Epitome

Apollodorus

Apollodorus. The Library. Frazer, James George, Sir, editor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1921

But afterwards being apprized

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of the adultery, he sent a herald to Thyestes with a proposal of accommodation; and when he had lured Thyestes by a pretence of friendship, he slaughtered the sons, Aglaus, Callileon, and Orchomenus, whom Thyestes had by a Naiad nymph, though they had sat down as suppliants on the altar of Zeus. And having cut them limb from limb and boiled them, he served them up to Thyestes without the extremities; and when Thyestes had eaten heartily of them, he showed him the extremities, and cast him out of the country.[*](As to the famous, or infamous, Thyestean banquet, see Aesch. Ag. 1590ff.; Paus. 2.18.1; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.447ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 88; Seneca, Thyestes 682ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 1.568, xi.262; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.306; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7, 126, 209 (First Vatican Mythographer 22; Second Vatican Mythographer 147; Third Vatican Mythographer viii.16). Sophocles wrote at least two tragedies on the fatal feud between the brothers, one of them being called Atreus and the other Thyestes. The plots of the plays are not certainly known, but it is thought probable that in the former he dealt with the cannibal banquet, and in the latter with the subsequent adventures and crimes of Thyestes. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 91ff., 185ff. Euripides also wrote a tragedy called Thyestes. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 480ff. Tzetzes agrees with Apollodorus as to the names of the three murdered sons of Thyestes, except that he calls one of them Callaus instead of Callileon. Only two, Tantalus and Plisthenes, are named by Seneca and Hyginus.)

But seeking by all means to pay Atreus

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out, Thyestes inquired of the oracle on the subject, and received an answer that it could be done if he were to beget a son by intercourse with his own daughter. He did so accordingly, and begot Aegisthus by his daughter. And Aegisthus, when he was grown to manhood and had learned that he was a son of Thyestes, killed Atreus, and restored the kingdom to Thyestes.[*](The later history of Thyestes, including his incest with his daughter Pelopia, is narrated much more fully by Hyginus, Fab. 87, 88, who is believed to have derived the story from the Thyestes of Sophocles. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 185ff. The incest and the birth of Aegisthus, who is said to have received his name because he was suckled by a goat, are told more briefly by Lactantius Placidus (on Statius, Theb. iv.306) and the First and Second Vatican Mythographers (Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7ff., 126). The incest is said to have been committed at Sicyon, where the father and daughter met by night without recognizing each other; the recognition occurred at a later time by means of a sword which Pelopia had wrested from her ravisher, and with which, on coming to a knowledge of her relationship to him, she stabbed herself to death.)

But[*](The passage translated in this paragraph does not occur in our present text of Apollodorus, which is here defective. It is found in Tzetzes, Chiliades i.456-465, who probably borrowed it from Apollodorus; for in the preceding lines Tzetzes narrates the crimes of Atreus and Thyestes in agreement with Apollodorus and actually cites him as his authority, if, as seems nearly certain, we should read Apollodorus for Apollonius in his text (see above p. 164). The restoration of the passage to its present place in the text of Apollodorus is due to the German editor R. Wagner. Here after describing how Aegisthus had murdered Atreus and placed his own father Thyestes on the throne of Mycenae, Apollodorus tells us how the nurse of Atreus's two children, Agamemnon and Menelaus, saved the lives of her youthful charges by conveying them to Sicyon. The implied youthfulness of Agamemnon and Menelaus at the time of the death of their father Atreus is inconsistent with the narrative of Hyginus, Fab. 88, who tells how Atreus had sent his two sons abroad to find and arrest Thyestes.) the nurse took Agamemnon and Menelaus
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to Polyphides, lord of Sicyon,[*](Polyphides is said to have been the twenty-fourth king of Sicyon and to have reigned at the time when Troy was taken. See Eusebius, Chronic. vol. i. coll. 175, 176, ed. A. Schoene.)
who again sent them to Oeneus, the Aetolian.
Not long afterwards Tyndareus brought them back again,
and they drove away Thyestes to dwell in Cytheria,
after that they had taken an oath of him at the altar of Hera, to which he had fled.
And they became the sons-in-law of Tyndareus by marrying his daughters,
Agamemnon getting Clytaemnestra to wife,
after he had slain her spouse Tantalus, the son of Thyestes,
together with his newborn babe, while Menelaus got Helen.

And Agamemnon reigned over the Mycenaeans and married Clytaemnestra, daughter of Tyndareus, after slaying her former husband Tantalus, son of Thyestes, with his child.[*](As to Tantalus, the first husband of Clytaemnestra, and his murder by Agamemnon, see Eur. IA 1148ff.; Paus. 2.18.2, Paus. 2.22.2ff. According to Pausanias, he was a son of Thyestes or of Broteas, and his bones were deposited in a large bronze vessel at Argos.) And there were born to Agamemnon a son Orestes, and daughters, Chrysothemis, Electra, and Iphigenia.[*](In Hom. Il. 9.142ff. Agamemnon says that he has a son Orestes and three daughters, Chrysothemis, Laodice, and Iphianassa (Iphigenia), and he offers to give any one of his daughters in marriage to Achilles without a dowry, if only that doughty hero will forgive him and fight again for the Greeks against Troy. Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon, who figures so prominently in Greek tragedy, is unknown to Homer, and so is the sacrifice of Agamemnon's third daughter, Iphigenia.) And Menelaus married Helen and reigned over Sparta, Tyndareus having ceded the kingdom to him.[*](See above, Apollod. 3.11.2.)