Agamemnon is weak; he vacillates. During periods of depression and discouragement, he makes wrong decisions, and he is sometimes unfair. He fails to realize that a king must not succumb to his own desires and emotions. He does not realize that authority demands responsibility and that his personal wishes must be secondary to the needs of the community. His failure to understand the limitations of power causes him to make his first error: He insists on keeping his Trojan war prize, Chryseis, despite her father's pleas. He likes her, and he believes that he will lose face if he returns her.
Eventually, Agamemnon learns to listen to the counsel of old Nestor, Odysseus, and Diomedes, but it seems clear that his emotional makeup and inability to judge do not fully qualify him for kingship. Even after he finally admits to his madness in dealing with Achilles and attempts to reverse the error with gifts and the return of Briseis, he only insults Achilles. When his courage flags and he becomes depressed, he wants to abandon the Trojan War altogether.
Despite Agamemnon's prowess as a warrior, as a king he too often exhibits the characteristics of stubbornness, cowardice, and immaturity. As the reader carefully studies Agamemnon's character, some growth in understanding can be seen in him particularly in Book IX when he sends the embassy to Achilles. At the end of the epic, Agamemnon is a much greater leader than in the early books, even though he never reaches the same stature as several of the other warriors.
