| 2.6. παραγίνεται τοίνυν καὶ Πέλοψ ἐπὶ τὴν μνηστείαν· οὗ τὸ κάλλος ἰδοῦσα ἡ Ἱπποδάμεια ἔρωτα ἔσχεν αὐτοῦ, καὶ πείθει Μυρτίλον τὸν Ἑρμοῦ παῖδα συλλαβέσθαι αὐτῷ· ἦν δὲ Μυρτίλος --παρας βάτης εἴτουν -- ἡνίοχος Οἰνομάου. 2.7. Μυρτίλος οὖν ἐρῶν αὐτῆς καὶ βουλόμενος αὐτῇ χαρίσασθαι, ταῖς χοινικίσι τῶν τροχῶν τοὺς ἥλους οὐκ ἐμβαλὼν ἐποίησε τὸν Οἰνόμαον ἐν τῷ τρέχειν ἡττηθῆναι καὶ ταῖς ἡνίαις συμπλακέντα συρόμενον ἀποθανεῖν, κατὰ δέ τινας ἀναιρεθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ Πέλοπος· ὃ ἐν τῷ ἀποθνήσκειν κατηράσατο τῷ Μυρτίλῳ γνοὺς τὴν ἐπιβουλήν, ἵνα ὑπὸ Πέλοπος ἀπόληται. 2.8. λαβὼν οὖν Πέλοψ τὴν Ἱπποδάμειαν καὶ διερχόμενος ἐν τόπῳ τινί, τὸν Μυρτίλον ἔχων μεθʼ ἑαυτοῦ, μικρὸν ἀναχωρεῖ κομίσων ὕδωρ διψώσῃ τῇ γυναικί· Μυρτίλος δὲ ἐν τούτῳ βιάζειν αὐτὴν ἐπεχείρει. μαθὼν δὲ τοῦτο παρʼ αὐτῆς 1 -- ὁ Πέλοψ ῥίπτει τὸν Μυρτίλον περὶ Γεραιστὸν ἀκρωτήριον εἰς τὸ ἀπʼ ἐκείνου κληθὲν Μυρτῷον πέλαγος· ὁ δὲ ῥιπτούμενος ἀρὰς ἔθετο κατὰ τοῦ Πέλοπος γένους. 2.9. παραγενόμενος δὲ Πέλοψ ἐπʼ ὠκεανὸν καὶ ἁγνισθεὶς ὑπὸ Ἡφαίστου, ἐπανελθὼν εἰς Πῖσαν τῆς Ἤλιδος τὴν Οἰνομάου βασιλείαν λαμβάνει, χειρωσάμενος τὴν πρότερον Ἀπίαν καὶ Πελασγιῶτιν λεγομένην, ἣν ἀφʼ ἑαυτοῦ Πελοπόννησον ἐκάλεσεν. 2.10. ὅτι υἱοὶ Πέλοπος Πιτθεὺς Ἀτρεὺς Θυέστης καὶ ἕτεροι· γυνὴ δὲ Ἀτρέως Ἀερόπη τοῦ Κατρέως, 1 -- ἥτις ἤρα Θυέστου. ὁ δὲ Ἀτρεὺς εὐξάμενός ποτε τῶν αὑτοῦ 2 -- ποιμνίων, ὅπερ ἂν κάλλιστον γένηται, τοῦτο θῦσαι Ἀρτέμιδι, λέγουσιν ἀρνὸς φανείσης χρυσῆς ὅτι κατημέλησε τῆς εὐχῆς· 2.11. πνίξας δὲ αὐτὴν εἰς λάρνακα κατέθετο κἀκεῖ ἐφύλασσε ταύτην· ἣν Ἀερόπη δίδωσι τῷ Θυέστῃ μοιχευθεῖσα ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ. χρησμοῦ γὰρ γεγονότος τοῖς Μυκηναίοις ἑλέσθαι βασιλέα Πελοπίδην, μετεπέμψαντο Ἀτρέα καὶ Θυέστην. λόγου δὲ γενομένου περὶ τῆς βασιλείας ἐξεῖπε Θυέστης τῷ πλήθει τὴν βασιλείαν δεῖν ἔχειν τὸν ἔχοντα τὴν ἄρνα τὴν χρυσῆν· συνθεμένου δὲ τοῦ Ἀτρέως δείξας ἐβασίλευσε. 2.12. Ζεὺς δὲ Ἑρμῆν πέμπει πρὸς Ἀτρέα καὶ λέγει συνθέσθαι πρὸς Θυέστην περὶ τοῦ βασιλεῦσαι Ἀτρέα, εἰ τὴν ἐναντίαν ὁδεύσει ὁ Ἥλιος· Θυέστου δὲ συνθεμένου τὴν δύσιν εἰς ἀνατολὰς ὁ Ἥλιος ἐποιήσατο· ὅθεν ἐκμαρτυρήσαντος τοῦ δαίμονος τὴν Θυέστου πλεονεξίαν, τὴν βασιλείαν Ἀτρεὺς παρέλαβε καὶ Θυέστην ἐφυγάδευσεν. 2.13. αἰσθόμενος δὲ τῆς μοιχείας ὕστερον κήρυκα πέμψας ἐπὶ διαλλαγὰς αὐτὸν ἐκάλει· καὶ ψευσάμενος εἶναι φίλος, παραγενομένου τοὺς παῖδας, οὓς εἶχεν ἐκ νηίδος νύμφης, Ἀγλαὸν 1 -- καὶ Καλλιλέοντα καὶ Ὀρχομενόν, ἐπὶ τὸν Διὸς βωμὸν καθεσθέντας ἱκέτας ἔσφαξε, καὶ μελίσας καὶ καθεψήσας παρατίθησι Θυέστῃ χωρὶς τῶν ἄκρων, ἐμφορηθέντι 2 -- δὲ δείκνυσι τὰ ἄκρα καὶ τῆς χώρας αὐτὸν ἐκβάλλει. 2.14. Θυέστης δὲ κατὰ πάντα τρόπον ζητῶν Ἀτρέα μετελθεῖν ἐχρηστηριάζετο περὶ τούτου καὶ λαμβάνει χρησμόν, ὡς εἰ παῖδα γεννήσει τῇ θυγατρὶ συνελθών. ποιεῖ οὖν 1 -- οὕτω καὶ γεννᾷ ἐκ τῆς θυγατρὸς Αἴγισθον, 2 -- ὃς ἀνδρωθεὶς καὶ μαθών, ὅτι Θυέστου παῖς ἐστι, κτείνας Ἀτρέα Θυέστῃ τὴν βασιλείαν ἀποκατέστησεν. | 2.6. So Pelops also came a-wooing; and when Hippodamia saw his beauty, she conceived a passion for him, and persuaded Myrtilus, son of Hermes, to help him; for Myrtilus was charioteer to Oenomaus. 2.7. Accordingly Myrtilus, being in love with her and wishing to gratify her, did not insert the linchpins in the boxes of the wheels, According to another account, which had the support of Pherecydes, Myrtilus substituted linchpins of wax for linchpins of bronze. See Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.752 ; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 156 ; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 998 ; Serv. Verg. G. 3.7, ed. Lion, where for aereis we should read cereis (the text in Thilo and Hagen's edition of Servius is mutilated and omits the passage); Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7, 125 (First Vatican Mythographer 21; Second Vatican Mythographer 146) . and thus caused Oenomaus to lose the race and to be entangled in the reins and dragged to death; but according to some, he was killed by Pelops. And in dying he cursed Myrtilus, whose treachery he had discovered, praying that he might perish by the hand of Pelops. 2.8. Pelops, therefore, got Hippodamia; and on his journey, in which he was accompanied by Myrtilus, he came to a certain place, and withdrew a little to fetch water for his wife, who was athirst; and in the meantime Myrtilus tried to rape her. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 156 ; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.104 . The latter writer says, somewhat absurdly, that the incident took place when Pelops and Hippodamia were crossing the Aegean Sea, and that, Hippodamia being athirst, Pelops dismounted from the chariot to look for water in the desert. But when Pelops learned that from her, he threw Myrtilus into the sea, called after him the Myrtoan Sea, at Cape Geraestus Compare Eur. Or. 989ff. ; and Myrtilus, as he was being thrown, uttered curses against the house of Pelops. 2.9. When Pelops had reached the Ocean and been cleansed by Hephaestus, Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 156 ; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 990 . he returned to Pisa in Elis and succeeded to the kingdom of Oenomaus, but not till he had subjugated what was formerly called Apia and Pelasgiotis, which he called Peloponnesus after himself. As to Apia, the old name of Peloponnese, see above, Apollod. 2.1.1 ; Paus. 2.5.7 ; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Ἀπία . The term Pelasgiotis seems not to occur elsewhere as a name for Peloponnese . However, Euripides uses Pelasgia apparently as equivalent to Argolis ( Eur. Or. 960 ). 2.10. The sons of Pelops were Pittheus, Atreus, Thyestes, and others. According to Pindar, Pelops had six sons by Hippodamia, and three different lists of their names are given by the Scholiasts on the passage. All the lists include the three mentioned by Apollodorus. See Pind. O. 1.89(144), with the Scholia. Three sons, Hippalcimus, Atreus, and Thyestes, are named by Hyginus (Fab. 84) . Besides his legitimate sons Pelops is said to have had a bastard son Chrysippus, who was born to him before his marriage with Hippodamia. His fondness for this love-child excited the jealousy of his wife, and at her instigation Atreus and Thyestes murdered Chrysippus by throwing him down a well. For this crime Pelops cursed his two sons and banished them, and Hippodamia fled to Argolis, but her bones were afterwards brought back to Olympia . See Thuc. 1.9 ; Paus. 6.20.7 ; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.415ff. ; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.105 ; Hyginus, Fab. 85 . Euripides wrote a tragedy Chrysippus on this subject. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 632ff. The tragedy is alluded to by Cicero (Tusc. Disp. iv.33.71 ). As to Chrysippus, see also above, Apollod. 3.5.5 . Now the wife of Atreus was Aerope, daughter of Catreus, and she loved Thyestes. And Atreus once vowed to sacrifice to Artemis the finest of his flocks; but when a golden lamb appeared, they say that he neglected to perform his vow 2.11. and having choked the lamb, he deposited it in a box and kept it there, and Aerope gave it to Thyestes, by whom she had been debauched. For the Mycenaeans had received an oracle which bade them choose a Pelopid for their king, and they had sent for Atreus and Thyestes. And when a discussion took place concerning the kingdom, Thyestes declared to the multitude that the kingdom ought to belong to him who owned the golden lamb, and when Atreus agreed, Thyestes produced the lamb and was made king. 2.12. But Zeus sent Hermes to Atreus and told him to stipulate with Thyestes that Atreus should be king if the sun should go backward; and when Thyestes agreed, the sun set in the east; hence the deity having plainly attested the usurpation of Thyestes, Atreus got the kingdom and banished Thyestes. This story of the golden lamb, and of the appeal made to its possession by the two brothers in the contest for the kingdom, is told in substantially the same way by Tzetzes, Chiliades i.425ff. ; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.106 ; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 811, 998 . Tzetzes records the vow of Atreus to sacrifice the best of his flock to Artemis, and he cites as his authority Apollonius, which is almost certainly a mistake for Apollodorus. Probably Tzetzes and the Scholiasts drew on the present passage of Apollodorus, or rather on the passage as it appeared in the unabridged text instead of in the Epitome which is all that we now possess of the last part of the Library . Euripides told the story allusively in much the same way. See Eur. El. 699ff. ; Eur. Or. 996ff. Compare Plat. Stat. 12 ; Paus. 2.18.1 ; Lucian, De astrologia 12 ; Dio Chrysostom lxvi. vol. ii. p. 221, ed. L. Dindorf ; Accius, quoted by Cicero, De natura deorum iii.27.68 ; Seneca, Thyestes 222-235 ; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.306 ; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7, 125ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 22; Second Vatican Mythographer 147) . From these various accounts and allusions it would seem that in their dispute for the kingdom, which Atreus claimed in right of birth as the elder ( Tzetzes, Chiliades i.426 ), it was agreed that he who could exhibit the greatest portent should be king. Atreus intended to produce the golden lamb, which had been born in his flocks; but meanwhile the lamb had been given by his treacherous wife Aerope to her paramour Thyestes, who produced it in evidence of his claim and was accordingly awarded the crown. However, with the assistance of Zeus, the rightful claimant Atreus was able to exhibit a still greater portent, which was the sun and the Pleiades retracing their course in the sky and setting in the east instead of in the west. This mighty marvel, attesting the divine approbation of Atreus, clinched the dispute in his favour; he became king, and banished his rival Thyestes. According to a different account, which found favour with the Latin poets, the sun reversed his course in the sky, not in order to demonstrate the right of Atreus to the crown, but on the contrary to mark his disgust and horror at the king for murdering his nephews and dishing up their mangled limbs to their father Thyestes at table. See Tzetzes, Chiliades i.451 ; Statyllius Flaccus, in Anth. Pal. ix.98.2 ; Hyginus, Fab. 88, 258 ; Ovid, Tristia ii.391ff. ; Ovid, Ars Am. i.327ff. ; Seneca, Thyestes 776ff. ; Martial iii.45.1ff. From the verses of Statyllius Flaccus we may infer that this latter was the interpretation put on the backward motion of the sun by Sophocles in his tragedy Atreus . See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, i.93 . In later times rationalists explained the old fable by saying that Atreus was an astronomer who first calculated an eclipse, and so threw his less scientific brother into the shade ( Hyginus, Fab. 158 ; Serv. A. 1.568 ), or who first pointed out that the sun appears to revolve in a direction contrary to the motion of the stars. See Strab. 1.2.15 ; Lucian, De astrologia 12 . A fragment of Euripides appears to show that he put in the mouth of Atreus this claim to astronomical discovery. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), p. 639, frag. 861 . A still more grandiose explanation of the myth was given by Plato l.c., who adduced it, with grave irony, as evidence that in alternate cycles of vast duration the universe revolves in opposite directions, the reversal of its motion at the end of each cycle being accompanied by a great destruction of animal life. This magnificent theory was perhaps suggested to the philosopher by the speculations of Empedocles, and it bears a resemblance not only to the ancient Indian doctrine of successive epochs of creation and destruction, but also to Herbert Spencer's view of the great cosmic process as moving eternally in alternate and measureless cycles of evolution and dissolution. See Sir Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, 12th ed. (London, 1875), i.7, quoting the Laws of Manu ; Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 3rd ed. (London, 1875), pp. 536ff. Compare Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii.303ff. 2.13. But afterwards being apprized of the adultery, he sent a herald to Thyestes with a proposal of accommodation; and when he had lured Thyestes by a pretence of friendship, he slaughtered the sons, Aglaus, Callileon, and Orchomenus, whom Thyestes had by a Naiad nymph, though they had sat down as suppliants on the altar of Zeus. And having cut them limb from limb and boiled them, he served them up to Thyestes without the extremities; and when Thyestes had eaten heartily of them, he showed him the extremities, and cast him out of the country. As to the famous, or infamous, Thyestean banquet, see Aesch. Ag. 1590ff. ; Paus. 2.18.1 ; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.447ff. ; Hyginus, Fab. 88 ; Seneca, Thyestes 682ff. ; Serv. Verg. A. 1.568, xi.262 ; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.306 ; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7, 126, 209 (First Vatican Mythographer 22; Second Vatican Mythographer 147; Third Vatican Mythographer viii.16) . Sophocles wrote at least two tragedies on the fatal feud between the brothers, one of them being called Atreus and the other Thyestes . The plots of the plays are not certainly known, but it is thought probable that in the former he dealt with the cannibal banquet, and in the latter with the subsequent adventures and crimes of Thyestes. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 91ff., 185ff. Euripides also wrote a tragedy called Thyestes . See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 480ff. Tzetzes agrees with Apollodorus as to the names of the three murdered sons of Thyestes, except that he calls one of them Callaus instead of Callileon. Only two, Tantalus and Plisthenes, are named by Seneca and Hyginus. 2.14. But seeking by all means to pay Atreus out, Thyestes inquired of the oracle on the subject, and received an answer that it could be done if he were to beget a son by intercourse with his own daughter. He did so accordingly, and begot Aegisthus by his daughter. And Aegisthus, when he was grown to manhood and had learned that he was a son of Thyestes, killed Atreus, and restored the kingdom to Thyestes. The later history of Thyestes, including his incest with his daughter Pelopia, is narrated much more fully by Hyginus, Fab. 87, 88, who is believed to have derived the story from the Thyestes of Sophocles. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 185ff. The incest and the birth of Aegisthus, who is said to have received his name because he was suckled by a goat, are told more briefly by Lactantius Placidus (on Statius, Theb. iv.306) and the First and Second Vatican Mythographers ( Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7ff., 126 ). The incest is said to have been committed at Sicyon, where the father and daughter met by night without recognizing each other; the recognition occurred at a later time by means of a sword which Pelopia had wrested from her ravisher, and with which, on coming to a knowledge of her relationship to him, she stabbed herself to death. |
