Hippodamia

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Hippodamia, also Hippodamea, was a daughter of King Oenomaus and mother of Thyestes, Atreus, and Pittheus, Alcathous by Pelops. Pelops wanted to marry Hippodamia. Oenamaus had pursued thirteen suitors of Hippodamia and killed them all after beating them in a chariot race. He did this because he loved her himself or, alternatively, because a prophecy claimed he would be killed by her son. Pelops (or alternatively, Hippodamia herself) convinced Myrtilus (by promising him half of Oenomaus kingdom), Oenomaus' charioteer to remove the linchpins attaching the wheels to the chariot. Oenomaus died. Pelops then killed Myrtilus because he didn't want to share the credit for winning the chariot race, or because Myrtilus had attempted to rape Hippodamia. As Myrtilus died, he cursed Pelops. This was the source of the curse that haunted Pelops' descendants, including Atreus, Thyestes, Agamemnon, Aegisthus, Menelaus and Orestes.

[edit] Spoken-word myths - audio files

Hippodamia myths as told by story tellers
1. Marriage of Pelops and Hippodamia, read by Timothy Carter
Bibliography of reconstruction: Pindar, Olympian Ode, I (476 BCE); Sophocles, (1) Electra, 504 (430 - 415 BCE) & (2) Oenomaus, Fr. 433 (408 BCE); Euripides, Orestes, 1024-1062 (408 BCE); Apollodorus, Epitomes 2, 1-9 (140 BCE); Diodorus Siculus, Histories, 4.73 (1st c. BCE); Hyginus, Fables, 84: Oinomaus; Poetic Astronomy, ii (1st c. CE); Pausanias, Description of Greece, 5.1.3 - 7; 5.13.1; 6.21.9; 8.14.10 - 11 (ca. 160 - 176 CE); Philostratus the Elder Imagines, I.30: Pelops (170 - 245 CE); Philostratus the Younger, Imagines, 9: Pelops (ca. 200 - 245 CE); First Vatican Mythographer, 22: Myrtilus; Atreus et Thyestes; Second Vatican Mythographer, 146: Oenomaus
2. Downfall of Pelops and Hippodamia (integral to the Laius and Chrysippus myth), read by Timothy Carter
Bibliography of reconstruction: Pindar, Olympian Ode, I (476 BCE); Apollodorus Library and Epitome 3.5.5 (140 BCE); Hyginus, Fables, 85. Chrysippus; 243. Women who Committed Suicide (1st c. CE); Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9.5.5-10, 6.20.7 (c. 160 - 176 CE); Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, Book XIII, 602 (c. 200 CE); Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, ii, 34, 3 - 5 (150 - 215 CE)