Character
Agamemnon
Commander of the Greek army at Troy · murdered on his first night home
Commander of the Greek army at Troy, and the poem's cautionary twin to Odysseus. He got home first and fastest — and was murdered at the welcome feast by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover. His ghost tells Odysseus the story in the underworld and draws the moral himself: come home in secret, trust no woman fully. Every scene of Odysseus's careful, suspicious, disguised return is shadowed by what happened to Agamemnon, and Penelope's faithfulness is measured against Clytemnestra's throughout.
He is the poem's cautionary twin: every careful, suspicious thing Odysseus does on his return is shadowed by what happened to the man who came home openly.