Pelops- Greek HeroHero"Ivory-Shouldered"

Son of Tantalus

Pelops was the son of Tantalus, a Lydian king so favoured by the gods that he dined at their table on Olympus. Tantalus stole the gods' food and told their secrets, then committed the ultimate sacrilege. To test their omniscience, he murdered his own son Pelops, butchered him, and served his flesh at a banquet for the Olympians.

The gods recognised the horrific dish immediately. All except Demeter, who was distracted by grief over Persephone and unknowingly consumed Pelops's shoulder. They were appalled. They cast Tantalus into Tartarus, standing in water that receded when he tried to drink, beneath fruit that withdrew when he reached for it, and they restored Pelops to life. Clotho, the eldest of the Fates, drew him from the cauldron. Hephaestus fashioned an ivory shoulder to replace the one Demeter had eaten, and the boy was returned to the world of the living.

Pindar rejected the cannibal feast entirely, holding that Poseidon simply snatched the beautiful youth from his father's house out of love, and that envious neighbours invented the butchery tale when Pelops vanished and could not be found.

Poseidon's Favour

The young Pelops was extraordinarily beautiful, and Poseidon became enamoured of him. The god carried Pelops to Olympus to serve as his cupbearer and companion. Pindar draws an explicit parallel to Zeus's abduction of Ganymede: desire claimed Pelops first, and later the Trojan prince. During his time among the gods, Pelops learned chariot-driving from Poseidon, the god of horses. The god gave him two gifts that would prove decisive: divine horses and a golden chariot.

When Pelops returned to the mortal world, his father's crimes had consequences. Tantalus's kingdom was destroyed. Ilus of Troy had driven Pelops and his people out of Asia Minor. Pelops migrated to southern Greece, arriving in the Peloponnese as a wealthy foreigner with divine connections but no kingdom.

The Chariot Race for Hippodamia

Grown to manhood, Pelops desired to marry Hippodamia, daughter of King Oenomaus of Pisa in Elis. An oracle had told Oenomaus his son-in-law would kill him. Hyginus records a second motive: that Oenomaus desired Hippodamia himself. Either way, the king had devised a deadly test. Each suitor must race Oenomaus in a chariot from Pisa to the altar of Poseidon at the Isthmus of Corinth. The suitor would set out first with Hippodamia, while Oenomaus sacrificed a ram and then pursued in his chariot drawn by the divine horses of his father Ares. Any suitor he overtook, he killed with a spear. The heads of thirteen failed suitors were nailed above the palace gates.

Pelops prayed to Poseidon on the shore at night, invoking the god's love. In Pindar's telling, this prayer alone secured victory: Poseidon provided a golden chariot and tireless winged horses, and Pelops outran Oenomaus cleanly. In Apollodorus, Pelops also enlisted Myrtilus, Oenomaus's charioteer and a son of Hermes. Pelops promised Myrtilus half the kingdom and the first night with Hippodamia. Myrtilus replaced the bronze axle-pins with pins of wax. During the race, as Oenomaus bore down on Pelops with spear raised, the wheels flew off. Oenomaus was dragged to death by his own horses, tangled in the reins. As he died, he cursed Myrtilus to perish at Pelops's hand.

The Betrayal of Myrtilus

After the victory, Pelops drove away with Hippodamia and Myrtilus. Myrtilus reached for Hippodamia during the journey. Pelops seized him and threw him from a cliff into the sea near Geraestus in Euboea. The waters took the name Myrtoan Sea from his fall. As Myrtilus plummeted, he cursed Pelops and all his descendants to suffer treachery and violent death, generation after generation. This dying curse, layered upon the pollution inherited from Tantalus, sealed the doom of the Pelopid house.

Hermes never forgave the murder of his son. He drove the curse deep into the bloodline.

Chrysippus and Laius

Pelops's son Chrysippus, born to the nymph Axioche, was a beautiful youth who attracted the attention of Laius, the exiled prince of Thebes. Laius was a guest in Pelops's household, sheltered there during his exile. He repaid the hospitality by abducting Chrysippus. Apollodorus says Chrysippus killed himself from shame. In Hyginus, Atreus and Thyestes murdered him at Hippodamia's urging; she feared he would inherit ahead of her own sons. Pelops discovered the crime. He cursed Laius, declaring the Theban prince would be killed by his own son, and banished Hippodamia, who fled to Midea and took her own life.

The curse on Laius set in motion the tragedy of Oedipus: the exposed infant who survived to kill his father at the crossroads and marry his mother Jocasta in unknowing fulfilment of Pelops's words.

The Cursed Line

Pelops took Pisa and Elis and extended his rule until the entire peninsula bore his name: the Peloponnese, "Island of Pelops." A sceptre that had passed from Zeus to Hermes came to Pelops, and through him to Atreus and Agamemnon. Homer names it in the Iliad when Agamemnon rises to speak before the Achaean assembly.

The curse of Myrtilus fed on the Pelopid house. Atreus and Thyestes fought over the throne of Mycenae and the golden lamb that signified its kingship. When Atreus discovered that Thyestes had taken his wife, he pretended reconciliation and served Thyestes a feast of his own children's flesh. Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter at Aulis to sail for Troy, and ten years later walked into his own palace and died under Clytemnestra's blade. The killings did not stop until Orestes stood trial before Athena on the Areopagus.

The Hero of Olympia

Pelops received heroic honors at Olympia. His sacred precinct, the Pelopion, stood at the heart of the sanctuary near the great Temple of Zeus. Pausanias describes the enclosure surrounded by a stone wall, shaded by trees, with altars and statues inside. Each year a black ram was sacrificed to Pelops, in contrast to the white bull offered to Zeus at the great altar nearby. Magistrates who tasted the flesh of this sacrifice were forbidden to enter the temple of Zeus.

Pindar in his first Olympian ode celebrates Pelops's chariot victory over Oenomaus as the origin of athletic competition at Olympia, praising the hero as he sits beside the ford of the Alpheus. Blood offerings fell on his tomb. The hippodrome's starting line marked the spot where Pelops began his fateful race, and competitors invoked his name before their contests.