A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Ἀερόπη), a daughter of Crateus, king of Crete, and granddaughter of Minos. Her father, who had received an oracle that he should lose his life by one of his children, gave her and her sister, Clymene, to Nauplius, who was to sell them in a foreign land. Another sister, Apemone, and her brother. Aethemlenes, who had heard of the oracle, had left Crete and gone to Rhodes. Aerope afterwards married Pleisthenes, the son of Atreus, and became by him the mother of Agamemnon and Menelaus. (Apollod. 3.2.1, &c.; Serv. ad Aen. 1.458; Dictys Cret. 1.1.) After the death of Pleisthenes Aeriope married Atreus, and her two sons, who were educated by Atreus, were generally believed to be his sons. Aerope, however, became faithless to Atreus, being seduced by Thyests. (Eur. Orest. 5, &c., Helen. 397; Hyg. Fab. 87; Schol. ad Hom. Il. 2.249; Serv. ad Aen. 11.262.)

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