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  During the Olympic Games held to mark the victory of Olympians, Apollo, the sun god, beat Hermes, the messenger god, in the footrace, and Ares, the war god, in boxing. As a result Apollo, the embodiment of Greek male beauty, became the patron of all sports and the Olympic Games in particular. A laurel wreath, sacred to Apollo, has therefore been the victory trophy of the Games since.

  Greek mythology is full of stories of athletic games organized to mark the death of a warrior in battle. They also served as a ritual of cleansing for those who had killed someone. This was the hallmark of a masculine warrior society. Usually the weapons of the dead were distributed amongst the winners.

  Greek society was aristocratic and hierarchical as indicated by the treatment of the charioteer Myrtilus.

  Chrysippus

  Hippodamia bore Pelops two sons: Thyestes and Atreus. He had another son, Chrysippus, from his affair with the nymph Axioche. Chrysippus was extremely beautiful and talented and Pelops’s favourite, and thus resented by Hippodamia’s sons.

  Laius, prince of Thebes, whom Pelops had given shelter, fell in love with the beautiful Chrysippus. When he tried to make love to the boy, the boy resisted, so Laius took him by force. For this abuse of hospitality, Pelops banished Laius from Pisa and cursed that Laius’s own son would kill him.

  Soon after, Chrysippus was found dead. Some said it was suicide. Others said it was murder. Pelops held Hippodamia and her sons responsible. Had they not hated Chrysippus? Had they not shamed him after his rape?

  Pelops exiled Thyestes and Atreus and died soon after. Ashamed, Hippodamia killed herself.

  Unlike in Hindu mythology, where one has to spend one’s accumulated karma to be able to curse another, cursing in Greek mythology has nothing to do with karma; it is simply a manifestation of rage. Anyone—the gods, the wronged or the oppressed— can curse those who disrupt the cosmic order.

  Like gods, even humans can curse cities through their rulers. Myrtilus curses Pelops, hence Pisa, for not keeping his word. Pelops curses Laius, and by extension Thebes, for breaching the rules of hospitality.

  One reason for the Roman disdain for Greece was the love of older Greek philosophers and kings for young boys. Though the Romans absorbed much of Greek mythology and made it their own, they did not appreciate the frequent man–boy love stories, preferring instead a much more hetero-normative lifestyle. Many attribute the popularity of man–boy love found in medieval Persia and even in modern Afghanistan (a practice called bachcha-bazi) to the spread of Greek culture following Alexander’s invasion.

  Thyestes

  Thyestes and Atreus, exiled from Olympia, found refuge in the city of Mycenae, which, coincidentally, needed a new ruler since the sons of Heracles had slain their old king, Eurystheus.

  Now, the two sons of Pelops were fiercely competitive—neither brother wanted the other to sit on the throne.

  ‘Maybe it should be whoever can present a golden fleece to the people of Mycenae,’ suggested Thyestes. Atreus liked the idea because he already had a golden fleece in his possession. He had promised to offer this to the goddess Artemis but had later changed his mind.

  What Atreus did not know was that an angry Artemis had made his wife, Aerope, fall in love with Thyestes and she had already given her lover the golden fleece. This betrayal of Atreus by his wife Aerope was yet another outcome of Myrtilus’s curse on Pelops’s descendants.

  And so it was that Thyestes, and not Atreus, presented the people of Mycenae with a golden fleece, and was made king of the city.

  The story of brothers fighting over property is a recurring theme in Hindu epics as well. In the Ramayana, Vali fights Sugriva over the throne of Kishkinda, and Ravana challenges Kubera for the throne of Lanka. In the Mahabharata, the Kauravas and the Pandavas fight over Hastinapur.

  The golden fleece of Atreus is different from the Golden Fleece recovered by Jason from Colchis.

  Like Minos who has to secure a bull from the sea, Atreus has to present a golden fleece to show that he is favoured by the gods, and is therefore a legitimate king. As in many cultures, in the Greek world too, royal power is derived from the gods.

  A royal sceptre, which is essentially a shepherd’s staff, is created by Hephaestus, who gives it to Zeus. It then passes from Zeus to Hermes, to Pelops, to Atreus, who then gives it to Thyestes when the latter becomes king, a shepherd of sheep and humans. Sheep rearing was a popular economic activity in ancient Greece just as cattle rearing was in India. In Hindu mythology, a king is often called ‘go-pala’ or cowherd, protector of the cow, the cow being the primary source of livelihood of the people. The cow was also a metaphor for the earth. The sheep was more a metaphor for people, who were supposed to follow the shepherd-king.

  Atreus

  Atreus was furious at being betrayed by his wife. But he found an ally in Zeus who sent Hermes with a message. After hearing this message Atreus told the people of Mycenae, ‘Would you want as king a son of Pelops who gives you a golden fleece or a son of Pelops who makes the sun travel eastwards?’

  Then, to the surprise of all, Atreus was able to make the sun travel backwards. The people immediately rejected the kingship of Thyestes, and made Atreus king.

  As the first step in his revenge, Atreus killed his unfaithful wife. He then invited Thyestes to a feast in which he served the flesh of Thyestes’s sons, which he unknowingly devoured. Having thus hurt and humiliated his brother, Atreus exiled him.

  Unfaithful wives are a recurring theme in Greek mythology. By contrast, faithfulness is a recurring theme in Hindu mythology. Faithfulness grants magical powers to a woman, makes her a sati, enabling her to withstand fire and protect her husband from weapons.

  Tales of cannibalism frequently appear in Greek mythology, as in the stories of Lycaon, Tantalus and Thyestes. In Hindu mythology too, there are tales involving rakshasas and asuras who feed human flesh to humans. Asuras feed Shukra the flesh of Kacha, who is actually a spy of the devas. Shukra is then forced by his daughter to save Kacha by imparting to him the secret of resurrection, the sanjivani vidya. In another story, Ilavila feeds the sage Agastya the flesh of his own brother, Vatapi, who has the power to resurrect himself in a man’s stomach and burst out of his body. Unfortunately for Ilavila, Agastya digests Vatapi before he can resurrect himself.

  The story of the rivalry between Atreus and Thyestes tells us how the will of the Olympians overpowers all human strategies. Thyestes may seduce his brother’s wife to gain the throne of Mycenae, but Zeus ensures that only Atreus will rule Mycenae.

  The theme of killing a child and feeding it to a parent as punishment for the parent’s crime recurs in Greek mythology. In Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Procne’s husband, Tereus, rapes Philomela and then cuts out her tongue to silence her. Philomela then weaves a tapestry to tell her sister of her tragic situation. Enraged, Procne kills the son she bore Tereus, and serves him the child’s flesh. When he has finished the meal, she presents him with his son’s head. A disgusted Tereus runs after the sisters with a knife but the sisters appeal to the Olympians and are turned into birds: Procne into a swallow and Philomela into a nightingale, whose song communicates her lamentation.

  Pelopia

  The oracles told Thyestes that he could have his revenge if he fathered a son on his own daughter. A vengeful Thyestes did not think twice and raped his daughter, Pelopia.

  Pelopia kept her pregnancy secret when her uncle, Atreus, sought her hand in marriage. When she delivered Thyestes’s child, Atreus assumed it was his firstborn and named him Aegisthus. Later, Pelopia gave birth to two more sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus.

  In time, Atreus pardoned Thyestes and let him return to Mycenae. But Thyestes had not forgiven Atreus. He revealed to Aegisthus the truth about his birth, and motivated him to kill his stepfather.

  After Aegisthus murdered Atreus, Pelopia took her own life, for she was unable to decide what was worse: the death of her husband at her son’s hands, or public knowledge that her firstborn was a product of ince