Пелопс: миф, проклятие и происхождение Олимпийских игр.

Mythical character

In Greek mythology, Pelops ('/p//iː//l//ɒ//p//s//, /'/p//ɛ//l//ɒ//p//s/; Πέλοψ (Pélops)) was king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus region (Πελοπόννησος, lit. "Pelops' Island"). He was the son of Tantalus and the father of Atreus. He was venerated at Olympia, where his cult developed into the founding myth of the Olympic Games, the most important expression of unity, not only for the people of Peloponnesus, but for all Hellenes. At the sanctuary at Olympia, chthonic night time libations were offered each time to "dark faced" Pelops in his sacrificial pit (bothros) before they were offered in the following daylight to the sky god Zeus (Burkert 1983:96).

After his victory, Pelops organized chariot races as thanksgiving to the gods and as funeral games in honor of King Oenomaus, in order to be purified of his death. It was from this funeral race held at Olympia that the beginnings of the ancient Olympic Games were inspired. Pelops became a great king, a local hero, and gave his name to the Peloponnese. Walter Burkert notes that though the story of Hippodamia's abduction figures in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and on the chest of Cypselus (c. 570 BCE) that was conserved at Olympia, and though preparations for the chariot race figured in the east pediment of the great temple of Zeus at Olympia, the myth of the chariot race only became important at Olympia with the introduction of chariot racing in the twenty fifth Olympiad (680 BCE). G. Devereux connected the abduction of Hippodamia with animal husbandry taboos of Elis, and the influence of Elis at Olympia that grew in the seventh century.

As Myrtilus died, he cursed Pelops for his ultimate betrayal. This was one of the sources of the curse that destroyed his family: two of his sons, Atreus and Thyestes, killed their half brother, Chrysippus, who was his favorite son and was meant to inherit the kingdom; Atreus and Thyestes were banished by him together with Hippodamia, their mother, who then hanged herself; each successive generation of descendants suffered greatly by atrocious crimes and compounded the curse by committing more crimes, as the curse weighed upon Pelops' children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren including Atreus, Thyestes, Agamemnon, Aegisthus, Menelaus, and finally Orestes, who was acquitted by a court of law convened by the gods Athena and Apollo. Although commonly referred to as "the curse of the Atreides", the circle of atrocious events began two generations before Atreus and continued for two generations after him, before being formally absolved by the Furies in court. Many decades after Pelops's death, his grandson Menelaus, having survived the long lasting Trojan War and stranded in Egypt, would recount his numerous plights and wish Pelops had perished for good at Tantalus' dinner, so that Atreus, and therefore Agamemnon and Menelaus himself, would never have been born.

Pelops is believed to have Anatolian origins. He may have been originally worshipped in Phrygia or Lydia or both. Other ancient mythographers connect him with Paphlagonia. He may have come from the Paphlagonian town of Enete. Thucydides says simply that Pelops was "from Asia". Others represent him as a native of Greece, who came from Olenos in Achaia, or perhaps from Arcadia.

The shrine of Pelops at Olympia, the Pelopion, "drenched in glorious blood", described by Pausanias stood apart from the temple of Zeus, next to Pelops' gravesite by the ford in the river. It was enclosed with a circle of stones. Pelops was propitiated as a chthonic deity, at night with the offering of a black ram. His remains were contained in a chest near the sanctuary of Artemis Kordax (Pausanias 6.22.1), though in earlier times a gigantic shoulder blade was shown; during the Trojan War, John Tzetzes said, Pelops' shoulder blade was brought to Troy by the Greeks because the Trojan prophet Helenus claimed the Pelopids would be able to win by doing so. Pausanias was told the full story: the shoulder blade of Pelops was brought to Troy from Pisa, the rival of Elis; on the return, the bone was lost in a shipwreck, but afterwards recovered by a fisherman, miraculously caught in his net. Giant sized bones were and are often found in Greece, the remains of gigantic prehistoric animals. In ancient times there was obviously no knowledge of dinosaurs or mammoths, and such findings were believed to be actual remains of legendary heroes or demigods, and to reflect the supposedly supernatural stature of humans of the long bygone Heroic Age. The bones' provenance was then determined according to local legends about ancient burials, with political expedience also playing a major role, helped along by convenient dreams, visions or priestly auguries.

Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Pelops"