Is Agamemnon's Sacrifice Justified?

In any modern day court, an individual will be able to hear two sides to any situation, from the point of views of the accused and the victimized. You’ve got the defendant, who is fighting for the accused, and the prosecution, who is speaking on behalf of the victimized. Justice and figuring out what is right is the backbone of any courtroom in the United States. The play Agamemnon is the same way. There’s a victim, the person who has committed the crime, and then a final decision on how to punish the criminal, which allows the victim to receive justice. Except, how do we decide what is right and what is wrong? In Agamemnon, there are difficult decisions made that have costly results. If I were a citizen of Argos at that time before courts

Agamemnon faces a difficult decision when deciding if he should sacrifice his daughter to allow the fleets to continue on to Troy so he can aid his brother. Artemis demands he do so, which leads to some serious family problems to say the least. Is his sacrifice justified? In Greek mythology, Zeus is in charge of the major decision-making. He gets a say in basically everything. There is no court system for the Greeks during that current time, but between Zeus, the gods, and the goddesses, they practically had one. If gods and goddesses demand you to do something, it is in your best interest to listen. So maybe Agamemnon’s sacrifice was justified because he did not have a choice. However, the war against Troy was all about a woman, so was the ending result really that crucial to Agamemnon and Argos? His decision causes his wife Clytemnestra to despise her husband and she now wishes to seek revenge. The text says, “Apollo there! Healer indeed, I call on you, lest make contrary winds for the Danaans, long delays that keep the ships from sailing, in her urge for a second sacrifice, one with no music, no feasting, an architect of feuds born in the family, with no fear of the man; for there stays in wait a fearsome, resurgent, treacherous keeper of the house, an unforgetting wrath which avenges children”. Agamemnon is warned ahead of time what kind of result the sacrifice will bring, so his murder should not have been much of a

Is revenge really worth it? In reference to earlier when I compared the structure of Agamemnon to a courtroom, there are a lot of real life cases that are only taking place because of revenge. Revenge has a tendency to only increase problems in any situation, which is a real life lesson that Agamemnon teaches us as readers. Taking justice into your own hands like Clytemnestra and Aeschylus do when they kill Agamemnon is not the best way to solve their problem. I have grown up being taught that fighting fire with fire is never the answer, so this meaning speaks to me on a more personal