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IPHIGENEIA, or IPHIANASSA

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Originally appearing in Volume V14, Page 738 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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IPHIGENEIA, or IPHIANASSA , in See also:Greek See also:legend, daughter of See also:Agamemnon and Clytaem(n)estra. Agamemnon had offended See also:Artemis, who prevented the Greek See also:fleet from sailing for See also:Troy, and, according to the soothsayer See also:Calchas, could be appeased only by the See also:sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter. According to some accounts the sacrifice was completed, according to others Artemis carried away the See also:maiden to be her priestess in the Tauric See also:Chersonese [See also:Crimea] and substituted for her a See also:hind. In this new See also:country it was her See also:duty to sacrifice to the goddess all strangers; and as her See also:brother See also:Orestes came to See also:search for her and to carry off to See also:Attica the See also:image of the goddess, she was about to sacrifice him, when a happy recognition took See also:place. These legends show how closely the heroine is associated with the cult of Artemis, and with the human sacrifices which accompanied it in older times before the Hellenic spirit had modified the barbarism of this borrowed See also:religion. Orestes and Iphigeneia fled, taking with them the image; at See also:Delphi they met See also:Electra, the See also:sister of Orestes, who having heard that her brother had been sacrificed by the Tauric priestess, was about to See also:tear out the eyes of Iphigeneia. The brother and sister returned to See also:Mycenae; Iphigeneia deposited the image in the deme of Brauron in Attica, where she remained as priestess of Artemis Brauronia. Attica being one of the See also:chief seats of the See also:worship of Artemis, this explains why Iphigeneia is sometimes called a daughter of See also:Theseus and See also:Helen, and thereby connected with the See also:national See also:hero. The See also:grave of Iphigeneia was shown at Brauron and See also:Megara. According to other versions of the legend, when saved from sacrifice Iphigeneia was transported to the See also:island of Leuke, where she was wedded to See also:Achilles under the name of Orsilochia (See also:Antoninus Liberalis 27) ; or she was transformed by Artemis into the goddess See also:Hecate (See also:Pausanias 43. I). According to the Spartans, the image of Artemis was transported by Orestes and Iphigeneia to See also:Laconia, where the goddess was worshipped as Artemis Orthia, the human sacrifices originally offered to her being abolished by See also:Lycurgus and replaced by the flogging of youths (diamastigosis, Pausan. iii.

16). At Hermione, Artemis was worshipped under the name of Iphigeneia, thus showing the heroine in the last resort to.be a See also:

form of that goddess (Pausanias ii. 35. I). Originally, Iphigeneia, the " mighty See also:born," is probably merely an epithet of Artemis, in which the notion of a priestess of the goddess had its origin. Iphigeneia is a favourite subject in Greek literature. She is the heroine of two plays of See also:Euripides, and of many other tragedies which have been lost (see also See also:Pindar, Pythia xi. 23; See also:Ovid, Melam. xii. 27). In See also:ancient See also:vase paintings she is frequently met with; and the picture by See also:Timanthes representing Agamemnon hiding his See also:face at her sacrifice was one of the famous See also:works of antiquity (See also:Pliny, Nat. Hist. See also:xxxv. xo). See M.

Jacobson, De fabulas ad Iphigeniam pertinentibus (1888); R. See also:

Forster, Iphigenie (1898); H. W. Stoll in See also:Roscher's Lexiken der Mythologie; and P. Decharme in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire See also:des antiquitis.

End of Article: IPHIGENEIA, or IPHIANASSA

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