Pelops

For indeed Menelaus was not far removed from Tantalus and Pelops;

and of Pelops they said that he had an ivory shoulder, as though it were any benefit to a man to have a golden hand or an ivory one, or eyes of adamant or of emerald;

Or is it plain that you will not even hear at that moment, not even if the ancestor of Pelops himself discourse to you?

Great is the fault of Pelops, who did not instruct his son nor teach him how far each thing was to be cared for.

one is at hand to take you up — either a dolphin, as it took up Arion of Methymna, or those Neptunian horses of Pelops, which are said to have whirled their chariots, suspended, across the waves;

For of what sort does that man seem to you, sprung of Tantalus, born of Pelops, who once, having got Hippodamia by marriage, her snatched from her father-in-law King Oenomaus —?

Pelops, on his horses swiftly whirling, made his cast;

an old spear of Pelops, in my father’s house, which he brandished in his hand when he won Hippodamia, the maiden of Pisa, and killed Oenomaus;

Pelops, son of Tantalus, coming to Pisa with swift horses, married Oenomaus’ daughter, and she gave birth to Atreus, whose children are Menelaus and Agamemnon;

He begot Pelops, the father of Atreus, for whom the goddess, when she had carded her wool, spun a web of strife—to make war with his own brother Thyestes.

Daughter of Zeus, get up from your chair and come here to the old hearth of Pelops, our ancestor, to hear something I have to say.

They saw infatuate ruin, the chase of winged steeds, when Pelops in four-horse chariot drove over the sea, hurling the body of murdered Myrtilus into the ocean swell, after his race near Geraestus’ strand, foam-flecked from the tossing sea.

Son of Tantalus, I will speak of you, contrary to earlier stories.

He overcame the might of Oenomaus, and took the girl as his bride.

Honoring him, the god gave him a golden chariot, and horses with untiring wings.

to the contest at Olympia, which Heracles established in honour of Pelops, three years;

Under Acrisius were the crossing of Pelops from Phrygia, and the arrival of Ion at Athens, and the second Cecrops, and the deeds of Perseus and of Dionysus, and Orpheus and Musaeus.

Pittheus was the son of Pelops;

Alcmena sprang from Pelops’ daughter;

By Pelops, I entreat you spare me, by your father Atreus and my mother here, who suffers now a second time the pangs she felt before when bearing me!

if we subdue those men, and their neighbors who dwell in the land of Pelops the Phrygian, we will make the borders of Persian territory and of the firmament of heaven be the same.

thus will I learn what is this evil that will befall me when I march against these Greeks —men that even Pelops the Phrygian, the slave of my forefathers, did so utterly subdue that to this day they and their country are called by the name of their conqueror.

and in consequence, we experienced a change so great that, although in former times any barbarians who were in misfortune presumed to be rulers over the Greek cities (for example, Danaus, an exile from Egypt, occupied Argos, Cadmus of Sidon became king of Thebes, the Carians colonized the islands, and Pelops, son of Tantalus, became master of all the Peloponnese), yet after that war our race expan …

For he conceived of his mission in terms so lofty that he was not satisfied with making up his army from all the men in private station whom he desired to have from each of the cities of Hellas, but even persuaded men of the rank of kings, who were accustomed to do in their own states whatsoever they pleased and to give orders to the world at large, to place themselves under his command, to follow …

Ponder well the fact (to touch upon examples from the distant past) that while no man, whether poet or writer of prose, would applaud the wealth of Tantalus, or the rule of Pelops, or the power of Eurystheus, all the world, with one accord, would praise—next to the unrivalled excellence of Heracles and the goodness of Theseus—the men who marched against Troy and all others who have proved to be like them.

for this name means that he who sees only what is near deserves this designation.

Why it is said of him that in murdering Myrtilus he was quite unable to forecast or foresee the ultimate effects upon his whole race, and all the misery with which it was overwhelmed, because he saw only the near at hand and the immediate— that is to say, πέλας (near)—in his eagerness to win by all means the hand of Hippodameia.

Hermogenes. How is that?

Are you not aware of the fact that your father’s father Pelops long ago was a barbarian, a Phrygian?

O chariot-race of Pelops long ago, source of many a sorrow, what disaster you have brought upon this land!

and in this place to which we have come, know that you see Mycenae, the rich in gold, and here the house of Pelops’ heirs, so often stained with bloodshed.

It is said too by those of the Peloponnesians who have received the most certain accounts by tradition from their forefathers, that Pelops first acquired power by the abundance of riches with which he came from Asia to men who were in needy circumstances;