This paper explores the use of the myth of Agamemnon in Herodotus and Thucydides.I argue that the deployment of Agamemnon in their works is shaped by, and sheds additionallight on, the historians’ attitude toward myth (and its use in rhetoric), their narrative aims andhistorical outlook.
Herodotus’ readiness to embrace myth in both narrative and speeches, hisrepresentation of complex motivation, his description of the conflict between the Greeks andthe Persians, and his panhellenic outlook, influence the function of Agamemnon: as king of Sparta and the leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War, he reflects the idealistic and pragmaticmotivation of the Spartans in the context of the Persian Wars.
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