How to read this house of Atreus family tree
Read this house of Atreus family tree from the top down, one generation to a row. The figures have no dates, so each plate gives a title or the death the texts record.
A double ring is the centre
Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks at Troy.
A dashed line is no marriage
Clytemnestra took Aegisthus as her lover while Agamemnon was at Troy.
A red line is harm
It runs from the one who killed or harmed to the one who suffered it.
The curse, one generation at a time
Each generation of the house of Atreus family tree commits a crime against its own blood, and each crime calls for another.
| Generation | The crime | What followed |
|---|---|---|
 Tantalus | He killed his son Pelops and served him to the gods | The gods restored Pelops and punished Tantalus in the underworld |
 Pelops | He threw Myrtilus, who had won him his bride, into the sea | Myrtilus cursed the house of Pelops as he fell |
 Atreus | He served Thyestes the flesh of his own sons | Thyestes cursed the whole race and fathered Aegisthus |
 Agamemnon | He sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia at Aulis | Clytemnestra and Aegisthus killed him on his return |
 Orestes | He killed his mother and Aegisthus | The Furies hunted him until a court at Athens set him free |
Tantalus, Pelops and the chariot race
Apollodorus says that Pelops, “after being slaughtered and boiled at the banquet of the gods, was fairer than ever when he came to life again.”1 Hyginus adds that Ceres fitted him with an ivory shoulder.4 Tantalus was punished in Hades, under a hanging stone in Apollodorus and in water up to his waist, always thirsty, in Hyginus.14
King Oenomaus had been told by an oracle to beware of death from his son-in-law, so he raced every suitor of his daughter Hippodamia and killed those he overtook.41 His charioteer Myrtilus left the linchpins out of the wheels, and Pelops won.1 Pelops then threw Myrtilus into the sea that bears his name, and “Myrtilus, as he was being thrown, uttered curses against the house of Pelops.”1
- TantalusHe served his son to the gods.
- PelopsHe won his bride by a trick.
HippodamiaDaughter of Oenomaus.
Atreus, Thyestes and the golden lamb
The sons of Pelops quarrelled over Mycenae. Atreus had vowed his best lamb to Artemis, and when a golden lamb appeared he kept it. His wife Aerope, seduced by Thyestes, gave the lamb to her lover, and Thyestes was made king.1 Zeus sent a sign, and Atreus took the throne back and banished his brother.14
Atreus then lured Thyestes home, and “having cut them limb from limb and boiled them, he served them up to Thyestes” his own sons.1 Hyginus writes that at this crime even the Sun turned aside his car.4 In the Agamemnon, Cassandra sees the children bewailing their own butchery, and Aegisthus tells how Thyestes, learning what he had eaten, cried “thus perish all the race of Pleisthenes.”2
To have revenge, Thyestes fathered Aegisthus on his own daughter.1 Hyginus names her Pelopia, says that Atreus raised the boy as his own son, and has Aegisthus kill Atreus as he sacrificed on the shore.4
Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and Aulis
The sons of Atreus married two sisters. Agamemnon won Clytemnestra after killing her first husband, a son of Thyestes also called Tantalus, and Menelaus married Helen and reigned over Sparta.1 Agamemnon and Clytemnestra had a son, Orestes, and three daughters, Chrysothemis, Electra and Iphigenia.1
When the fleet lay at Aulis, Agamemnon gave his daughter to Artemis. In Aeschylus he bade his ministers lay hold of her, with a gag upon her mouth “to hold back the shouted curse against her house.”2 When he came home from Troy, Clytemnestra cast “an impassable net” about him in the bath and struck him, and with Aegisthus she took the throne.21
- AgamemnonKing of Mycenae.
ClytemnestraQueen of Mycenae.
MenelausKing of Sparta.
HelenQueen of Sparta.
Orestes and the end of the curse
Electra smuggled the boy Orestes away to Strophius the Phocian, who brought him up with his own son Pylades.1 Orestes came back grown and by night killed both his mother and Aegisthus.14 Pursued by the Furies, he went to Athens and was tried at the Areopagus.1
In the Eumenides, Athena founds the court as the first trial for bloodshed, and declares that she will cast her vote for Orestes.3 The votes are equal, and the man “is acquitted on the charge of murder.”3 The Furies accept a home in the city, and a court ends the chain of revenge.3
Where Aeschylus, Apollodorus and Hyginus differ
The house of Atreus family tree on this page follows the version told most often. The three authors part on several points.
For Iphigenia the chart keeps the version of Aeschylus, in which her father sacrifices her at Aulis, so her symbol carries the mark of death.2 Apollodorus and Hyginus tell the other version, in which the goddess puts a deer in her place and carries her to the Taurians as her priestess, so in their telling she lives on.14
| Question | Aeschylus | Apollodorus | Hyginus |
|---|---|---|---|
| How Agamemnon died | Clytemnestra struck him twice, caught in a net of robe | Killed by Aegisthus and Clytemnestra in a shirt with no sleeves | Clytemnestra and Aegisthus planned his death and that of Cassandra |
| The fate of Iphigenia | Sacrificed at the altar | Artemis put a deer in her place and made her a priestess among the Taurians | Diana cast a mist about her and put a deer in her place |
| Who Aegisthus was | The third child of Thyestes, sent into exile as a baby | Son of Thyestes by his own daughter | Son of Thyestes by his daughter Pelopia, raised by Atreus |
Questions about the house of Atreus family tree
What the curse of the house of Atreus is
A chain of killings within one family, which the house of Atreus family tree follows down five generations. Tantalus served his son to the gods, Atreus served his brother’s sons to their father, and the line ends when Orestes is tried at Athens.
How Agamemnon and Menelaus are related to Tantalus
They are his great-grandsons on the house of Atreus family tree. Tantalus was the father of Pelops, Pelops the father of Atreus, and Atreus the father of the two kings.
How Aegisthus is related to Agamemnon
They are first cousins. Aegisthus is a son of Thyestes and Agamemnon a son of Atreus, and the two fathers were brothers.
People and sources
A page of its own lists all 17 people on the chart, each with a short note and the sources for it, and the four numbered sources this article cites. It also gives the credits of the portraits and this page as a reference in the APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard styles, ready to copy.