Pelopia

Pelopia was a daughter of Thyestes, king of Mycenae, and the mother of Aegisthus, who by her father’s act was both her son and her half-brother. The story is told in Hyginus’ Fabulae and summarised in the Epitome of Apollodorus. Pelopia is the link between Thyestes’ feud with his brother Atreus and the murder of Agamemnon, because her son became Atreus’ killer and later Clytemnestra’s lover (Homer, Odyssey 3.263–275); in the Odyssey he is already called “son of Thyestes” (Odyssey 4.518).

Thyestes and Atreus

Thyestes and Atreus were sons of Pelops and Hippodamia. Atreus’ wife Aerope loved Thyestes, and Thyestes lay with her, so Atreus drove him from the kingdom (Hyginus, Fabulae 86; Apollodorus, Epitome 2.10–13). Atreus later pretended to make peace, brought his brother back and killed Thyestes’ young sons, Tantalus and Plisthenes, and served them to their father at a feast. Thyestes then learned what he had eaten and fled (Hyginus, Fabulae 88).

The Oracle and the Birth of Aegisthus

Thyestes was told by an oracle that the son he fathered by his own daughter Pelopia would avenge him on his brother (Hyginus, Fabulae 87; Apollodorus, Epitome 2.14). Hyginus gives the details in Fabula 88. Thyestes had fled to King Thesprotus, and Pelopia was placed at Sicyon. One night, when the people of Sicyon were sacrificing to Minerva (Athena), Thyestes arrived and hid in a grove, afraid of polluting the rite. Pelopia, leading the dances, slipped and stained her dress with the blood of the victim, and went to the river to wash it, leaving her tunic on the bank. Thyestes sprang out of the grove with his head covered and raped her. She pulled his sword from its sheath and, going back into the temple, hid it under the base of Minerva’s statue.

Pelopia and Atreus

Afterwards Mycenae suffered famine, and an oracle told Atreus to bring Thyestes back. Atreus went to Thesprotus to look for him and saw Pelopia, whom he took to be Thesprotus’ daughter, and asked for her as his wife. Thesprotus gave her to him to avoid suspicion; she was already pregnant by her father. In Mycenae she bore Aegisthus and exposed him. Shepherds found the child and put him to a nanny goat to be suckled, and Hyginus says he was called Aegisthus because the Greek for goat is aix. Atreus had him found and brought up as his own son (Hyginus, Fabulae 88, 87).

The Sword and Pelopia’s Death

When Agamemnon and Menelaus, sent by Atreus to search for Thyestes, took him prisoner at Delphi, Atreus threw him into custody and sent Aegisthus, whom he thought his own son, to kill him. Thyestes recognised the sword that Aegisthus carried as the one he had lost on the night of the rape. Aegisthus said that his mother Pelopia had given it to him. Pelopia was sent for and told Thyestes that she had taken the sword from some unknown man in the night. She then seized the sword, pretending to examine it, and drove it into her own chest. Aegisthus took it, bloody, to Atreus, who believed that Thyestes was dead and rejoiced; Aegisthus then killed Atreus as he sacrificed on the shore and brought his father back to the throne (Hyginus, Fabulae 88). Apollodorus gives a shorter version: Aegisthus, grown up and told that he was Thyestes’ son, killed Atreus and restored the kingdom to Thyestes (Apollodorus, Epitome 2.14).

Other figures named Pelopia

Several other women have the same name. One was a daughter of Pelias, king of Iolcus, and a sister of Alcestis, Peisidice, Hippothoe and Acastus (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.10). Another was a daughter of Niobe (Apollodorus, Library 3.5.6). A Pelopia was also named as the mother, by Ares, of the Cycnus whom Heracles killed (Apollodorus, Library 2.7.7).

Pelopia Sources

Hyginus, Fabulae 86–88; Homer, Odyssey 3.263–275 and 4.518; Apollodorus, Epitome 2.10–14 and Library 1.9.10, 2.7.7 and 3.5.6.

See Also: Thyestes, Atreus, Aegisthus, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Pelops, Athena