This point eludes us often, because we accept the sacrifice of Iphigenia as an act belonging to a barbarous age. So it is, but we forget that the age of Agamemnon had practically left barbarism behind it. The slaughter of Iphigenia must have been almost as revolting to the ideas of that time as it is to us; and although in times of national crisis fanatical minds may have been capable of reviving the savage custom of human sacrifice, that is no justification of Agamemnon. And that he submitted to the superstitious frenzy, and offered up the life of his child, was the act which armed Clytemnestra against him. The deed was, however, of a piece with his character. He was haughty, passionate, headstrong, brooking no resistance and no rivalry: a man of tremendous force of character who had grown too great and who in his pride had even dared to dishonour Apollo himself in the person of his votaries. To such a man, who after ten years’ preparation found his fleet hindered by unfavourable gales, the slaying of his daughter was merely an unpleasant step toward the fulfilment of his purpose. Her beauty and her youth were of little account, and her mother’s tears and entreaties were brushed aside as weakness. _Sin from its primal spring Mads the ill-counselled heart, and arms the hand With reckless strength. Thus he Gave his own daughter’s blood, his life, his joy, To speed a woman’s war, and consecrate His ships for Troy._[13] The story of Clytemnestra, then, rightly begins here. She too was passionate and proud, with a will of iron: a nature of strangely blended strength and tenderness. When the blow came from the hand which should have shielded her, it struck dead her gentler self. She gave herself up to thoughts of revenge; and hearing from Troy as the years passed tidings of Agamemnon’s infidelity, the last link between them was broken. Other news would come to her ears: of sedition amongst the people, left so long without a ruler; of the country suffering from the need of its strongest men, who were all away at the war; and of a certain Egisthus, her husband’s enemy, who had returned from exile. There would be a bond of sympathy between Clytemnestra and this Egisthus. Had he not a feud against her husband? Was he not wronged by Agamemnon, too? Had his father not suffered at the hands of Agamemnon’s father? There would be a meeting between them, followed by other meetings, while they made common cause against the king; and presently the two were united, not only in a plot for Agamemnon’s overthrow, but in the bonds of guilty love.