Iphigenia in Aulis, inv. 961, from Antakya, third century AD. Iphigeneia stands to the left, in white. Then the mother, grief-stricken, and finally Agamemnonm extending his right hand.
Iphigeneia in Greek mythology, eldest daughter of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and his wife Clytemnestra. Her father had to sacrifice her to the goddess Artemis in order that the Achaean fleet, of which he was leader, might be delivered from the calm (or contrary winds) by which Artemis was detaining it at Aulis and proceed on its way to the siege of Troy.
Iphigeneia served as a key figure in certain Greek tragedies: in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, in the Electra of Sophocles, in Euripides' unfinished Iphigeneia in Aulis (Enc. Britt.).