knox
Fagles combines his talents as poet and scholar in this elegant translation of the
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THE ORESTEIA
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Aeschylus
Introduction and Notes with W. B. Stanford
The only trilogy in Greek drama that survives from antiquity, the Oresteia takes
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THE THREE THEBAN PLAYS
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Sophocles
Introduction and Notes by Bernard Knox
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Aeschylus, The Oresteia: Agamemnon, the Libation Bearers, the Eumenides
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