Iphigenia.

    Daughter of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and Clytemnestra, Iphigenia was a central figure in two episodes from the prologue and the epilogue to the Trojan War. She was sacrificed by her father at Aulis in order to gain favorable winds for the Greek fleet sailing to Troy. According to one tradition, she was saved from sacrifice by Artemis and became her priestess at Tauris. She was eventually reunited with her brother, Orestes, after his vengeful murder of their mother, Clytemnestra. An auxiliary legend holds that, after leaving Tauris with Orestes, Iphigenia became a priestess at Delphi.
    Listings are arranged under the following headings:
     Iphigenia at Aulis, see below
     Iphigenia at Tauris
     Iphigenia at Delphi


Iphigenia at Aulis. On his way to join in the Trojan War, Agamemnon killed a deer in a grove sacred to Artemis (Diana). In retribution, the goddess sent adverse winds that kept the Greek fleet in port at Aulis. The soothsayer Calchas decreed that the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter, Iphigenia, was needed in order to turn the winds in the Greeks’ favor. On the pretext that she was to marry Achilles, Iphigenia was brought from Mycenae with her mother, Clytemnestra. According to one version of the story, the sacrifice took place and Iphigenia was slain on the altar; another says that at the moment of sacrifice Artemis snatched Iphigenia from the altar and replaced her with a deer, a vicarious victim.
    In the postclassical era, especially the Baroque, the story has been a recurrent subject for opera and for drama. Iphigenia at Aulis has been less commonly treated in the visual arts.