Background to the house of Atreus

Adapted from Morford, Mark P.O. & Lenardon, Robert J. Classical Mythology, 5^th ed. London 1995, pp. 338-343

Pelops and Tantalus

The ancestor of the family of Atreus was Pelops, son of Tantalus, who came from Asia Minor as a suitor for the hand of Hippodamia, daughter of Oenomaüs, king of Pisa, whose territory included Olympia. This fact accounts for the importance of Pelops in the religious cults at Olympia. From the end of the Mycenaean Age, Pisa and Olympia were for most of the time controlled by Elis.

In the time of Tantalus and Pelops there was easy intercourse between gods and mortals, and in some way Tantalus abused the privilege of eating with the gods. In the best-known version of the myth, he invited the gods to dine with him and cut up his son Pelops, boiled the parts in a cauldron, and served them at the feast. Pindar is reluctant to believe the story, but he told it nevertheless (Pindar, Olympian Ode 1. 46-58):

One of the envious neighbors secretly told the tale that they cut your limbs up with a knife and [put them] into the water boiling over the fire, and at the second course of the meat at the tables they divided you and ate. I cannot say that any of the blessed gods was gluttonous - I stand aside.... But if the guardians of Olympus honored a mortal man, that man was this Tantalus. Yet he could not digest great fortune, and in his fullness he brought on himself great madness. Thus the Father [Zeus] balanced above him a mighty rock, and longing always to throw it away from his head, he is an exile from good cheer.

The usual punishment of Tantalus is that he was condemned to suffer everlasting thirst and hunger in the Underworld. We have already seen him in Odyssey 11. 582-592. There are two other Greek myths that involve cannibalism, both from places connected with Elis. One is the story of Lycaon, king of Arcadia, told by Ovid in Metamorphoses 1. 211-243, and the other is the banquet of Thyestes. Morford and Lenardon believe that “the existence of these myths is evidence enough that in the distant past some form of cannibalism once underlay the sacrificial rituals”, but I am rather more skeptical.

In the usual version of the myth, the gods recognized the deception of Tantalus, and all, except for Demeter, refused to eat. She, it was said, ate the flesh from Pelops' shoulder, so that when he was restored to life and wholeness by the gods, an ivory shoulder had to be substituted. Pindar gives a different explanation of the temporary disappearance of Pelops, saying that Poseidon fell in love with him and took him up to Olympus, as Zeus had done with Ganymede. In any case, says Pindar, "the immortal gods sent back the son [of Tantalus] to be among the short-lived race of mortals." It was after this that Pelops traveled to Greece as the suitor of Hippodamia.

Pelops became an important hero with a cult at Olympia, where his shrine, the Pelopion, was next to the temple of Zeus. Pindar says (Olympian Ode 1. 90-93):

Now he lies by the crossing of the River Alpheus and is present at the blood-drenched festival. He has a busy tomb, close by the altar [of Zeus] visited by multitudes.

Indeed, sacrifices to Zeus and Pelops were central to the ritual of the Olympic festival, and Pelops received a sacrifice (usually a black ram) before each sacrifice to Zeus. Not only did he give his name to the southern part of the Greek mainland, the Peloponnese (Pelops' Island), but he received honors at the center of the greatest of the Panhellenic festivals. When the great temple of Zeus was built around 460 B.C. to house Pheidias' gold and ivory statue of Zeus seated upon his throne, the sculptures of the west pediment showed the moment before the start of the race between Pelops and Oenomaüs.

This race was the origin of the curse on the descendants of Pelops. To win Hippodamia, a suitor had first to win a chariot race against Oenomaüs from Pisa to the Isthmus of Corinth. He would have a short start and take Hippodamia in his chariot with him; Oenomaüs would follow, and if he caught up, he would kill the suitor. Thirteen suitors had failed before Pelops came, and their heads decorated Oenomaüs' palace.

According to Pindar, Pelops prayed to his lover, Poseidon, before the race. His words give a sense of the heroic stature of Pelops (Olymian Ode 1. 75-89):

[Pelops said] "If the dear gifts of Love, Poseidon, can be turned to good, shackle the brazen spear of Oenomaüs and bring me upon the swiftest chariot to Elis and set me near to power. For he has killed thirteen suitors and puts off his daughter's marriage. Great danger, however, does not take hold of the coward. Among those who must die, why should a man sitting in darkness pursue old age without glory, to no purpose? Before me, however, lies this contest. May you give me the action dear to me." Thus he spoke, and his words were not without success. Honoring him, the god gave him a golden chariot and tireless winged horses. He overcame the violence of Oenomaüs and took the girl as wife. And she bore him six princes, sons eager in virtue.

This version is simpler and probably older than the better-known one, according to which Pelops bribed Oenomaüs' charioteer, Myrtilus (son of the god Hermes), to remove the linchpins from Oenomaüs' chariot so that it crashed during the pursuit, killing Oenomaüs.

So Pelops won Hippodamia and drove away with her, accompanied by Myrtilus. Now Myrtilus expected that Pelops would reward him by allowing him to enjoy Hippodamia on the first night. At a resting place on the journey, he attempted to violate her, and when Pelops discovered this, he threw Myrtilus from a cliff into the sea. As Myrtilus fell, he cursed Pelops and his descendants. This curse, and the bloodguilt of the murder of Myrtilus, led to the misfortunes of the House of Atreus. Seneca, however, whose tragedy Thyestes is the only classical drama on this theme to survive, connects the murder with the crime of Tantalus (Thyestes 138-148):

Neither right nor shared crimes have prevailed. Betrayed, the master [Oenomaüs] of Myrtilus has perished, and he, meeting with the same loyalty [from Pelops] as he had shown [to Oenomaüs] has given his name to the noble sea [the Myrtoan Sea].... The child Pelops, running to kiss his father, was met with the impious sword and fell, a young victim at the hearth. He was cut up by your hand, Tantalus, so that you might make a feast for your guests, the gods.

Atreus and Thyestes

Pelops returned to Pisa and became king in place of Oenomaüs. His children, Thyestes and Atreus, quarreled over the kingdom of Mycenae, which had been offered to "a son of Pelops" in obedience to an oracle. It was agreed that the possessor of a golden-fleeced ram should become king. According to Euripides (Electra 698-725), Pan brought the golden-fleeced ram to Atreus, and the people of Mycenae

were celebrating his succession to the throne:

The golden censers were set out, and throughout the city the altarfires blazed. The flute, the Muses' servant, sounded its music, most beautiful. The lovely dances spread, honoring the golden ram-of Thyestes. For he had persuaded Atreus' own wife [Aerope] with secret love and took the talisman to his house. Then he came to the assembly-place and cried out that he had the homed sheep in his house, the golden-fleeced one.

Euripides further says that Zeus, in anger at Thyestes' deception, caused the sun to travel in the opposite direction. So Thyestes for a time enjoyed the reward of his adultery, and Atreus was banished. Later, Atreus returned and became king, exiling Thyestes in his turn, only to recall him and avenge himself for Aërope's seduction. He pretended to be reconciled with Thyestes and invited him to a banquet to celebrate the reconciliation. He killed Thyestes' sons and gave them to him to eat (the banquet is described in the fifth act of Seneca's Thyestes in a scene of overpowering horror). Too late, Thyestes realized what he had eaten. As the heavens darkened and the sun hid from sight of the crime, Thyestes cursed Atreus and went into exile.

Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and Aegisthus

Thus the curse of Myrtilus affected the first generation of Pelops' descendants. The quarrel of Thyestes and Atreus was continued by their sons. In his second exile, Thyestes lay with his daughter Pelopia, as he had been advised to do by an oracle, and became the father of Aegisthus, who continued the vendetta in the next generation. The son of Atreus, Agamemnon, succeeded his father as king of Mycenae, and in his turn committed an unspeakable crime against one of his children. He sacrificed his daughter lphigenia at the start of the Trojan expedition, in order to appease Artemis and gain favorable winds to sail from Greece. This is one of the most powerful and pervasive of all Greek myths and was frequently represented in literature and art. It is the central myth with which Aeschylus sets forth the background to the action of his tragedy Agamemnon (lines 184 - 249), and it is the theme of Euripides' final tragedy, lphigenia in Aulis.

Agamemnon's crime earned the implacable hatred of his wife, Clytemnestra (Greek spelling Klytaimestra). During his absence at Troy she committed adultery with Aegisthus (Greek spelling Aigisthos). And this is where the Agamemnon begins.