ABSTRACT
In this chapter we return to some of the most powerful stories of the ancient world. The myths of Atreus and his sons Agamemnon and Menelaus are enmeshed with the collisions and confrontations within a single family. These include Atreus and his brother Thyestes, Menelaus and Helen, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, and Iphigenia and Orestes and Aegisthus. The revolving murders, sacrifices and revenger myths are some of the most monstrous of the ancient world, and attempts have been made to locate these massacres in the specific rooms of the palace of Mycenae. We address the ultimate fate of these myths, of the beginnings of war and revolution in the sacrificial grove of that ancient palace, and of the collapse of civilisations. We can use these motifs, metaphors and analogies to rethink not just the objects of our human sciences and philosophy but also the ecological and genocidal predicaments that we are currently faced with in our human encampments and impulses towards domination. We conclude by examining the relations between art and material forms and the survival of the human and other species in a world which was founded upon and still obsesses about the dark chamber in the palace of Mycenae.
