Aegisthus

Aegisthus also features heavily in the action of Euripides's Electra (c. 420 BC), although his character remains offstage.[4] Aegisthus and Thyestes thereafter ruled over Mycenae jointly, exiling Atreus's sons Agamemnon and Menelaus to Sparta, where King Tyndareus gave the pair his daughters, Clytemnestra and Helen, to take as wives.[5] After Helen's abduction to Troy, Agamemnon was forced to sacrifice his own daughter Iphigenia in order to appease the gods before setting off for Ilium.In the eighth year of his reign Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, returned to Mycenae and avenged the death of his father by killing Aegisthus and Clytemnestra.[9] While Agamemnon was absent on his expedition against Troy, Aegisthus seduced Clytemnestra, and was so wicked as to offer up thanks to the gods for the success with which his criminal exertions were crowned."[13] Christopher Collard describes him as the foil to Clytemnestra, his brief speech in Agamemnon revealing him to be "cowardly, sly, weak, full of noisy threats - a typical 'tyrant figure' in embryo."[14] Aeschylus's portrayal of Aegisthus as a weak, implicitly feminised figure, influenced later writers and artists who often depict him as an effeminate or decadent individual, either manipulating or dominated by the more powerful Clytemnestra.In the first production he was depicted as "an epicene...with long curly locks and rouged lips, half-cringing, half-posturing seductively.
Aegisthus being murdered by Orestes and Pylades – The Louvre
Pierre-Narcisse Guérin 's Clytemnestra and Agamemnon , in which Aegisthus appears as a shadowy figure pushing Clytemnestra forward
Egisto (opera)OrestesPyladesThe LouvreAncient GreektransliteratedGreek mythologyOdysseyAeschylusOresteiaEuripidesElectraThyestesPelopiaincestuousAtreusMycenaeAgamemnonlaid siege to TroyClytemnestraMyceneanAeropeoracleMenelausSpartaTyndareusIphigeniaChrysothemisAletesErigoneFuriesPierre-Narcisse GuérinCassandraSenecaRichard StraussHugo von HofmannsthalElektraTomb of AegisthusGoogle BooksHyginusAelianpublic domainChisholm, HughEncyclopædia BritannicaDictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and MythologyPausaniasIphigenia in AulisIphigenia in TaurisIphigénie en AulideIphigénieThe Songs of the KingsThe BacchaeAlcmaeon in CorinthThe Killing of a Sacred DeerIphigénie en TaurideIfigenia in TauridediscographyMourning Becomes ElectraSandraThe Forgotten PistoleroElectra, My Love The Travelling PlayersIdoménéeIdomeneoLeben des OrestThe FliesOrestes and Electra