Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

After his restoration, Pelops—ivory-shouldered son of Tantalus—sought to marry Hippodamia, daughter of Oenomaus, king of Pisa in Elis (the land of Olympia). Oenomaus had learned from an oracle that he would die when his daughter married, or he himself lusted for her; he challenged every suitor to a chariot race from Pisa to the Isthmus (or a set course): the suitor took Hippodamia in his chariot; Oenomaus followed with a spear; if he overtook the pair, he killed the suitor. Twelve (or thirteen) suitors had already died; their heads were nailed to the palace. Pelops prayed to Poseidon, his old patron (Pindar), and received winged horses—or otherwise secured divine speed. In Apollodorus and the common tragic tradition he also bribed Myrtilus, Oenomaus’s charioteer and son of Hermes: Myrtilus replaced the bronze axle-pins of Oenomaus’s chariot with wax (or omitted the linchpins). In the race the wheels flew off; Oenomaus became entangled in the reins, was dragged, and died—cursing Myrtilus as he fell. Pelops won Hippodamia. On the return Pelops threw Myrtilus into the sea (near Geraestus or the Myrtoan Sea) after a quarrel—Myrtilus had claimed the right to lie with Hippodamia, or Pelops simply wished to silence the accomplice. Falling, Myrtilus cursed Pelops’s house. From that curse flow the horrors of Atreus and Thyestes and, in the next generations, Agamemnon and Menelaus—the Pelopid claim on Mycenae and the seed of the Trojan War’s Greek command. Pelops gave his name to the Peloponnesus and was honored with a hero-cult at Olympia; the race itself was remembered as a foundation-legend of Olympic chariot competition.