To appease the wrath of Artemis, Agamemnon was forced to sacrifice his own daughter
Achilles admires her nobility and goes to join the army and witness the sacrifice. Having told her mother not to grieve for her, Iphigeneia, with the help of the chorus, begins the rituals for Artemis and departs to her death.
Agamemnon wanted to lay siege to the city of Troy, yet each time he tried to set sail there with his fleet, the wind died down. A soothsayer told him that the goddess Artemis was angry with him and that to regain her favour he would have to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia. The king finally agreed.
Iphigenia is Agamemnon's daughter, sacrificed by him for Troyward winds many years ago, after Odysseus convinced her she would be marrrying Achilles.
Once there, Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter (though some sources contend that Artemis replaced her with a deer at the last second and whisked the girl off to live as her priestess among the Taurians). This action earned Agamemnon the undying hatred of his wife.
The story concerns the legendary sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father, Agamemnon. When the Greek fleet is becalmed at Aulis, thus preventing movement of the expeditionary force against Troy, Agamemnon is told that he must sacrifice Iphigenia to appease the goddess Artemis, who has caused the unfavourable weather.
Hera makes Hercules believe that his wife, Megara, and his sons are his enemies Hera and Lycus. Fearing for his and his family's lives, he kills Megara and his three sons. Once Hercules realizes what he has done, he is struck with grief and full of remorse.
Ultimately, however, Iphigenia volunteered to be sacrificed so that her father's ships might sail for Troy. When the noble maiden was led to the altar, Diana herself intervened and spared Iphigenia by allowing a stag to be slain in her stead.
Iphigenia, knowing she is doomed, decides to be sacrificed willingly, reasoning that as a mere mortal, she cannot go against the will of a goddess. She also believes that her death will be heroic, as it is for the good of all Greeks.
After the destruction of Troy, he and his men left for home without paying proper respect to Poseidon. For this, Poseidon punished Odysseus with what turned out to be a ten year journey home to Ithaca.
There is a lack of wind because it's being controlled by the goddess Artemis. Artemis was offended by Agamemnon and therefore decided to punish him and his army by making it impossible to set sail. In order to please Artemis and get the necessary wind, Agamemnon is told he must sacrifice his daughter.
ADMETOS (Admetus) A king of Pherai in Thessalia (northern Greece) who neglected to offer Artemis her dues in his matrimonial sacrifices.
She was one of only three unmarried virgin goddesses in the Greek world. The others were Athena, the goddess of war, and Hestia, the goddess of the hearth. Although Artemis did not have any children of her own, she protected women during pregnancy and during childbirth.
To keep him out of the Trojan War, she hid Achilles, dressed as a woman, in the court of King Lycomedes on the island of Skyros. The king's daughter Deidamia discovered his true gender and had an affair with him. A boy was born from that affair called Neoptolemus.
When Odysseus, Ajax, and Phoenix visit Achilles to negotiate her return in book 9, Achilles refers to Briseis as his wife or his bride. He professes to have loved her as much as any man loves his wife, at one point using Menelaus and Helen to complain about the injustice of his "wife" being taken from him.
A tale recounted by Euripides was that the king of Mycenae had once made an unthinking vow, shortly before the birth of his daughter, which proved fatal to both of them: he had promised to sacrifice to Artemis "whatever the year produced that was the most beautiful."11 Barely born, Iphigenia, a virgin of marvelous ...
In the end, the consequences of her sacrifice will be ten bloody years of the Trojan War and Clytemnestra's vengeful killing of Agamemnon (which Iphigenia tries to prevent, urging “Do not hate him" [295, 1454]—leaving us to ask if that is good advice). The characters around Iphigenia are only slightly less ambiguous.
In the play Iphigenia has been saved by the goddess Artemis from sacrifice and now serves the goddess's temple at Tauris in Thrace.
In all probability Iphigenia was originally a designation of Artemis herself, and out of this epithet of the goddess the personality of the priestess was in time evolved. Her grave was also shown at Megara.
British Dictionary definitions for Iphigenia
Iphigenia. / (ˌɪfɪdʒɪˈnaɪə) / noun. Greek myth the daughter of Agamemnon, taken by him to be sacrificed to Artemis, who saved her life and made her a priestess.
One such story is that of Iphigenia, a princess whose tragic fate has been retold in many works of literature and art. Her story is one of sacrifice, betrayal, and the struggle between duty and love.
Iphigenia as a girl's name is of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice". In Greek mythology, Iphigenia is daughter of Agamemnon. Her father sacrificed her to gain advantage in the Trojan war, though in most versions of the story, she is saved by Artemis.
This king claimed the boy and raised him as his own. When Oedipus grew to manhood, a prophet warned him that he would kill his father and marry his mother.
The play is set during the time that the pair live in Corinth, when Jason deserts Medea for the daughter of King Creon of Corinth; in revenge, Medea murders her two sons by Jason as well as Creon and his daughter.