Achilles stands with staff in hand, either about to address the mother or perhaps having uttered the last verse above. Iphigeneia turns with bowed head to avoid his presence; her mother evidently tries to detain her. Inscriptions again indicate who the persons are. We have then precisely the situation in the lines quoted.
The sacrifice which followed, was attended by the marvellous wonder, and it was to be expected that if any one incident of the tragedy was told in art it would be the scene at the altar. Our little monument curiously enough stops where all the others begin. We are taken step by step up to the final act and there we are left. The works enumerated above[[220]] are, without exception, confined to the moment of the sacrifice. The famous wall painting and the Florence altar have much in common with the renowned painting of Timanthes, and all three are conceived in the spirit of Euripides as far as the actions of Agamemnon are concerned.
... ὡς δ’ ἐσεῖδεν Ἀγαμέμνων ἄναξ
ἐπὶ σφαγὰς στείχουσαν εὶς ἄλσος κόρην,
ἀνεστέναζε, κἄμπαλιν στρέψας κάρα
δάκρυα προῆγεν, ὀμμάτων πέπλον προθείς. vs. 1547 ff.
And so he stands completely wrapped in his mantle, exposing no part of his face. In this invention lay the unsurpassed success which Timanthes enjoyed with his painting. The dates for this artist allow us to place the work subsequent to the production of the Iphigeneia in 405 B.C., and credit Euripides with influencing Timanthes. This is at least possible, but does not admit of proof. It appears to me very likely that all three of these works are more or less closely connected with each other and with Euripides. The Etruscan ash-urns on the other hand, as well as the vase painting in the British Museum[[221]], follow a totally different version of the story. In these cases Agamemnon himself takes the part of the priest in the ceremony, and performs the ἀπαρχαί. So far from being the tender-hearted father who cannot even stand and watch the offering, he draws the fatal knife or pours the sacrificial liquid upon the victim’s head. Traces of this turn are found early in tragedy[[222]], but this is an Agamemnon with a far different heart from the one we follow in the Iphigeneia of Euripides. Even though the part from v. 1532 till the close of the play be thrown out as an interpolation, the character of Agamemnon in the first 1500 verses could not have changed so suddenly at the end that he would have taken the place of Kalchas at the altar. This set of monuments does not, therefore, give us the Euripidean spirit.
§ 7. Iphigeneia among the Taurians.
Euripides in all probability created in the life of Iphigeneia the chapter concerning her return to Greece with Orestes. There is at any rate no trace of this turn in preceding authors. Homer does not appear to have known any such a daughter of Agamemnon, unless one is to seek to identify Iphigeneia with Iphianassa. The ‘king of men’ speaks of
Χρυσόθεμις καὶ Λαοδίκη καὶ Ιφιάνασσα. Il. 9. 145.