Aegisthus

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Aegisthus

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Aegisthus (Ancient Greek

Ancient greek language

#REDIRECT Ancient Greek...
: , "goat strength

Physical strength

Physical Strength is the ability of a person or animal to exert force on physical objects using skeletal muscle. Increasing physical strength is the goal of strength training....
" — also transliterated

Transliteration

Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice....
as Aegisthos or Aigísthos) was the son of Thyestes

Thyestes

In Greek mythology, Thyestes was the son of Pelops, King of Olympia, Greece, and Hippodamia and father of Pelopia and Aegisthus. Thyestes and his twin brother, Atreus, were exiled by their father for having murdered their half-brother, Chrysippus in their desire for the throne of Olympia, Greece....
and of his daughter, Pelopia

Pelopia

In Greek mythology, Pelopia was a name attributed to three individuals.*Pelopia, the daughter of Thyestes. Thyestes had been fighting with his brother, Atreus, for the throne of Mycenae for some time, as well as having an affair with Atreus' wife, Aerope....
.

Thyestes felt he had been deprived of the Mycenean

Mycenae

Mycenae , is an archaeology in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 6 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north....
throne unfairly by his brother, Atreus

Atreus

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In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Ancient greek language

#REDIRECT Ancient Greek...
: , "goat strength

Physical strength

Transliteration

Thyestes

Pelopia

Mycenae

Atreus

In Greek mythology, Atreus was the son of Pelops and Hippodamia, a king of Mycenae, and the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. Collectively, his descendants are known as Atreidai or Atreidae....
. The two battled back and forth several times. In addition, Thyestes had an affair with Atreus' wife, Aerope

Aerope

A?rope was, in Greek mythology, a daughter of Catreus, king of Crete, and granddaughter of Minos. Her father, who had received an oracle that he should lose his life by one of his children, gave her and her sister, Clymene, to Nauplius, who was to sell them in a foreign land....
. In revenge, Atreus killed Thyestes' sons and served them to him unknowingly. After eating his own sons' corpses, Thyestes asked an oracle

Oracle

An oracle is a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophecy opinion; an infallible authority, usually Spirituality in nature....
how best to gain revenge. The advice was to father a son with his own daughter, Pelopia, and that son would kill Atreus.

When Aegisthus was born, his mother was ashamed of her incestuous act. She abandoned

Abandonment

File:SeacroftBoarded.jpgThe term abandonment has a multitude of uses, legal and extra-legal. This "signpost article" provides a guide to the various legal and quasi-legal uses of the word and includes links to articles that deal with each of the distinct concepts at greater length....
him and he was raised by shepherds and suckled by a goat, whence his name Aegisthus (from ). Atreus, not knowing the baby's origin, took Aegisthus in and raised him as his own son.

In the night in which Pelopia had shared the bed of her father, she had taken from him his sword

Sword

A sword is a long, edged piece of metal, used as a cutting, thrusting, and clubbing weapon in many civilizations throughout the world. The word sword comes from the Old English language wikt:sweord, cognate to Old High German swert, Middle Dutch swaert, Old Norse sver? Old Frisian and Old Saxon swerd and Dutch langua...
which she afterwards gave to Aegisthus. This sword became the means by which the incest

Incest

Incest refers to any sexual activity between closely related persons that is illegal or socially taboo. The type of sexual activity and the nature of the relationship between persons that constitutes a breach of law or social taboo vary with culture and jurisdiction....
uous intercourse between her and her father was discovered, whereupon she put an end

Suicide

Suicide is the intentional taking of one's own life. Many dictionaries also note the metaphorical sense of "willful destruction of one's self-interest"....
to her own life. Atreus in his enmity towards his brother sent Aegisthus to kill him; but the sword which Aegisthus carried was the cause of the recognition between Thyestes and his son, and the latter returned and slew his uncle Atreus, while he was offering a sacrifice on the seacoast. Aegisthus and his father now took possession of their lawful inheritance from which they had been expelled by Atreus.

Aegisthus and Thyestes thereafter ruled over Mycenae

Mycenae

Mycenae , is an archaeology in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 6 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north....
jointly, exiling Atreus' sons, Agamemnon

Agamemnon

In Greek mythology, Agamemnon / is the son of King Atreus of Mycenae and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus and the husband of Clytemnestra; different mythological versions make him the king either of Mycenae or of Argos....
and Menelaus

Menelaus

Menelaus may refer to;*Menelaus, one of the two most known Atrides, a king of Sparta and son of Atreus and Aerope*Menelaus on the Moon, named after Menelaus of Alexandria....
to Sparta

Sparta

Sparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the Eurotas River in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From circa 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars....
, where King Tyndareus

Tyndareus

In Greek mythology, Tyndareus ???da?e?? was a Sparta king, son of Oebalus and Gorgophone , husband of Leda and father of Helen, Castor and Polydeuces, Clytemnestra, Timandra , Phoebe and Philonoe....
gave the pair his daughters, Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra

Helen

In Greek mythology, Helen , better known as Helen of Sparta later Helen of Troy, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda , wife of King Menelaus of Sparta and sister of Castor and Pollux, Castor and Pollux and Clytemnestra....
, to take as wives.

Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
appears to know nothing of all these tragic occurrences, and we learn from him only that, after the death of Thyestes, Aegisthus ruled as king at Mycenae and took no part in the Trojan expedition. While Agamemnon

Agamemnon

Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greece kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon—said by Euripides to be her second husband—and his concubine Cassandra....
, the wife of Agamemnon, and was so wicked as to offer up thanks to the gods for the success with which his criminal exertions were crowned. In order not to be surprised by the return of Agamemnon, he sent out spies, and when Agamemnon came, Aegisthus invited him to a repast at which he had him treacherously murdered. After this event Aegisthus reigned seven years longer over Mycenae, until in the eighth Orestes

Orestes (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Orestes was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek theatre and of various legends connected with his madness and purification....
, the son of Agamemnon, returned home and avenged the death of his father by putting the adulterer to death.

Aegisthus

Sources