Thyestes

Thyestes was a prince of the House of Pelops in Greek mythology, best known for his bitter feud with his brother Atreus. Their struggle for the kingship of Mycenae led to adultery, banishment, the murder of Thyestes’ children and a banquet at which he unknowingly ate them. Thyestes was the father of Aegisthus, who later killed Agamemnon, so that the curse he spoke against Atreus’ line ran on into the tragedies of the Trojan War generation.

Who Was Thyestes?

Family and Background

Thyestes was a son of Pelops and Hippodamia, and a brother of Atreus. Apollodorus lists Pittheus, Atreus and Thyestes among the sons of Pelops (Apollodorus, Epitome 2.10). In the Iliad the royal sceptre made by Hephaestus passes from Zeus to Hermes, from Hermes to Pelops, from Pelops to Atreus, and from Atreus, who died, to Thyestes, who left it to Agamemnon (Iliad 2.101–108). Homer gives no more of the quarrel than this.

Brother of Atreus

The most important relationship in Thyestes’ myth is his rivalry with Atreus. The two brothers were rival claimants to Mycenae, and the hatred between them passed down to their sons and grandsons. Aeschylus describes Atreus as ruling the land, disputing power with his brother, and driving him out of city and home (Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1583–1586).

Exile from Olympia

Thucydides records that Atreus was living away from his father, banished because of the death of Chrysippus, when he was given charge of Mycenae by Eurystheus (Thucydides 1.9.2). Pausanias says that Hippodamia withdrew to Midea in Argolis because Pelops was so angry with her over the death of Chrysippus (Pausanias 6.20.7). Neither passage says what part Thyestes played.

Thyestes and the Throne of Mycenae

The Golden Lamb

Apollodorus tells the story as follows. The Mycenaeans had received an oracle telling them to choose a Pelopid as king, and they sent for Atreus and Thyestes. Atreus had once vowed to sacrifice the finest of his flock to Artemis; when a golden lamb appeared, he did not keep his vow, but choked the lamb and hid it in a box (Apollodorus, Epitome 2.10–11). Aerope then gave the lamb to Thyestes.

Aerope’s Betrayal

Aerope, the daughter of Catreus and wife of Atreus, loved Thyestes and was seduced by him, and she gave him the golden lamb. When the people met to settle who should be king, Thyestes declared that the kingdom should belong to the man who owned the golden lamb. Atreus agreed, and Thyestes produced the lamb and was made king (Apollodorus, Epitome 2.10–11). Euripides refers to the same story in a choral song, in which Thyestes persuades the wife of Atreus in secret and carries the marvel, the golden lamb, to his house (Euripides, Electra 699–746).

Zeus Reverses the Sun

In Apollodorus’ version Zeus sent Hermes to Atreus and told him to make Thyestes agree that Atreus should be king if the sun went backward. Thyestes agreed, the sun set in the east, and the god had plainly shown that Thyestes had taken the throne wrongly. Atreus received the kingdom and banished Thyestes (Apollodorus, Epitome 2.12). Euripides sings of Zeus changing the paths of the stars and the sun, and adds that he himself puts little faith in the story (Euripides, Electra 726–742). Hyginus gives a different reason: he says the Sun turned his chariot away because of the crime of the banquet (Hyginus, Fabulae 88).

The Feast of Thyestes

Atreus’ Revenge

Atreus later learned of the adultery. He sent a herald to Thyestes with a proposal of reconciliation, and lured him back by a pretence of friendship (Apollodorus, Epitome 2.13). In Aeschylus Thyestes returns as a suppliant at the hearth and is allowed to live, and Atreus then prepares a banquet for him with more show than real friendship (Agamemnon 1587–1593).

The Murder of Thyestes’ Children

According to Apollodorus, Atreus killed the sons of Thyestes, Aglaus, Callileon and Orchomenus, whom Thyestes had by a Naiad nymph, even though they had sat down as suppliants at the altar of Zeus. He cut them up, boiled the pieces and served them to Thyestes without the extremities. When Thyestes had eaten heartily, Atreus showed him the extremities and cast him out of the country (Apollodorus, Epitome 2.13). Hyginus names two small sons, Tantalus and Plisthenes, and says that Atreus had the arms and faces of the children brought in to him as he ate (Hyginus, Fabulae 88). In Aeschylus Atreus broke up the feet and the fingertips and Thyestes, not recognizing the rest, ate it; when he understood what he had done, he cried out and fell back, retching (Agamemnon 1594–1599).

The Curse of the House of Atreus

In Aeschylus’ account Thyestes kicked over the table in horror and cursed the whole race of Pleisthenes to perish in the same way (Agamemnon 1600–1602). Cassandra sees the murdered children as visions in the house of Atreus, holding in their hands the flesh of their own bodies that their father tasted (Agamemnon 1217–1222). The crimes of Atreus and Thyestes do not end with them; they pass into the stories of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, Electra and Orestes.

Thyestes and Pelopia

The Oracle

After the feast Thyestes wished to punish Atreus. He asked the oracle how to do so and was told that it could be done if he were to have a son by his own daughter (Apollodorus, Epitome 2.14). Hyginus says the answer was that the son he had by his daughter Pelopia would avenge him on his brother (Hyginus, Fabulae 87).

Pelopia and Aegisthus

Thyestes did as the oracle said and begot Aegisthus by his own daughter. Hyginus tells the story at length. Thyestes went to Sicyon, where Pelopia was, and came upon her at night when she was celebrating a rite of Minerva. He raped her while hooded, and she took his sword from its sheath without knowing who he was and hid it. She later gave birth to Aegisthus and exposed him; shepherds found the child and let a goat suckle him, which Hyginus gives as the reason for the name Aegisthus, from the Greek word for a goat. Atreus, who had in the meantime married Pelopia without knowing she was Thyestes’ daughter, had the child sought out and raised him as his own (Hyginus, Fabulae 87–88).

Aegisthus Kills Atreus

Atreus sent Aegisthus to kill the captured Thyestes. Thyestes recognized the sword that Aegisthus carried and learned that his mother, Pelopia, had given it to him. When Pelopia was summoned and understood the truth, she drove the sword into her own chest. Aegisthus took the bloody sword to Atreus, who thought Thyestes was dead; Aegisthus then killed Atreus as he sacrificed on the shore, and returned with his father to the kingdom (Hyginus, Fabulae 88). Apollodorus gives a short form: when Aegisthus was grown and learned that he was a son of Thyestes, he killed Atreus and restored the kingdom to Thyestes (Epitome 2.14).

Agamemnon, Menelaus, and the Trojan War

The Sons of Atreus

Atreus had two famous sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus. In Apollodorus’ account, after Aegisthus had put Thyestes on the throne, the two boys were taken away to safety, first to Sicyon and then to Oeneus in Aetolia. Tyndareus later brought them back, and they drove Thyestes out to Cytheria after taking an oath from him at the altar of Hera, to which he had fled. They then became Tyndareus’ sons-in-law, Agamemnon marrying Clytemnestra and Menelaus marrying Helen. Clytemnestra’s first husband had been Tantalus, a son of Thyestes, whom Agamemnon killed together with his newborn child before he married her (Apollodorus, Epitome 2.15–16). Pausanias saw the grave of Thyestes beside the road from Mycenae to Argos, with a stone ram on top of it for the golden lamb (Pausanias 2.18.1).

Thyestes’ Indirect Link to Troy

Thyestes did not fight in the Trojan War. His family story is connected to it because Helen was taken to Troy by Paris, and Agamemnon led the Greek forces that sailed to recover her.

Aegisthus After Troy

Homer calls Aegisthus the son of Thyestes (Odyssey 4.518). While Agamemnon was at Troy Aegisthus took Clytemnestra as his lover. In Homer he sets a watchman to look out for Agamemnon’s return, hides twenty men in ambush, invites Agamemnon to a feast and kills him there “as one kills an ox at its stall” (Odyssey 4.524–537). Aegisthus ruled golden Mycenae for seven years, and in the eighth Orestes came back from Athens and killed him (Odyssey 3.303–310). In the Agamemnon, Aegisthus himself gives the feast of Atreus as the reason for his deed (Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1583–1611).

Thyestes in Ancient Literature

Apollodorus

Apollodorus, in the Epitome of the Library, gives the most continuous ancient summary: the oracle at Mycenae, the golden lamb, Aerope’s betrayal, Zeus reversing the sun, the feast, the oracle about the daughter and the birth of Aegisthus.

Aeschylus

In the Agamemnon, the first play of the Oresteia, Aegisthus explains the murder of Agamemnon as vengeance for the feast that Atreus served to his father, and Cassandra sees the children of Thyestes in the house (Agamemnon 1217–1222, 1583–1611). Aeschylus has Aegisthus, the third child of Thyestes, driven out as a baby with his father and brought back later by justice (1605–1607).

Euripides and Hyginus

Euripides refers to the golden lamb and the reversal of the sun in a song of the Electra (699–746). Hyginus gives the story of Pelopia and Aegisthus in the fullest form that has survived (Fabulae 87–88).

Seneca

The Roman writer Seneca made Thyestes the central figure of his tragedy Thyestes, which centres on Atreus’ revenge and the horror of the banquet.

Misconceptions and Lesser-Known Facts

Thyestes Was Not a Trojan War Hero

Thyestes was not one of the Greek warriors at Troy. His link to Troy is through his family: Agamemnon and Menelaus, the sons of Atreus, led the Greek cause, while Aegisthus, the son of Thyestes, killed Agamemnon after he returned.

The Thyestean Feast Was Atreus’ Crime

It was Atreus who prepared the terrible feast, as revenge on his brother. Thyestes was its victim, though the sources also make him a seducer of his brother’s wife and the father of a child by his own daughter.

Aegisthus Continued Thyestes’ Revenge

Aegisthus is often remembered only as Clytemnestra’s lover and the killer of Agamemnon. In the sources, his story begins with the oracle given to Thyestes and with the killing of Atreus.

Thyestes Sources

Apollodorus, Epitome 2.10–16 (Library, epitome of Book 3 onward); Homer, Iliad 2.101–108 and Odyssey 3.303–310, 4.518–537; Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1217–1222, 1583–1611; Euripides, Electra 699–746; Thucydides 1.9.2; Pausanias 2.18.1 and 6.20.7; Hyginus, Fabulae 87–88; Seneca, Thyestes.

See Also: Atreus, Aegisthus, Pelopia, Aerope, Pelops, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra