InGreek mythology,Pelops (/ˈpiːlɒps,ˈpɛlɒps/;Ancient Greek:Πέλοψ,romanized: Pélops) was king ofPisa in thePeloponnesus region (Πελοπόννησος,lit. "Pelops' Island"). He was the son ofTantalus and the father ofAtreus.

Pelops
King ofPisa
Abode	Pisa
Genealogy
Parents	Tantalus andDione
Siblings	Niobe Broteas
Consort	Hippodamia Axioche
Offspring	Atreus,Thyestes,Nicippe,Pittheus,Chrysippus, andothers

He was venerated atOlympia, where his cult developed into thefounding myth of theOlympic Games, the most important expression of unity, not only for the people of Peloponnesus, but for allHellenes. At the sanctuary at Olympia,chthonic night-time libations were offered each time to "dark-faced" Pelops in his sacrificial pit (bothros) before they were offered in the following daylight to the sky-god Zeus (Burkert 1983:96).

Pelops was a son ofTantalus^[1] and eitherDione,^[2]Euryanassa,^[3]Eurythemista,^[4] orClytia.^[5] In some accounts, he was called abastard son of Tantalus while others named his parents asAtlas and thenymphLinos. Others would make Pelops the son ofHermes andCalyce^[6] while another says that he was anAchaean fromOlenus.^[7][8]

OfPhrygian^[9] orLydian^[10] birth, he departed his homeland for Greece, and won the crown ofPisa orOlympia from KingOenomaus in a chariot race, then married Oenomaus's daughter,Hippodamia.

Pelops and Hippodamia had numerous children. Their sons includePittheus^[11] (or his mother wasDia^[12]),Troezen,^[13]Alcathous,^[14]Dimoetes,^[15]Atreus,^[16]Thyestes,^[17]Copreus,^[18]Hippalcimus^[19] (Hippalcus,^[20] Hippalcmus^[21]),Sciron,^[22]Sicyon,^[23]Epidaurus,^[24]Cleones^[25] (Cleonymus),^[26]Letreus,^[27]Dyspontos,^[28] Pelops the younger,^[29]Argeius,^[30]Dias,^[21]Aelius,Corinthus,Cynosurus andHippasus.^[31]

Four of their daughters married into the House ofPerseus:Astydameia (who marriedAlcaeus),^[32]Nicippe (who marriedSthenelus),^[33]Lysidice (who marriedMestor),^[34] andEurydice (who marriedElectryon).^[35] Another daughter of Pelops,Mytilene was called the mother ofMyton byPoseidon.^[36]

By the nymphAxioche (Ἀξιόχη)^[37] or Danais^[38] Pelops was father ofChrysippus. The latter was also called the son of Hippodamia and brother ofPleisthenes who was sometimes called the son of Pelops by another woman.^[29]

Pelops' father wasTantalus, king atMount Sipylus inAnatolia. Wanting to make an offering to the Olympians, Tantalus cut Pelops into pieces and made his flesh into a stew, then served it to the gods.Demeter, deep in grief after the abduction of her daughterPersephone byHades, absentmindedly accepted the offering and ate the left shoulder. The other gods sensed the plot, however, and held off from eating of the boy's body. While Tantalus was banished toTartarus, Pelops was ritually reassembled and brought back to life, his shoulder replaced with one ofivory made for him byHephaestus. Pindar mentioned this tradition in his First Olympian Ode, only to reject it as a malicious invention.

After Pelops' resurrection,Poseidon took him toOlympus, and made him the youthapprentice, teaching him also to drive the divine chariot. Later, Zeus found out about the gods' stolen food and their now revealed secrets, and threw Pelops out of Olympus, angry at his father, Tantalus.

Having grown to manhood, Pelops wanted to marryHippodamia. Her father, KingOenomaus, fearful of a prophecy that claimed he would be killed by his son-in-law, had killed eighteen suitors of Hippodamia after defeating them in achariot race and affixed their heads to the wooden columns of his palace.Pausanias was shown what was supposedly the last standing column in the late second century CE; he wrote that Pelops erected a monument in honor of all the suitors who had preceded him:^[39]

Pelops came to ask for her hand and prepared to race Oenomaus. Worried about losing, Pelops went to the seaside and invoked Poseidon, his former lover.^[40] Reminding Poseidon of their love ("Aphrodite's sweet gifts"), he asked Poseidon for help. Smiling, Poseidon caused a chariot drawn by untamed winged horses to appear.^[41]

Two episodes involving charioteers were added into the plain account of the heroic chariot race. In the first related byTheopompus, having received the horses, Pelops hastens to Pisa to defeat Oenomaus. On the way, his charioteer Cillus (also named Sphaerus) dies and stands in a dream over Pelops, who was highly distressed about him, to make requests for a funeral. Pelops complies by burying his ashes magnificently; he raises a mound to erect a temple dedicated toApollo, which he names Apollo Cillaeus, and also founds a city besides the mound and the temple which he also names Cilla, after his charioteer and friend. Both the temple and the city are mentioned in the first book ofHomer'sIliad and suggestions regarding their exact location have been made. Furthermore, Cillus, even after his death, appears to have helped Pelops' cause in order for him to win the race.^[42]

The second, found in several versions, has Pelops, still unsure of himself, the winged horses and chariot of divine providence he had secured. Oenomaus' charioteer,Myrtilus, a son ofHermes, is persuaded to help Pelops win by promising Myrtilus half of Oenomaus' kingdom and the first night in bed with Hippodamia. The night before the race, while Myrtilus was putting together Oenomaus' chariot, he replaced the bronze linchpins attaching the wheels to the chariot axle with fake ones made of beeswax. The race started, and went on for a long time, but just as Oenomaus was catching up to Pelops and readying to kill him, the wheels flew off and the chariot broke apart. Myrtilus survived, but Oenomaus was dragged to death by his horses. Here lies the main differences in the versions, while all then see Pelops kill Myrtilus (by throwing him off a cliff into the sea) after the latter attempted to rape Hippodamia, some have Pelops give the promise to Myrtilus of Hippodamia's virginity and then either renege the agreement or Myrtilus being impatient and trying to take her beforehand, others have Hippodamia, noticing Pelops' insecurity, giving the promise behind the back of Pelops, who then falsely believed it was an attempted rape.

After his victory, Pelops organized chariot races as thanksgiving to the gods and as funeral games in honor of King Oenomaus, in order to be purified of his death. It was from this funeral race held at Olympia that thebeginnings of the ancient Olympic Games were inspired. Pelops became a great king, a local hero, and gave his name to the Peloponnese. Walter Burkert notes^[43] that though the story of Hippodamia's abduction figures in the HesiodicCatalogue of Women and on the chest ofCypselus (c. 570 BCE) that was conserved at Olympia, and though preparations for the chariot-race figured in the east pediment of the greattemple of Zeus at Olympia, the myth of the chariot race only became important at Olympia with the introduction ofchariot racing in the twenty-fifth Olympiad (680 BCE). G. Devereux connected the abduction of Hippodamia with animal husbandry taboos ofElis,^[44] and the influence of Elis at Olympia that grew in the seventh century.

As Myrtilus died, he cursed Pelops for his ultimate betrayal. This was one of the sources of the curse that destroyed his family: two of his sons,Atreus andThyestes, killed their half brother,Chrysippus, who was his favorite son and was meant to inherit the kingdom; Atreus and Thyestes were banished by him together with Hippodamia, their mother, who then hanged herself; each successive generation of descendants suffered greatly by atrocious crimes and compounded the curse by committing more crimes, as the curse weighed upon Pelops' children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren including Atreus, Thyestes,Agamemnon,Aegisthus,Menelaus, and finallyOrestes, who was acquitted by a court of law convened by the godsAthena andApollo. Although commonly referred to as "the curse of theAtreides", the circle of atrocious events began two generations before Atreus and continued for two generations after him, before being formally absolved by theFuries in court. Many decades after Pelops's death, his grandson Menelaus, having survived the long-lastingTrojan War and stranded in Egypt, would recount his numerous plights and wish Pelops had perished for good at Tantalus' dinner, so that Atreus, and therefore Agamemnon and Menelaus himself, would never have been born.^[45]

Pelops is believed to haveAnatolian origins. He may have been originally worshipped inPhrygia orLydia or both.^[46] Other ancient mythographers connect him withPaphlagonia.^[47] He may have come from the Paphlagonian town of Enete.^[48] Thucydides says simply that Pelops was "from Asia".^[49]

Others represent him as a native of Greece, who came fromOlenos in Achaia, or perhaps fromArcadia.^[48]

Also, according toStrabo, Pelops' cult may have come to thePeloponnese originally fromPhthiotis, and was first based inLaconia: "... the Achaeans of Phthiotis came down with Pelops into the Peloponnesus, took up their abode in Laconia ..."^[50]

The shrine of Pelops at Olympia, thePelopion, "drenched in glorious blood",^[51] described byPausanias^[52] stood apart from the temple of Zeus, next to Pelops' gravesite by the ford in the river. It was enclosed with a circle of stones. Pelops was propitiated as achthonic deity, at night with the offering of a black ram. His remains were contained in a chest near the sanctuary of Artemis Kordax (Pausanias 6.22.1), though in earlier times a gigantic shoulder blade was shown; during theTrojan War,John Tzetzes said, Pelops' shoulder-blade was brought toTroy by the Greeks because the Trojan prophetHelenus claimed the Pelopids would be able to win by doing so.^[53] Pausanias was told the full story: the shoulder-blade of Pelops was brought to Troy fromPisa, the rival of Elis; on the return, the bone was lost in a shipwreck, but afterwards recovered by a fisherman, miraculously caught in his net.^[54]

Giant-sized bones were and are often found in Greece, the remains of gigantic prehistoric animals. In ancient times there was obviously no knowledge of dinosaurs or mammoths, and such findings were believed to be actual remains of legendary heroes or demigods, and to reflect the supposedly supernatural stature of humans of the long-bygoneHeroic Age. The bones' provenance was then determined according to local legends about ancient burials, with political expedience also playing a major role, helped along by convenient dreams, visions or priestly auguries.

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  "Throne of Pelops" at Yarıkkaya locality inMount Sipylus
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  Pelops and Hippodamia; bas-relief, Metropolitan Museum of Art

• House ofAtreus
• Ancient Elis
• Mount Sipylus
• Niobe
• Nyctimus