A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Πέλοψ.)

1. A grandson of Zeus and son of Tantalus and Dione, the daughter of Atlas. (Hyg. Fab. 83; Eurip. Orest. init.) As he was thus a great-grandson of Crones, he is called by Pindar Κρόνιος (Ol. 3.41), though it may also contain an allusion to Pluto, the mother of Tantalus, who was a daughter of Cronos. [PLUTO.] Some writers call the mother of Pelops Euryanassa or Clytia. (Schol. ad Eurip. Orest. 5, 11; Tzetz. ad Lyc. 52; comp. Apostol. Centur. 18.7.) He was married to Hippodameia, by whom he became the father of Atreus (Letreus, Paus. 6.22.5), Thyestes, Dias, Cynosurus, Corinthius, Hippalmus (Hippalcmus or Hippalcimus),

Hippasus, Cleon, Argeius, Alcathus, Aelits, Pittheus, Troezen, Nicippe and Lysidice. (Apoilod. 2.4.5; Schol. ald Erip. Orest. 5.) By Axioche or the nymph Danais he is said to have been the father of Chrysippus (Schol. ad Eurip. I.c. ; Plut. Puarall. min. 33), and according to Pindar (1.89) he had only six sons by Hippodanieia, whereas the Scholiast (ad Ol. 1.144) mentions Pleisthenes and Chrysippus as sons of Pelops by Hllippodameia. Further, while the common accounts mention only the two daughters above named, Plutarch (Plut. Thes. 3) speaks of many daughters of Pelops.

Pelops was king of Pisa in Elis, and from him the great southern peninsula of Greece was believed to have derived its name Peloponnesus; the nine small islands, moreover, which were situated off the Troezenian coast, opposite Methana, are said to have been called after hint the Pelopian islands. (Paus. 2.34.4.) According to a tradition which becmne very general in later times. Pelops was a Phrygian, who was expelled from Sipylus by lius (Paus. 2.22.4, 5.13.4), whereupon the exile then came witl his great wealth to Plia (5.1.5 ; Thuc. 1.9; comp. Sophl. Ajax, 1292; Pind. O. 1.36, 9.15); others describe himi as a Paphlagonian, and call himn an Eneteian, from the Paphlagonian town of Enete, and the Paphlagonians theimselves Πελοεήϊοι (Apollon. 2.358, with the Schol., and 790; Schol. ad Pind. Ol. 1.37 ; Diod. 4.74), while others again represent him as a nrative of Greece, who came from Olenos in Achaia. (Schol. ad Pind. l.c.) Some, further, call him an Arcsadian, and state that by a stratagem he slew the Arcadian kilg Stymphalus, and scattered about the limbs of his body which he had cut to pieces. (Apollod. 3.12.6.) There can be little doubt that in the earliest and most genuine traditions, Pelops was described as a native of Greece and not as a foreign immigrant; and in them he is called the tamer of horses and the favourite of Poseidon. (Hom. Il. 2.104; Paus. 5.1.5, 8.1; Pind. O. 1.38.)

The legends about Pelops consist mainly of the story of his being cut to pieces and boiled, and of the tuole concerning his contest with Oenomaus and Hippodaineia, to which may be added the legends about his relation to his sons and about his remains.