Atreus

Atreus belongs to the third generation of a family that Greek writers trace back to Tantalus. Euripides's Iphigenia in Tauris says Pelops came to Pisa with swift horses and married the daughter of Oenomaus, and that she bore Atreus, whose children are Menelaus and Agamemnon (Iphigenia in Tauris 1-41). Homer shows what he left to them. The sceptre that Hephaestus made went from Zeus to Hermes, from Hermes to Pelops, and from Pelops to Atreus, the shepherd of the host. At his death Atreus left it to Thyestes, and Thyestes left it to Agamemnon (Iliad 2.100-108). His family's later history is told on the page for the House of Atreus.

Apollodorus's Epitome tells how the sceptre passed between the brothers. Atreus's wife Aerope loved Thyestes. Atreus had vowed to sacrifice the best of his flock to Artemis, and when a golden lamb appeared he failed to keep the vow (Epitome 2.10). He killed the lamb and hid it in a box, and Aerope gave the box to Thyestes. The Mycenaeans had been told to choose a king from the sons of Pelops, and Thyestes won the throne by producing the lamb (Epitome 2.11). Zeus then sent Hermes to Atreus with a test. Atreus would be king if the sun went backward. Thyestes agreed, the sun set in the east, and Atreus took the kingdom and banished his brother (Epitome 2.12).

Atreus took his revenge as a host. Apollodorus says he lured Thyestes back with a show of friendship and killed Thyestes's sons, although they had taken refuge at the altar of Zeus. He served their flesh to their father, then showed him the remains and drove him out (Epitome 2.13). In Aeschylus the survivor tells it. Aegisthus says Atreus drove Thyestes from the house, that Thyestes returned as a suppliant at the hearth, and that Atreus fed him a meal of his own children. Thyestes kicked over the table and cursed the whole house of Pelops (Agamemnon 1583-1611).

Thyestes asked an oracle how to avenge himself. Apollodorus says it told him to father a son by his own daughter. The son was Aegisthus, and when he grew up he killed Atreus and gave the kingdom back to Thyestes (Epitome 2.14). His sons Agamemnon and Menelaus are the leaders of the Greek army in the Trojan War.

Homer uses the name mostly as a patronymic. In the first speech of the Odyssey, Zeus says Aegisthus took the wedded wife of the son of Atreus and killed him on his return, and that vengeance for the son of Atreus will come from Orestes (Odyssey 1.29-43). The tragedians give the founder of the line a darker place. In the Agamemnon, Clytemnestra tells the chorus that the killer is not her but the ancient bitter spirit of Atreus, the grim banqueter, which paid for the slain children with a full-grown victim (Agamemnon 1497-1504).

The origin of the golden lamb changes from poet to poet. In Euripides's Electra the god Pan brings the lamb to the Argive hills, and Thyestes persuades Atreus's wife to steal it. The chorus there says it gives small belief to the tale of the sun turning back (Electra 699-746). In Euripides's Orestes the lamb comes from Hermes, the son of Maia (Orestes 982-1000). The sources name three different origins for the lamb.