Atreus

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Atreus

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....
, Atreus was the son of Pelops

Pelops

Hippodamia

Hippodamia , was a daughter of King Oenomaus and wife of Pelops with whom her offspring were Thyestes, Atreus, and Pittheus, Alcathous....
, a king of 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....
, and the father of 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....
. Collectively, his descendants are known as Atreidai or Atreidae.

Atreus and his twin brother 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....
were exiled by their father for murdering their half-brother Chrysippus

Chrysippus (mythology)

Olympia, Greece

Olympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi....
. They took refuge in 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....
, where they ascended to the throne in the absence of King Eurystheus

Eurystheus

In Greek mythology, Eurystheus was king of Tiryns, one of three Mycenaean Greece strongholds in the Argolid: Sthenelus was his father and the "victorious horsewoman" Nicippe his mother, and he was a grandson of the hero Perseus , as was his opponent Heracles....
, who was fighting the Heracleidae

Heracleidae

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In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Pelops

Hippodamia

Hippodamia , was a daughter of King Oenomaus and wife of Pelops with whom her offspring were Thyestes, Atreus, and Pittheus, Alcathous....
, a king of Mycenae

Mycenae

Agamemnon

Menelaus

Thyestes

Chrysippus (mythology)

Olympia, Greece

Mycenae

Eurystheus

Heracleidae

In Greek mythology, the Heracleidae or Heraclids were the numerous descendants of Heracles , especially applied in a narrower sense to the descendants of Hyllus, the eldest of his four sons by Deianira ....
. Eurystheus had meant for their stewardship to be temporary, but it became permanent after his death in battle.

According to some sources, Atreus was the father of Plisthenes. More commonly, though, they were brothers.

Hittite sources

There is a possible reference to Atreus in a Hittite

Hittites

The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a Hittite language of the Anatolian languages of the Indo-European languages family, and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca....
text known as the 'Indictment of Madduwatta

Madduwatta

Madduwatta was a king of Arzawa, in Anatolia, about 14th or 13th century BC....
'. The indictment describes several army clashes between the Greeks and the Hittites which took place around the late 15th or early 14th centuries BCE. The Greek leader was a man called Attarsiya, and some scholars have speculated that Attarsiya (or Attarissiya) was the Hittite way of writing the Greek name Atreus. Other scholars argue that even though the name is probably Greek (since the man is described as an Ahhiyawa) and related to Atreus, the person carrying the name is not necessarily identical to the famous Atreus.

Atreidae

The plural word Atreidae or Atreidai (meaning literally "those of Atreus") refers to Agamemnon

Agamemnon

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....
, sons of Atreus— in English, the Atreides. The term is also used for their children and (less often) for their further descendants.

House of Atreus

Tantalus

The House of Atreus begins with Tantalus

Tantalus

In Greek mythology Tantalus was a son of Zeus and the nymph Plouto. Thus he was a king in the primordial world, the father of a son Broteas whose very name signifies "mortals" ....
. Tantalus initially held the favor of the gods but decided to cook his own son Pelops

Pelops

In Greek mythology, Pelops , king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus, was venerated at Olympia, Greece, where his cult developed into the founding myth of the Ancient Olympic Games, the most important expression of unity, not only for the Peloponnesus, "land of Pelops", but for all Hellenes....
and feed him to the gods as a test of their omniscience. Most of the gods, as they sat down to dinner with Tantalus, immediately understood what had happened, because they knew the nature of the meat they were served, were appalled and did not partake. However, Demeter

Demeter

File:Demeter in horse chariot w daughter kore 83d40m wikiC Tempio Y di Selinunte sec VIa.JPGDemeter , in Greek mythology, is the Goddess of cereal and fertility, the pure....
, who was distracted due to the abduction by Hades

Hades

Hades refers both to the ancient Greek underworld, the abode of Hades, and to the god of the underworld. Hades in Homer referred just to the god; the genitive case , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades"....
of her daughter Persephone

Persephone

In Greek mythology, Persephone was the embodiment of the Earth's fertility at the same time that she was the Queen of the Greek Underworld, the kore , and the parthenogenesis daughter of Demeter and, in later Classical myths, a daughter of Demeter and Zeus....
, obliviously ate Pelops' shoulder. The gods threw Tantalus into the underworld

Greek underworld

The Greek underworld is a general term used to describe the various realms of Greek mythology which were believed to lie beneath the earth or beyond the horizon....
, where he spends eternity standing up to his chin in a pool of water, which drains whenever he attempts to slake his thirst. Above him are low-hanging fruit that lift just out of reach when he tries to grab it. Thus is derived the word "tantalize". The gods brought Pelops back to life, replacing the bone in his shoulder with a bit of ivory, thus cursing the family forever afterwards.

Niobe

Tantalus also had a daughter, Niobe

Niobe

Niobe was the daughter of the semi-legendary ruler Tantalus, called the "Phrygian" and sometimes even as "King of Phrygia" . Although Tantalus ruled in Sipylus, a city located in the western extremity of Anatolia where Lydia was to emerge as a state as of the 8th century BC, and not in the traditional heartland of Phrygia, situated more in...
, who married the king of Thebes

Thebes, Greece

Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, Greece, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain....
, Amphion

Amphion

There are several characters named Amphion in Greek mythology:* Amphion,son of Zeus and Antiope , and twin brother of Zethus . Together they are famous for building Thebes ....
, and had seven daughters and seven sons. She foolishly boasted that she was superior to the goddess Leto

Leto

In Greek mythology, Let? is a daughter of the Titan Coeus and Phoebe : Kos claimed her birthplace. In the Olympian scheme of things, Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis, the Letoides....
, whose only children were Artemis

Artemis

Apollo

Artemis

In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth/virginity/fertility, the hunt and was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.....
, who killed all of Niobe's daughters, and Apollo, who killed all her sons. Finally, Leto

Leto

Pelops and Hippodamia

Pelops married Hippodamia

Hippodamia

Hippodamia , was a daughter of King Oenomaus and wife of Pelops with whom her offspring were Thyestes, Atreus, and Pittheus, Alcathous....
, after winning a chariot race against her father by arranging for the sabotage of his would-be-father-in-law's chariot - resulting in his death. The versions of the story differ here - the sabotage was arranged by a servant of the king, Myrtilus

Myrtilus

In Greek mythology, Myrtilus was a divine hero, a son of Hermes on Theobula, and charioteer of King Oenomaus of Pisa in Elis, on the northwest coast of the Peloponnesus....
, who was killed by Pelops for one of the following reasons: 1) because he had been promised the right to take Hippodamia's virginity, which Pelops retracted, or 2) because he attempted to rape her, or 3) because Pelops did not wish to share the credit for the victory. As Myrtilus died, he cursed Pelops and his line, further adding to the house's curse.

Atreus, Thyestes and Chrysippus

Pelops and Hippodamia had two sons, Atreus

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....
and 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....
, who (depending on myth version) murdered Chrysippus

Chrysippus (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Chrysippus was a divine hero of Elis in the Peloponnesus, a young boy, the Illegitimacy son of Pelops king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus and the nymph Axioche....
, their stepbrother. Because of the murder, Hippodamia, Atreus, and Thyestes were banished to Mycene, where Hippodamia is said to have hanged herself.

Atreus vowed to sacrifice his best lamb to Artemis. Upon searching his flock, however, Atreus discovered a golden lamb which he gave to his wife, Aerope, to hide from the goddess. She gave it to her lover, Thyestes (also Atreus' brother), who then convinced Atreus to agree that whoever had the lamb should be king. Thyestes produced the lamb and claimed the throne.

Atreus retook the throne using advice he received from Hermes

Hermes

Hermes is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. An Twelve Olympians, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of general commerce, and of the cunni...
. Thyestes agreed to give the kingdom back when the sun moved backwards in the sky, a feat that Zeus accomplished. Atreus retook the throne and banished Thyestes.

Atreus then learned of Thyestes' and Aerope's adultery and plotted revenge. He killed Thyestes' sons and cooked them, save their hands and feet. He served Thyestes his own sons and then taunted him with their hands and feet. Thyestes responded by asking an oracle what to do, who advised him to have a son by 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....
, who would then kill Atreus. However, when Aegisthus

Aegisthus

In Greek mythology, Aegisthus was the son of Thyestes and of his daughter, Pelopia.Thyestes felt he had been deprived of the Mycenae throne unfairly by his brother, Atreus....
was first born, he was abandoned by his mother who was ashamed of her incestuous act. A shepherd found the infant Aegisthus and gave him to Atreus, who raised him as his own son. Only as he entered adulthood did Thyestes reveal the truth to Aegisthus, that he was both father and grandfather to the boy. Aegisthus then killed Atreus, although not before Atreus had two sons, Agamemnon

Agamemnon

Menelaus

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....
, and Menelaus married Helen

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....
, her sister (known later as Helen of Troy

Troy

Troy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle, and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer....
). Helen

Helen

Agamemnon, Iphigenia, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, Orestes and Electra

Prior to sailing off to war against Troy, Agamemnon angered the goddess Artemis

Artemis

In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth/virginity/fertility, the hunt and was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.....
. Artemis punished Agamemnon after he killed a sacred deer in a sacred grove and boasted he was a better hunter than she. She stilled the wind so that his fleet could not sail. A prophet named Calchas

Calchas

In Greek mythology, Calchas , son of Thestor, was a Argive seer, with a gift for interpreting the flight of birds that he received of Apollo: "as an augur, Calchas had no rival in the camp"....
told him that in order to appease Artemis, Agamemnon would have to sacrifice one of his daughters, Iphigenia. He sent word home for her to come (in some versions of the story on the pretense that she was to be married to Achilles

Achilles

In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greeks hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad, which takes for its theme ; the Wrath of Achilles....
). Iphigenia accepted her father's choice and was honored to be a part of the war. Clytemnestra tried to stop Iphigenia but was sent away. After doing the deed, Agamemnon's fleet was able to get under way.

While he was fighting the Trojans, his wife Clytemnestra, infuriated by the murder of her daughter, began an affair with Aegisthus. When Agamemnon returned home he brought with him a new concubine, the doomed prophetess Cassandra

Cassandra

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy....
. When Agamemnon returned, Clytemnestra lured him into their room and stabbed Agamemnon to death.

Agamemnon's only son, Orestes, was quite young when his mother killed his father. He was sent into exile. (In some versions he was sent away by Clytemnestra to avoid having him present during the murder of Agamemnon; in others Electra herself rescued the infant Orestes and sent him away to protect him from their mother.)

Goaded by his sister Electra

Electra

In Greek mythology, Electra was an Argosian princess and daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, and was a sibling to sisters Iphigeneia, Chrysothemis, and brother Orestes....
, Orestes

Orestes

Orestes was the son of Agamemnon in Greek mythology; Orestes may also refer to:Drama*Orestes , an Classical Athens tragedy from 408 BCE by Euripides...
swore revenge. He knew it was his duty to avenge his father's death, but saw also that in doing so he would have to kill his mother. He was torn between avenging his father and sparing his mother. 'It was a son's duty to kill his father's murderers, a duty that came before all others. But a son who killed his mother was abhorrent to gods and to men.'

When he prayed to Apollo

Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
, the god advised him to kill his mother. 'And Orestes knew that he must work out the curse of his house, exact vengeance and pay with his own ruin. After Orestes murdered Clytemnestra, he wandered the land with guilt in his heart. After many years, with Apollo by his side, he pleaded to Athena. No descendant of Atreus had ever done so noble an act and 'neither he nor any descendant of his would ever again be driven into evil by the irresistible power of the past.' Thus Orestes ended the curse of the House of Atreus.

This story is the major plot line of Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
's trilogy The Oresteia
The Oresteia

The Oresteia is a trilogy of Theatre of ancient Greece tragedy written by Aeschylus which concerns the end of the curse on the House of Atreus....
.

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
in his dialogue The Statesman

Statesman (dialogue)

The Statesman, or Politikos in Classical Greek and Politicus in Latin, is a four part dialogue contained within the work of Plato....
tells a "famous tale" that "the sun and the stars once rose in the west, and set in the east, and that the god reversed their motion, and gave them that which they now have as a testimony to the right of Atreus

Atreus

Later influence

In the Dune
Dune (novel)

Dune is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert, published in 1965 in literature. It was the winner of the 1966 Hugo Award and the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel, and is considered by some to be the greatest science fiction novel of all time....
series, Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert

Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American list of science fiction authors. Although also a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels....
tells the story of Leto

Leto Atreides I

Duke Leto Atreides I is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. He features in the novel Dune by Frank Herbert and in the Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J....
, Paul

Paul Atreides

Paul Atreides is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert; he later takes the Fremen name Paul Muad'Dib and the sietch name Usul ....
and Leto II

Leto Atreides II

Leto Atreides II is a fictional character from the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Born at the end of Dune Messiah , Leto is a central character in Children of Dune and is the title character of God Emperor of Dune ....
of House Atreides

House Atreides

House Atreides is a fictional nobility from the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. One of the Great Houses of the feudal interstellar empire known as the Imperium, its members play a role in every novel in the series....
, the enemies of the Harkonnen

House Harkonnen

House Harkonnen is a powerful nobility in Frank Herbert's fictional Dune universe. The Harkonnens are featured prominently in the original 1965 novel Dune , and are also a major presence both the Prelude to Dune and Legends of Dune prequel trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J....
clan. The Atreides claim to trace their ancestry back to the original Atreides of the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta....
. In one of the prequel novels by Brian Herbert

Brian Herbert

Brian Patrick Herbert is a best selling United States author who lives in Washington state. He is the elder son of famed science fiction author Frank Herbert....
and Kevin Anderson

Kevin Anderson

Kevin Anderson may refer to:* Kevin J. Anderson, science fiction author* Kevin Anderson * Kevin Anderson , tennis player* Professor Kevin Anderson , climate scientist...
, the Play The Oresteia is performed in Castle Caladan, during the reign of Duke Paulus Atreides.

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, Short story writer, Editing and Literary criticism, and is considered part of the American Romanticism. Best known for his tales of Mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the Detective fiction genre....
's short story, "The Purloined Letter

The Purloined Letter

"The Purloined Letter" is a short story by United States author Edgar Allan Poe. It is the third of his three detective fiction featuring the fictional C....
", makes reference to Atreus and Thyestes.

In a column assessing Caroline Kennedy

Caroline Kennedy

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy is an United States author and attorney at law. She is a member of the influential Kennedy family and the only surviving child of President of the United States John F....
's candidacy for the US Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton in early 2009, Maureen Dowd

Maureen Dowd

Maureen Dowd is a Washington D.C.-based columnist for The New York Times. She has worked for the Times since 1983, when she joined as a metropolitan reporter....
likened the Kennedy family

Kennedy family

The Kennedy family is a family List of descendants of Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy of the Irish American Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, and prominent in United States Politics of the United States and government....
role in US politics, from grandfather Joe Kennedy to father John Kennedy and uncles Robert Kennedy and Ted Kennedy

Ted Kennedy

Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy is the Senior Senator United States Senate from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party . In office since November 1962, Kennedy is the list of current United States Senators by seniority member of the Senate, after President pro tempore of the United States Senate Robert Byrd of West Virginia....
, to the House of Atreus, and Caroline and her brother John Kennedy Jr.'s place in it as "heartbreaking." The columnist had eight years earlier traced the Kennedy/Atreus parallels in more detail, in a piece comparing the then-ascendant "Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush served as the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He was the 46th List of Governors of Texas from 1995 to 2000 before being United States presidential inauguration as President on January 20, 2001....
dynasty" with the Kennedy one.

Spoken-word myths - audio files

Sources

Apollodorus
Apollodorus

Apollodorus of Athens son of Asclepiades, was a Greeks scholar and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace....
, Epitome
Epitome

An epitome is a summary or miniature form; an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment.Many documents from the Ancient Greek and Ancient Rome worlds survive now only "in epitome," referring to the practice of some later authors who wrote distilled versions of larger works now lost....
II, 10-16;
Euripides
Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
, Electra
Electra (Euripides)

Euripides' Electra was probably written in the mid 410s BC, likely after 413 BC. It is unclear whether it was first produced before or after Sophocles' Electra of the Electra story....
.

Atreus

Hittite sources

Atreidae

House of Atreus

Tantalus

Niobe

Pelops and Hippodamia

Atreus, Thyestes and Chrysippus

Agamemnon, Iphigenia, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, Orestes and Electra

Plato

Later influence

Spoken-word myths - audio files

Sources

See also

External links