Chrysippus (mythology)

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Laius abducting Chrysippus, who is reaching out to Pelops, his father (detail). Volute crater, ca. 320 BCE. The Getty, Malibu, California.

In Greek mythology, Chrysippus was a divine hero of Elis in the Peloponnesus, a young boy, the bastard son of Pelops and the nymph Axioche. He was kidnapped by the Theban Laius, his tutor, who was escorting him to the Nemean Games, where the boy planned to compete. Instead, Laius ran away with him to Thebes and raped him, a crime for which he, his city and his family were later punished by the gods.

Chryssipus's death was related in various ways. One author who cites Peisandros as his source claims that he killed himself with his sword out of shame.^[1] Hellanikos and Thucydides write that he was killed out of jealousy by Atreus and Thyestes, his half-brothers, who cast him into a well. They had been sent by their mother, Hippodamia, who feared Chrysippus would inherit Pelops's throne instead of her sons. Atreus and Thyestes, together with their mother, were banished by Pelops and took refuge in Mycene. There Hippodamia hanged herself.

The death of Chryssippus is sometimes seen as springing from the curse that Myrtilus placed on Pelops.

[edit] See also

• Theban pederasty

[edit] Spoken-word myths – audio files

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Gantz, Timothy. Early Greek Myth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, p. 489