![]() ![]() Not surprisingly, Thyestes killed Atreus, who was already the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. He killed Thyestes' sons and cooked them, save their hands and heads. Consequently, Thyestes became king.Ītreus plotted revenge for the adultery between Thyestes and Aerope depicted in this painting by Nosadella. Little did he know, however, that his wife, Aerope, was having an affair with Thyestes, and that she had given the golden fleece to him. Atreus delighted in this, as he had this priceless object, and entrusted it to his wife for safekeeping. Therefore, Thyestes suggested that the new king should be the one who is able to produce a golden fleece. When Eurystheus was killed in battle, an oracle declared that the next king should be chosen from amongst the sons of Pelops. For instance, they are said to have murdered an illegitimate son of Pelops, so as to please their mother, Hippodamia.Īs a result of this murder, the three were exiled, and went to Mycenae which was ruled by Eurystheus, the nephew of Atreus and Thyestes. Pelops had a number of sons, including Atreus and Thyestes, and these two were no better than their father and grandfather. Pelops, for instance, murdered Oenomaus, his future father-in-law, the king of Pisa (in the Peloponnesus), in order to marry his daughter, Hippodamia. In fact, the subsequent generations of the dynasty continued to commit heinous crimes. Tantalus was not the only evildoer in the House of Atreus. The Fall of a Civilization: The Mysterious Collapse of the Mycenaean Bronze AgeĬhryses attempting to ransom his daughter Chryseis from Agamemnon, which was a kind of incident that seemed to happen to powerful Greek kings all the time.The Curse of the House of Atreus: A Dysfunctional Family Taken to Extremes.As for Tantalus, he was punished in Tartarus for his crimes. Therefore, when the gods revived the boy, he was without a shoulder, and Hephaestus made an ivory one for him as a replacement. Demeter, due to her anxiety over the disappearance of Persephone, her daughter, did not take notice, and ended up eating Pelops’ shoulder. All the gods, except Demeter, knew what they were being served. Tantalus is most notorious for killing his son, Pelops, and serving him as a stew to the gods, just so that he could test their omniscience. This dynasty traces its ancestry all the way back to Tantalus, a king of Lydia. ( Public domain ) Agamemnon Was Born Into the House of AtreusĪgamemnon belonged to the House of Atreus, which was named after his father. Thyestes and Atreus, father of Agamemnon. Beyond mythology, there is an ancient funerary mask called the “Mask of Agamemnon,” which was alleged to have belonged to this mythical king. He also appears in works dealing with his life and death after the Trojan War, such as Aeschylus’ play, Agamemnon, in which the king is killed after his return from Troy, and in Homer’s Odyssey, where he appears as one of the shades in the underworld. The story of Agamemnon is not limited to the events in the Iliad. As a matter of fact, Homer begins his epic with Achilles’ refusal to participate any further in the war, which was caused by a conflict between him and Agamemnon. Therefore, he plays a significant role in Homer’s Iliad. ![]() He was a king of Mycenae, and the supreme commander of the Greeks during the Trojan War. Agamemnon is a major figure in Greek mythology. ![]()
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