Pelopia- Greek FigureMortal"Priestess of Athena at Sicyon"
Also known as: Pelopeia and Πελόπεια
Titles & Epithets
Description
During a festival of Athena, Pelopia withdrew to wash sacrificial blood from her garments. In the darkness, her own father Thyestes found and violated her. She never saw his face, but she took his sword. Years later that sword, passed to the child she bore, revealed who had done it.
Mythology & Lore
The Priestess at Sicyon
Thyestes's daughter Pelopia was raised far from the bloodshed between her father and his brother Atreus. She served as a priestess of Athena at Sicyon under the protection of King Thesprotus. During a nocturnal festival, she slipped and stained her garments with the blood of a sacrificial victim. She withdrew to a nearby stream to wash, and there a man found her in the darkness and violated her. She never saw his face. During the struggle she seized his sword and kept it. The man was Thyestes. An oracle had told him to father a child on his own daughter. Neither recognized the other.
Marriage to Atreus
Atreus came to Sicyon in search of his brother and saw Pelopia. He did not know who her father was. He asked Thesprotus for her hand, and the king agreed. Pelopia bore a son, Aegisthus, the child of her father's assault, and exposed him on a hillside. Goatherds found the boy and raised him. Atreus eventually took Aegisthus in, believing the child to be his own.
The Sword and Pelopia's Death
Years later, Thyestes was captured and brought before Atreus. Young Aegisthus was sent to execute him. Thyestes recognized his own sword in the boy's hand, the weapon Pelopia had taken the night of the assault and given to her son. Aegisthus was Thyestes's child, and Pelopia his daughter. Pelopia took the sword and drove it into her own breast.
Relationships
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