Atreus

The golden lamb

Atreus is a son of Pelops and Hippodamia. His brother is Thyestes, and the two become rivals for the throne of Mycenae. The fullest account comes from Apollodorus, a later writer who retold the Greek myths.

In his version, Atreus promises to sacrifice the finest animal in his flock to the goddess Artemis. A golden lamb appears, and he keeps it from her. He hides it in a chest. He gives the lamb to his wife, Aerope. She is secretly the lover of Thyestes, and she passes it on to him.

Then the people of Mycenae are told to choose one of the sons of Pelops as king. Thyestes proposes a test: whoever has the golden lamb should rule. Atreus agrees, because he believes the hidden lamb is still his. Thyestes brings it out and takes the throne.

The sun turns back

Zeus then sends a second sign. The brothers agree that Atreus will rule if the sun reverses its course. The sun does turn back, and Thyestes gives up the kingdom.

In this contest, signs from the heavens are made to answer a private quarrel. Yet neither result settles it. Thyestes held the lamb only through adultery and secrecy. Atreus wins back the throne, but it leads him towards punishment, not peace.

Atreus learns that Aerope has betrayed him. He invites Thyestes back and pretends to make peace. He kills the sons of Thyestes, prepares their bodies as food and serves them to their father. Only after Thyestes has eaten does Atreus show him the hands and heads that reveal what the meal was. This is the feast of Thyestes.

Aegisthus and the next generation

Apollodorus carries the feud further. Thyestes fathers a son, Aegisthus, by his own daughter Pelopia, without knowing who she is. Atreus later raises the child, also without knowing who his parents are. Atreus then sends him to kill Thyestes. But father and son recognise each other, and the plan turns around. Aegisthus kills Atreus instead. The boy Atreus meant to use for his revenge becomes the cause of his death.

The feud then passes to the next generation. The Greek playwright Aeschylus, in his play Agamemnon, gives Aegisthus his own account of the feast. Aegisthus describes how his father Thyestes came back from exile, accepted the welcome of Atreus and then drew back in horror when the truth was shown. He presents the killing of Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, as payment for what Agamemnon’s father did to his family.

The Treasury of Atreus

The Treasury of Atreus stands outside the walls of the citadel of Mycenae, within reach of Nafplio. It is a large tholos tomb, a round stone tomb of the Late Bronze Age. A long passage leads to it, and its roof is a corbelled vault, built from rings of stone that close in towards the top.

Its familiar name does not tell archaeologists who was buried there. No inscription links the building to Atreus of the myth, and a name cannot turn a story into an excavated life story. “Treasury” is itself an old label, given to a building now understood as a tomb.

Old landmarks and modern names

Pausanias, a Greek travel writer of the second century AD, describes underground rooms at Mycenae where Atreus and his children were said to have kept their treasures. He also reports a grave of Atreus. So by his time the royal family was already attached to the ground of the city. That does not mean his landmarks match every modern name at the site.

The tomb and the myth tell us different things. The building shows the wealth, the engineering and the burial customs of Mycenae in the Bronze Age. The story of Atreus shows how Greek poets imagined a royal house destroying itself from within. The traditional name joins the two for the visitor. The evidence keeps them apart.