Due to the fact of similarities between authors writing in the same place and time, we often make the mistake of presuming their viewpoints are identical on the given subject. It would be a mistake to expect Aeschylus' Agamemnon and Euripides' Medea to express identical views on the subject; each author had a unique way. The opinions of these two writers on this subject are actually different.
             Aeschylus' plays revolved around ethics, and commonly he presented as objectively as possible, by asking the audience to judge the ethical questions for themselves. Agamemnon is not really about Agamemnon as much as is about Clytemnestra, his wife. Clytemnestra tells us early on that she has suffered terribly in her life, and mentions the loss of her daughter Iphigenia. Aeschylus has made us sympathize with Clytemnestra. After Agamemnon arrives, Clytemnestra treats him almost like a god, insisting on wrapping him in a huge royal robe as he descends from his chariot. Agamemnon protests that this kind of welcome is unnecessary, but Clytemnestra is insistent, and he finally gives in. Clytemnestra, however, has another motive; she uses the huge robe to make it difficult for him to fight against her; as Clytemnestra later confesses, "Our never-ending, all-embracing net, I cast it/ wide for the royal haul, I coil him round and round/ in the wealth, the robes of doom" (Norton, 559). Once trapped, she stabs him three times.
             Killing a king is a very public act, and Clytemnestra makes no effort to hide what she has done. Rather, she comes out into the public square outside the palace, bearing the bloodstained robe, and tells the Chorus that she has killed their king, and why. Agamemnon had sacrificed his own child. Despite the fact that Agamemnon looked upon his deed as a public necessity, Clytemnestra saw her daughter's death as a private loss, and consequently could not forgive it. The point is that Aeschylus has created a woman with whom his au...