Glyn Iliffe - The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

‘There are plenty of stories about Agamemnon’s grandfather,’ Diomedes said. ‘But I don’t see how any of them can show us how to beat the Trojans.’

‘Well, I know nothing about Pelops,’ Eperitus said. ‘Although you promised in Agamemnon’s tent you’d tell me the significance of this bone.’

‘That’s something we’d all like to know,’ Sthenelaus agreed as he watched the wave caps ahead of the galley.

‘The story’s familiar enough,’ Odysseus answered with a sigh, ‘but if you’ve never had the patience or inclination to listen to it then I’ll recount it for you. Many have called Agamemnon ambitious and evil, and with good reason, but he is the natural product of his ancestors, a line of men cursed with wickedness. His great-grandfather was Tantalus, about whom there are numerous tales, but none so depraved as the trick he played on the Olympians. He lived in the time when the gods walked freely among men, and some men walked with the gods. Tantalus was one such man, being regularly invited to banquet with them on Mount Olympus. Unfortunately their favour didn’t inspire him to worship them more, only to regard them with contempt. He saw their frivolity as a sign of childish stupidity, rather than the result of a nature free from the shadow of pain, suffering and death. And so he decided to test their power, stealing ambrosia and nectar from their feasts and sharing it with his fellow mortals, just to see if the Olympians noticed. They said nothing because they loved him, but this only made Tantalus despise them more. As a further test, he invited them to a banquet of his own, where, in his wickedness, he served the immortals a stew from an iron pot in which he had cut up and boiled the flesh of his own son.’

‘He fed them his own child?’ Sthenelaus exclaimed in disbelief.

‘Didn’t Agamemnon sacrifice his daughter at Aulis, just to appease the anger of Artemis?’ Eperitus reminded him, a hint of bitterness in his voice. ‘The man’s a monster.’

‘It was the undoing of Tantalus,’ Odysseus continued. ‘The gods were not as foolish as he took them to be, all but one of them realising the meat before them was human. Only Demeter, distracted by grief at the recent loss of her daughter, ate the stew. As revenge, Zeus contrived a special torment for Tantalus, condemning him to an eternity of hunger and thirst in Hades. There he stands, up to his neck in a pool of cool water and with the heavily laden boughs of a fruit tree bending over him; but whenever he lowers his lips to the water it recedes before they can touch it; and whenever he reaches for the fruit of the tree, a gust of wind blows it just beyond his grasping fingers.

‘As for his son, Zeus ordered his dismembered body to be placed back in the pot in which Tantalus had boiled them. The only missing part was the shoulder blade that Demeter had eaten whole, but the goddess replaced this with one of ivory. Once inside the pot, the parts of the body reformed and took on new life, the boy emerging even more handsome than he had been before his father had murdered him. The boy’s name,’ Odysseus added, leaning in towards the others, ‘was Pelops.’

‘By all the gods,’ Sthenelaus said. ‘Then this bone we’ve been sent to find is the ivory replacement made by Demeter.’

Eperitus frowned. ‘But how is the bone significant? It was made by the gods, just like Agamemnon’s sceptre, Achilles’s armour and dozens of other artefacts already in our possession, but I don’t see how it will help us defeat the Trojans.’

‘Nor I,’ Odysseus said, with a melancholy nod of his head. ‘And that’s half the problem. The story doesn’t end there, though. Legend says that Pelops was blessed by the gods and grew to a height and stature much greater than other men, with a strength and fierceness that made him invincible in combat. But like so many great warriors, it was a woman who conquered him. He fell in love with Hippodameia, the daughter of King Oenomaus, ruler of Pisa. Now, Oenomaus was a jealous father who loved his daughter more than anything else. When Pelops asked to marry Hippodameia, the old king set him the same challenge he had put before all her previous suitors: a chariot race from Pisa all the way to Corinth. Pelops would be given a head start, but he would have to drive the chariot with the beautiful Hippodameia beside him – a distraction that could only play to Oenomaus’s advantage. If he won, then the girl would be his; but if Oenomaus caught up with him, he would kill him, just as he had the dozen or so other suitors who had been foolish enough to fall in love with his daughter. To emphasise the point, the king indicated the city walls where their shrivelled heads leered down from spikes.

‘Undeterred, Pelops agreed to the challenge without a second thought: he was a renowned horseman and charioteer, and being almost twice the size of most men he did not fear a fight with Oenomaus. What he did not know, though, was that Oenomaus’s horses were the fastest in Greece and his spear was a gift from Ares, which, if thrown by a skilled warrior, would fly straighter and truer than any mortal weapon. Pelops only learned of these things the night before the race, in a message sent by none other than Hippodameia. She had fallen deeply in love with him and told him her father’s secret in the hope he would not throw away his life for her sake.

‘Pelops knew then he could not win the race. But neither would his love for Hippodameia allow him to back down. So, being a resourceful man, he approached Oenomaus’s charioteer, a man called Myrtilus, and offered him half the kingdom of Pisa if he would betray his master and ensure Pelops won the race. Myrtilus agreed to help, but not in exchange for wealth or power. Ever since Hippodameia had been a young girl, he had lusted after her, dreaming of nothing more than to share her bed and take her virginity: if Pelops wanted victory, he would first have to swear an oath allowing Myrtilus to be the first to sleep with her on their marriage night. Reluctantly, knowing he had little choice, Pelops took the oath.

‘The following morning, the two chariots lined up at the starting point. Hippodameia stepped aboard Pelops’s chariot, her face lined with tears for the man whom she believed she was accompanying to his death. But a furtive nod from Myrtilus gave Pelops all the reassurance he needed, and with a crack of his whip and a loud shout he sent his chariot shooting forward. Oenomaus waited until the dust from his opponent’s wheels had died away, then sacrificed a black ram to Zeus before seizing his spear and stepping into his own chariot. Myrtilus took up the reins and began the pursuit.

‘The king’s horses had not won their reputation for nothing. Despite the long head start, by the time the sun was at its hottest Oenomaus could see the dust from Pelops’s chariot ahead of him. He ordered Myrtilus to go faster and had soon come within range of the young suitor. Taking Ares’s spear in his hand, he drew it back and took aim, not knowing that Myrtilus had removed the linchpins from the axle of his chariot and replaced them with thinner ones coated in wax. At that moment, the heat of the sun finally melted the wax and the pins came free. Myrtilus, who felt the telltale juddering beneath his feet, leapt clear into a large bush, but Oenomaus was still aiming his spear when both wheels came off, and was caught up in the wreckage of the chariot and dragged to a horrible death.’

‘Nothing more than he deserved,’ Sthenelaus commented.

Omeros, who had turned from the benches and come to hear the tale, shushed him, forgetting Sthenelaus’s seniority in his annoyance at the interruption.

‘What about Myrtilus?’ he asked.

Odysseus smiled.

‘Myrtilus was saved by the bush and returned to Pisa with the victorious Pelops and Hippodameia, his prize. In the preparations for the wedding Pelops forgot all about the oath he had taken, but Myrtilus, of course, had not. At the wedding feast, he whispered in Pelops’s ear, reminding him of his promise that he would be the first to sleep with Hippodameia. Pelops looked across at his wife, beautiful in her wedding dress, and nodded, putting on a show of reluctance as he told Myrtilus to wait for Hippodameia by the bridge over the River Alpheius. It was there, after night had fallen, that Pelops found him and threw him into the deep, ice-cold waters. Myrtilus, as he knew, was no swimmer, but with his dying breath he laid a curse on Pelops – a curse he never divulged, but took with him to his grave. After he had married Hippodameia and became king in the place of her father, he began a campaign of conquest that saw him take possession of many of the cities and lands around Pisa. He was so successful the whole of southern Greece – the Peloponnese – was named after him. But he was also a tyrant, displaying time and again the ruthlessness he had inherited from his father and shown against Myrtilus. Those he could not defeat by arms alone, he tricked and betrayed. One such was the king of Arcadia, whom he invited to a feast then killed and cut into pieces – an echo of how his own father had treated him when he tried to trick the gods.