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Book Nine
145 Homer does not mention an Iphigeneia or an Electra among the
daughters of Agamemnon. It is likely enough that Iphianassa and Iphigeneia
are variants of the same name, but the discrepancies from the later canonical
version of Agamemnon's family soon began to trouble genealogists: the
Cypria (fr. 15) made two persons out of Iphianassa-Iphigeneia and gave
Agamemnon four daughters; [Hesiod] fr. 23a M-W mentions only two
daughters, Iphimede and Electra; the lyric poet Xanthus (a predecessor of
Stesichorus) made Electra a soubriquet of Laodike (because she was long
unwed) according to Aelian, Var. Hist. 4.26. The Homeric names probably
reflect an eastern or Ionian, as opposed to a western or mainland, tradition,
cf. 1 i.i5n.: the historical Agamemnon, king of Cyme, named his daughter
Demodike (Arist. fr. 611 Rose), an evident reminiscence of the epic
Laodike. Neither here nor elsewhere does Homer so much as hint at the
dreadful events at Aulis before the war, though it does not follow that he
was unaware of the legend.
146-8 Agamemnon remits the brideprice (avdsSvov) and will throw in
what is in effect, if not in name, a dowry. This seems to be a conflation
of both I6va systems. (On i8va as brideprice, dowry, and indirect dowry
see the account of A. M. Snodgrass, JHS 74 (1974) 114-25.) (jeiAia are
properly 'soothing things', 'propitiatory gifts', like those listed at i22ff.,
but Agamemnon has now passed on from the subject of recompense to that
of honour. — cpiAriv: 'as his dear one', sc. wife. There is no close parallel; at
Od. 15.22, Koupi6ioio 91A010, Koupi5ios is taken to be the noun. A possessive
use, which here would have to be stronger than that sometimes attributed
to 91A0S in such formulas as