The seminal epic which is attributed to the great Greek poet, Homer, delves deep into the heroic tales and in turn attains the stature of an immortal literary work which has continued to evoke the interest and awe of people from all across the globe since it got popularized. The work goes on to immortalize many characters which have become prototypes in the course of time. Starting from the literary critic to a common man, everyone has been baffled by the sheer quintessence of the Iliad which has been hailed as the omnipotent human expression and documentation of the tales of glory, war and history. Agamemnon, the mighty Greek emperor has been portrayed quintessentially by the author in this literary work. Agamemnon is most importantly a human character who shows the intricacies of the emotions common to the flesh and blood. He exudes flaws of character, in spite of his power and position.
Agamemnon, the character in question, got the throne of the king by inheritance and was also the supreme commander-in-chief of the armies of the land. His towering stature was acknowledged by Odysseus and old Nestor and he was taken to the sole person who could ensure the stability of the society. It was Agamemnon’s duty to maintain meaningful and effective policy of order in the state. However, in the due course of the epic one comes to comprehend that despite his immense power and social stature, Agamemnon is not necessarily the best man for coping up with the onus which was bestowed upon his shoulders. Agamemnon is found to require counsel for carrying out the affairs of state and administration.
The readers get to know that fact that he actually changed the winds by sacrificing his own daughter, Iphigenia, to reach Troy. Thus, his dichotomous nature comes to the forefront. He seems to be righteous and virtuous on the one hand as he has embarked upon the journey to avenge Paris’ wrong deed, while on the other hand he comes across as a cruel and guilty individual who opts to sacrifice his daughter and commit further crimes in response to Paris’ act. In reality, his personal aims got the better of his vital principles of devotion, humanity and love. He is even disrespectful of his wife and his actions embarrass her in front of the entire chorus and Cassandra, his new mistress. He is self-centered and hardly seems to care about anyone else’s dignity and pride.
Agamemnon considers himself to be totally subject to the Olympian will and utters words in this regard. He goes on to say that it is god who accomplishes all the things in the world. It becomes clear as crystal to the avid reader that this enormously powerful individual is often guided by his emotions while taking critical and important decisions. In such an instance, Nestor comes up to advice him not to take Briseis from Achilles, the valiant warrior of the Greek army. However, Agamemnon turns a deaf ear to his advice and thus it triggers off a series of events which lead to the enormous bloodshed of hundreds of the Achaean soldiers who were waging the war. He is condescending and shows no respect to Achilles and opines, “Forever quarrelling is dear to your heart, and wars and battles; and if you are very strong indeed, that is a god's gift.” (Homer 1.177-178)
Agamemnon goes on to exude immense arrogance in the course of events and the readers cannot miss out of feeling how he oozes with pride. Interestingly, he even nurtures paramount expectations of having the greatest portions of the plunder from the devastating war. He, however, takes the least risk on the battlefield. Homeric portraiture of the character of Agamemnon is that of an immensely shrewd person, who can very well be described as an inappropriate leader. He plunges to the opportunity and banks on the dismay of Menelaus insisting on being the leader of the army. Agamemnon even tests the loyalty of his army by declaring that they would return back. He comes across to the readers as a baleful individual who has to capacity of doing much wrong.
In stark contrast to Achilles, Agamemnon is greatly concerned with oneself. He resorts to manipulation of the people and the situations to utilize them for his benefit. Agamemnon is cunning and remains mellowed down in approach. His amorality and shrewdness are the driving forces behind his activities and the readers fail to feel the emotional link with his character owing to his cold heart. He is quite conscious of his role that he requires to play within the heroic code and never seems to compromise to settle for a lower status in the hierarchy of power and prestige. Even the central conflict of the Iliad roots from this trait of Agamemnon which makes him aggressive with Achilles, the great warrior, over Briseis and thus ignites a tragic breach between these two major characters.
His words ooze with pride and he says, “Still I am willing to give her back, if such is the best way. I myself desire that my people be safe, not perish. Find me then some prize that shall be my own, lest I only among the Argives go without, since that were unfitting.” (Homer 1.116-119) Agamemnon tries to deny his own fault and puts the onus on the shoulders of the gods.
He goes on to say, “This is the word the Achaians have spoken often against me and found fault with me in it, yet I am not responsible but Zeus is, and Destiny, and Erinys the mist-walking who in assembly caught my heart in savage delusion on that day I myself stripped from him the prize of Achilles Yet what could I do? It is the god who accomplishes all things.” (Homer 19.85-90)
Agamemnon, however, exudes concern and devotion for his sibling, Menelaus. It has to be comprehended that Agamemnon actually could realize the omnipotence of family order in the Achaean society and hence the return of Helen to his brother was the need of the hour for upholding the triumph of family order in the society for the sake of cohesion. However, his good traits seem to get overshadowed to an extent by his shortcomings which lead to his problems in the course of this epic.
He shows vulnerability and even vacillates. He is found to take erroneous or unfair decisions in times of disheartenment and acute depression. His failure to comprehend that a ruler should not give in to his own emotions and desires is one of his greatest flaws of character. Any sort of authority requires a lot of responsibility and his bids to satiate his personal wishes ahead of the important needs of the community are the telltale signs of his blemishes of personality.
Agamemnon is blinded by his arrogance and fails to understand the extent of his own power. Hence, he commits the mistake of keeping Chryseis as his war prize, in spite of her father’s requests. He believes that returning her would make him lose his face. He later goes on to listen to the counsel of Odysseus, Nestor and Diomedes. However, that hardly does much difference as his incapacity of judgment and emotion take the better of him in matters of kingship.
Although Agamemnon admits that he had mistaken in his dealings with Achilles by returning Briseis along with gifts, all he manages is to insult the warrior. Later on, in depression, he ponders about abandoning the war. He is beyond doubt very powerful as a warrior, but he exposes his weaknesses as a king in the form of his cowardice, obstinacy and immatureness.
He is respected by the people of the empire, but he does not enjoy their affection in any way owing to his characteristic flaws. At the culmination of the epic, he, however, seems to have grown better as a warrior and leader in comparison to his disposition in the early books. One of the important things to comprehend is that Agamemnon actually fails to learn from all his mistakes and also never succeeds to reach any conclusion.
Thus, although flawed, Agamemnon is an integral part of the epic and a lot of instances depend on his actions. His character has been immortalized in the work of Homer and he still lives on the minds of the innumerable readers and admirers of the literary work which has been in the limelight for so many years all over the world. The critics have been in awe of the quintessence and timelessness of the epic which revel the heroic tales of the warfare. The epic is an expedition to the psyche of the human mind and portrays the intricacies of human emotions and the consequences of our actions.
Works Cited
“Agamemnon: The Legendary Eejit.” FictionPress. n.p., 24 May 2005. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.
“Characters Discussed.” Cyclopedia of Literary Characters, Revised Third Edition Ed. A. J.
Sobczak and Frank N. Magill. Salem Press, Inc. 1998 eNotes.com. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.
Golden, Leon. Understanding The Iliad. Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2005. Print.
Homer. Iliad. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. Print.
Lynch, Ciaran. “How Guilty is Agamemnon?” About.com. n.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.
“The Iliad: Character Profiles.” Novelguide. n.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.
