Oenomaus- Greek FigureMortal"King of Pisa"

The Deadly King

Oenomaus was the son of Ares and ruled as king of Pisa in the northwestern Peloponnese, near the site that would become Olympia. His father had given him horses no mortal team could outrun. An oracle told him he would die at the hands of his son-in-law.

He devised a contest that appeared to allow courtship while making survival impossible. Any man who wished to marry his daughter Hippodamia must defeat him in a chariot race from Pisa to the altar of Poseidon at the Isthmus of Corinth. The suitor got a head start while Oenomaus sacrificed a ram to Zeus. Then the king pursued, and if he caught the suitor — he always did — he drove his spear through the man's back.

The Slaughter of Suitors

Suitor after suitor fell. Apollodorus counts thirteen; Diodorus puts the number higher. Marmax and Alcathous are among the names preserved only as victims. Their severed heads were nailed to the gates of Oenomaus's palace.

Pausanias records a darker motive beneath the oracle's threat: Oenomaus desired Hippodamia himself. Whether driven by the prophecy or by that desire, he let the heads multiply while his daughter remained unwed.

Downfall

When Pelops arrived, the pattern broke. Poseidon had given him a golden chariot and winged horses, but divine gifts alone might not have overcome Ares's steeds. Myrtilus, Oenomaus's own charioteer and son of Hermes, agreed to replace the bronze linchpins with wax — bribed, in Apollodorus's account, with the promise of Hippodamia's first night.

During the race, as Oenomaus bore down on Pelops with his spear raised, the wheels flew apart. He was thrown and dragged to death by his own horses, tangled in the reins. Dying, he cursed Myrtilus to perish at Pelops's hands. Pelops fulfilled it soon after, throwing the charioteer into the sea — and the curse that started with Oenomaus's blood ran through the house of Pelops for generations.