House of Atreus

The House of Atreus is the most horrifying dynastic saga in Greek mythology, spanning multiple generations of murder, cannibalism, and divine retribution.‌​‌​‌​‌​‍​‌​‍​‌​‍​‍​‍​‌​‌​‍​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​‍​‍​‌​‌​‌​‍​‍​‍​‌​‌​‌​‍​‍ The curse began with Tantalus, who slaughtered his own son Pelops and served him to the gods at a feast to test their omniscience. The gods restored Pelops to life and condemned Tantalus to eternal torment. Pelops won his bride Hippodamia through treachery, sabotaging the chariot of her father Oenomaus with the help of the charioteer Myrtilus — then murdered Myrtilus, who cursed Pelops's line with his dying breath. Pelops's sons Atreus and Thyestes inherited the curse in full. When Thyestes seduced Atreus's wife, Atreus took revenge by killing Thyestes's sons, cooking their flesh, and serving it to Thyestes at a banquet — then revealing the children's hands and heads afterward. Thyestes's surviving son Aegisthus grew up consumed by vengeance. Meanwhile, Atreus's son Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to secure fair winds for the Trojan War fleet. When Agamemnon returned victorious from Troy, his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus murdered him in his bath. Orestes, Agamemnon's son, was then compelled by Apollo to avenge his father by killing his own mother — a matricide that unleashed the Erinyes upon him. Only Athena's intervention at Athens, establishing a trial by jury at the Areopagus, finally broke the cycle of blood vengeance and ended the curse. Aeschylus's Oresteia trilogy dramatises the final act of this saga as the birth of civilised justice from primordial violence.