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A FATEFUL CHARIOT RACE: The STORY of PELOPS and OENOMAUS

THE MYTH OF PELOPS and OENOMAUS

Oenomaus, king of Pisa and Elis, and son of Ares and a mortal woman, inherited from his father his warlike nature, his love of fights and harassment of travellers, and his passion for horses. He had three sons, including Hippodamos ("Horse-tamer"), and a beautiful daughter, Hippodameia.

Next to his horses, Hippodameia was his greatest treasure, and like them, closely guarded. He prevented his subjects from mating mares with asses, and his daughter from mating with men. Some said he had fallen in love with her; others that an oracle had prophesied her husband would kill him. Whatever his motive, jealousy or fear, Oenomaus had found a way to keep her his. Each time a suitor came to his palace to ask him for her hand in marriage, Oenomaus would challenge him to win her in a chariot race. If the suitor won, he would win Hippodameia as his bride, and Oenomaus would die. But if he lost, the suitor would be the one to die.

Oenomaus had laid out the course, and it was a long one, all the way across the Peloponnese, from Pisa in the west, across the river Alphaeus to Olympia, site of the Olympic Games, and ending at the Isthmus of Corinth in the east. The suitor would be given a head start, while Oenomaus sacrificed a ram to Zeus at Olympia. But as a counter-handicap, Hippodameia had to ride beside the suitor, distracting him from handling the horses. The horses were in teams of four, or maybe two. In either case, Oenomaus' team was led by Psylla and Harpinna, a pair of divine mares given him by his father Ares. Not only were his horses swifter than the wind, his chariot was a special racing model, and his driver was Myrtilus, a master charioteer. With such horses, and such a car and driver, Oenomaus had never lost. Each time a suitor sped across the land towards Corinth, Oenomaus would catch up with him, then pierce him through with a magical bronze spear, another gift from Ares.

Thus equipped, Oenomaus had disposed of a dozen suitors -- princes all. After skewering them on the race course, he cut off their heads and limbs and nailed them over his palace gates. Their torsos he tossed into a heap below. When the first suitor, Marmax, was killed, his mares were also butchered, then buried by the river. Some said the second one, Alcathous, was buried near the Horse-Scarer at the racetrack at Olympia, and that it is his spirit that spooks the horses racing by.

So proud of his work was Oenomaus, he boasted he would one day build a temple made solely of skulls. But the gods, tired of his boasting and sick of his slaughter, arranged that Pelops, son of Tantalos and lover of Poseidon, would sail to Elis and become the next suitor.

To improve his chances, Pelops prayed first to his lover Poseidon, asking for either the world's fastest chariot, or some defense against Oenomaus' terrible spear. The sea god, known for his own great steeds, was happy to oblige, and gave Pelops a winged chariot of gold -- a car that could race over the waves without wetting the axles -- and, to draw it, a team of tireless, winged, immortal horses.

On entering Pisa, however, Pelops' heart sank to see, nailed above the palace gates, the severed heads of the dozen suitors before him.
To better his chances, he sought out Myrtilus, Oenomaus' brilliant charioteer. Now Myrtilus had himself fallen in love with the lovely Hippodameia. But knowing the odds, he knew better than try to compete for her. Pelops offered him a deal: Betray his master and help Pelops win, and Pelops would divide the prize, giving him half the kingdom and the right to enjoy the bride on the wedding night. Myrtilus agreed, and went at once to sabotage the king's chariot, replacing its bronze axle linchpins with pins made of wax.

During the race, as the two chariots approached the finish line at the Isthmus of Corinth, Oenomaus closed in on Pelops, raising his great bronze spear to hurl it through Pelops' back. But at that very moment, his linchpins melted, his wheels fell off, his chariot crashed, he fell tangled in the wreckage, and was dragged to his death. With his last breath, Oenomaus shouted a curse at his charioteer, praying he would die by Pelops hand.

And so it happened. To celebrate their victory, Pelops, Hippodameia, and Myrtilus set off on an evening cruise across the sea. As the winged golden chariot with its winged horses skimmed the waves, Hippodameia cried out, "I haven't had a drink all day, and I'm dying of thirst!" Pelops pulled in at a desert isle, and went to look for water. When he came back, with his helmet full, Hippodameia ran up to him, crying that Myrtilus had tried to rape her. Pelops raged at him, and punched him in the face. But Myrtilus protested: "This is the bridal night, and you swore it would be mine to enjoy with her. Will you now break your oath?"

Pelops said not a word, but grimly took the reins from his charioteer and drove on across the sea. On a sudden turn to avoid a looming promontory, he kicked Myrtilus into the sea. As he sank, Myrtilus screamed his own curse on Pelops and all his descendants.

Their fates became the stuff of tragedy: among them, Agamemnon, victor in the Trojan war but on his return assassinated in his bath by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus; and their murder in turn by his son Orestes and his daughter Electra.

PELOPS and THE OLYMPIC GAMES

Pelops himself, however, grew rich and famous, expanding his kingdom from Pisa all the way to the isthmus of Corinth -- all across the big southern chunk of Greece still called today "The Peloponnese," "Pelops' Island." All the while, to keep in the gods' good graces, he kept performing various deeds to atone for killing Oenomaus and murdering Myrtilus. At Olympia, not far from Pisa, he founded the Olympic Games, holding there its first chariot race -- either to thank the gods for his victory over Oenomaus, or as a funeral game to honor him and keep his spirit at bay. Hippodamea, too, created a contest at Olympia to commemorate her husband's victory: the Heraia, the footrace for girls. For betraying the traitorous charioteer Myrtilus, to appease his spirit Pelops built a memorial to him at Olympia's hippodrome, its racetrack for horse- and chariot-races. Many swore the Horse-Scarer there was his still-screaming ghost.

In honor of Pelops, a spectacular chariot race in the hippodrome became the opening event at the Olympic Games. After a grueling grind of twelve double-laps, many of the contestants never finished the race. "Imagine forty chariots, each drwn by four horses, thundering down to the turning post at the far end. In the turn, several chariots collide. In a cloud of dust wheels fly off their axles, drivers are tossed into the air, and horses struggle to get free of their strangling yokes." (Sheena Coupe and Barbara Scanlon, History Begins. A Global History of the Ancient World, © 1963 by Longmans Publishing Group, p. 178)

Why did the Greeks put up with all that carnage? Apart from the excitement and delight of the fans, was it because the chariot race, like many of the other events at Olympia, was originally a religious rite, a blood sacrifice to appease the gods and the spirits of the dead?

THE STORY OF PELOPS and OENOMAUS on THE TEMPLE OF ZEUS at OLYMPIA.

Oddly, no premonition of such violence exists in the pre-race scene of Pelops and Oenomaus swearing their vows to Zeus that was carved on the eastern pediment of the great Temple Zeus at Olympia some time between 480 and 450 BC -- the period of the so-called Severe Style of Greek Classicism -- when the archaic smile disappears, only to be replaced by poker-faced reserve. Up in the triangular space of that pediment, divided into two symmetrically balanced smaller right-triangles and groups by the statue of Zeus in the center, there stand on either side of him Pelops and Hippodameia and their quadriga, or four-horse chariot team, on his left; and on his right Oenomaus, his queen Sterope, and their quadriga, with the nude, kneeling figure of Myrtilus. The whole scene is so sedate, so stately and serene, like a long-exposed group portrait taken with an old-time glass-plate camera, there is hardly a hint of the violence soon to come.

If one is looking for mayhem, one must go round to the pediment on the opposite end of the temple, where one may view drunken centaurs raping women at a wedding, and the ensuing battle between the centaurs and the men.

Or, one may turn to the Etruscans, who enjoyed displays of violence, especially at funerals.

HOW THE ETRUSCANS DEPICTED THE PELOPS MYTH

From the Hellenistic period, in the second century BC, we find Etruscan ash urns with dramatic scenes of Pelops and Oenomaus, Hippodameia and Myrtilos.

In an urn by the "Master of Oenomaus," from Todi, in the first quarter of the century, we see, on the left, Hippodameia fleeing, her mantle whirled in a circle about her head, while beside her Pelops, dagger in hand, is about to stab and finish off her father, a bearded old man who is trying to ward off his blows from the wreckage of his crashed team of horses. Four other figures, dominated by two female winged demons who also attack Oenomaus, fill out the scene.

A few decades later an even greater sculptor, the "Master of Myrtilos," simplified and enhanced this scheme, reducing it to the four heroic human figures of the myth, and arranging them in a dramatic interplay of clashing diagonals. On the left, Hippodamia holds up, not her mantle, but a broken wheel from her father's chariot. The race is now over and Oenomaus is already dead. Beside her is Pelops in his Phrygian cap, in the same place and pose as before, but now about to smash with his fist, not the bearded old man, but a superbly muscled warrior, the helmeted but otherwise totally naked Myrtilus. Hot with lust for Hippodameia, and rage against Pelops for reneging on his promise to give him the first night with the bride, Myrtilus attacks Pelops with both fist and sword.

Surprisingly, Pelops has only his fists to fight with, while Myrtilus has also a sword -- a sword, moreover, which appears to be already piercing Pelops' shoulder. Does this mean Myrtilus will win? Not a chance. He is trying to stab Pelop's left shoulder, but he can neither kill nor wound Pelops, striking neither flesh nor bone. Long ago Pelops was cut up, boiled, and served up to the gods by his father Tantalus. But before they ate him, they discovered the crime and restored him to life, joining his limbs together again.
All but one arm, which Demeter had already eaten. So she fitted an ivory one in its place. And it must be that immortal arm whose shoulder Myrtilus is vainly trying to stab.

One final question: Who is the elderly, bearded man behind Myrtilus, leaning back at a dramatic angle away from him, yet urging him on? I believe this must be Oenomaus, modelled on the Oenomaus figure from the Todi urn. But since he is dead, this must be the ghost of Oenomaus, screaming for revenge.



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A FATEFUL CHARIOT RACE: The STORY of PELOPS and OENOMAUS