Agamemnon

Also known as: King of Men / Menelaus's brother / lord of spears · Family: The Greeks · Role: king · First appears: Book I · Part 7

Agamemnon, king of the Argives and brother of Menelaus, returned Penthesileia’s body and armour to Priam at his request. After Achilles died, Agamemnon lamented him; Nestor urged him to end the mourning for the day, and Agamemnon ordered the body washed and dressed in the sea-purple vesture given by his mother. At Troy, he outpaced Sthenelus’s horse in a chariot race and received Thetis’s silver-wrought breastplate as a prize. He later agreed with Nestor that war captives should judge the contest between Ajax son of Telamon and Odysseus, with the loser to plan vengeance against Troy.

Agamemnon promised Tecmessa that she and her son Eurysaces would not be made thralls while he or Teucer lived. In battle he charged Aethicus and killed Stratus, Melius, and Damastor’s son. Following Calchas’s counsel, he and the Achaeans halted the fighting and sent Diomedes and Odysseus to Lemnos. He offered Philoctetes gifts and royal honour at his feast; Philoctetes forgave him and the others who had wronged him. At Tenedos, Agamemnon and Nestor led the Greeks who waited for the signal to sail.

After the Argives sacked Troy, Agamemnon took Cassandra captive. When Menelaus’s fury threatened what they had worked for, Agamemnon restrained him with pacifying words.