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Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics Podcast
Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra

Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics vor 5 Jahren

The worst wife in Greek myth. Or was she? With Professor Edith Hall.

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"Rock star classicist" and reformed stand-up Natalie Haynes is
obsessed with the ancient world. In these series she explores
(historical and mythological) lives from ancient Rome and Greece
that still have resonance today. They are hilarious and tragic,
mystifying, revelatory. And they always tell us more about
ourselves now than seems possible of stories from a couple of
thousand years ago.

Today Natalie stands up for Clytemnestra, who has been
characterised as the worst wife in Greek mythology. This is open
to debate: she's certainly a good mother, if a little bit
murderous of her husband. But it turns out that Agamemnon
probably deserves it. After all he sacrifices one of their
daughters to Artemis without a second thought and then turns up
at home years later with Cassandra, the future-seeing woman he
has 'won' as a prize (also read: trafficked and enslaved) at the
Battle of Troy. These actions demonstrate a certain lack of
respect for his wife, as well as cruelty of the highest order.
Cassandra reads the room, obviously, but nobody listens to her.
Clytemnestra has a good legal brain and states her case
convincingly. But it's unlikely to end well.

With Professor Edith Hall. Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery