Hippodamia- Greek FigureMortal"Queen of Pisa"

Deadly Courtship

Hippodamia was the daughter of Oenomaus, King of Pisa and son of the war god Ares. Her beauty attracted suitors from across Greece, but her father had received an oracle warning that his son-in-law would cause his death, and he devised a deadly scheme to prevent her marriage.

Any man who wished to marry Hippodamia must first defeat Oenomaus in a chariot race. The course ran from Pisa to the altar of Poseidon at the Isthmus of Corinth. The suitor would be given a head start while Oenomaus performed a sacrifice to Zeus, then the king would pursue in his chariot drawn by divine horses given by his father Ares. If Oenomaus caught the suitor before the finish line — and with his god-given horses, he always did — he would kill him with his spear.

Twelve or more young princes perished this way, their severed heads nailed to the gates of Oenomaus's palace as a warning to those who came after. In darker tellings, Oenomaus's protectiveness masked an unnatural desire for his own daughter — no oracle, just a father determined that no man should have her.

The Fateful Race

When Pelops arrived to compete, Hippodamia was struck by this youth whose beauty had once attracted Poseidon himself. She determined that this suitor should not share the fate of his predecessors. In some versions, it was Hippodamia who approached Myrtilus, her father's charioteer, and convinced him to sabotage the royal chariot. In others, Pelops himself bribed the charioteer. Either way, Myrtilus replaced the bronze linchpins with wax, and during the race, as Oenomaus bore down upon Pelops with spear raised, the wheels came apart. The king was thrown and dragged to death by his own divine horses.

The Curse Unfolds

Hippodamia married Pelops and reigned beside him as he conquered much of southern Greece, giving the peninsula the name Peloponnese — "island of Pelops." Among her many sons were Atreus and Thyestes, whose feud would fill the house of Pelops with blood for generations. In some traditions, Hippodamia herself planted the next seed of violence: she instigated the murder of Chrysippus, Pelops's son by the nymph Axioche, fearing he would be preferred over her own children as heir. When the crime was discovered, Hippodamia fled to Midea in the Argolid, where she died or took her own life. Pelops later retrieved her bones and buried them at Olympia, where she received cult honors alongside her husband.