IPHIGENIA, in Greek legend, a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra (according to some an illegitimate daughter of Theseus and Helen), who was to have been sacrificed to Artemis (Diana) at the advice of the prophet Calchas, when the goddess, enraged with Agamemnon, detained the Greek fleet in Aulis by a calm. •Under pretense that she was to be married to Achilles, Iphigenia was led to the altar. But in the moment when the priest was about to give the death-blow Iphigenia dis appeared, and in her stead a beautiful hind was substituted, whose blood gushed out on the altar. Artemis had relented, and conveyed her in' a cloud to Tauris, 'where she became the priestess of the goddess. Conformably with' the law of the country, she was obliged to sacrifice every Greek that landed there. While serving as priestess her brother Orestes came to take away the image Artemis, as he had been ad vised by an oracle to do, that he might get rid of the madness to which he had' been subject since the murder of his mother. Iphigenia hav
ing recognized him as her brother, the two con trived a means of escape, and carried off with them the image. The story is first told• in the
a Greek poem describing the events preceding the Iliad, and is depicted on vases, sarcophagi and wall paintings. The story of Iphigenia was dramatized by Euripides who composed two plays upon 'the subject.— cIphi-' genia in Aulis' and