Arcadian Nights

by John Spurling

  Atreus himself, whose kingdom was suffering from drought and a bad harvest, had qualms about what he had done to his brother and he too made a trip to Delphi to ask the oracle for advice. He was told to bring Thyestes back from Sikyon, so, like his brother shortly before him, he crossed the Corinthian Gulf, but this time arriving in daylight and going straight to the king’s palace, where, as a more powerful ruler than Thesprotos, he was received with great respect. Thesprotos knew nothing of Thyestes’ brief visit, of course, and, since the brothers’ mutual hatred was common knowledge, suspected that Atreus only wanted to find his brother in order to kill him. He was therefore careful not to mention that the girl he was treating as his own daughter was actually Thyestes’. But Atreus caught sight of Pelopeia as she was going to draw water at the well, immediately took a fancy to her and asked King Thesprotos who she was.

  ‘My daughter,’ said Thesprotos, thinking to protect her with this insignificant lie.

  ‘A lovely young woman,’ said Atreus, ‘excellent carriage, good colour in her cheeks, proud and spirited, I should say, by the way she holds her head up and looks around her. She does credit to her pedigree.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Thesprotos and allowed himself a little private joke, ‘Pedigree wins out.’

  ‘I daresay you’ve heard that I recently lost my dear wife Aerope. I would like your daughter to take her place.’

  Thesprotos was trapped. He could only reply that he was deeply honoured but would need to consult his wife and daughter. Both agreed that it was better not to tell Atreus the truth and that in the long run, if he ever discovered that Pelopeia was really his niece, that might even help to reconcile the brothers. They also agreed that, since her name implied her real pedigree and that Atreus might remember that his brother had a daughter called Pelopeia, she should change her name to Asteria. She herself was delighted at the prospect of becoming queen of such a prestigious kingdom as Argos and holding court in the great palace of Mycenae. She had no idea – how could she imagine such a thing? – of what her uncle/bridegroom had done to her brothers and her father in that very place.

  They were married within days and Atreus returned in an optimistic mood to Mycenae with his new queen. He felt that in sending him to Sikyon to look for his brother, the oracle had really meant him to find Asteria (Pelopeia) and that this happy outcome amounted to absolution for his murder of Thyestes’ sons. He was even happier when he learnt that his new wife was pregnant and made much of their new son, born a few weeks earlier than might have been expected. This son was named Aigisthos and was brought up in the palace at Mycenae with his older half-siblings, Agamemnon, Menelaos and Anaxibia. Pelopeia herself, of course, suspected that Aigisthos was really the child of the unknown rapist, but saw no reason to say anything about that to a husband who was prone to rages and fits of melancholia, but whom she could manage as long as she never directly opposed his wishes or inquired into his past.

  So the two curses – Myrtilos’ and Thyestes’ – slumbered for many years, while the next generation of the House of Atreus grew up. Atreus and Thyestes were already growing old when Pelopeia, paying a visit to her supposed parents in Sikyon, was asked if she knew anything about the mysterious sword which had been discovered in the temple, hidden under the statue of Athene. Yes, she said, it belonged to the man who raped her all those years ago.

  ‘It’s no ordinary piece of bronze,’ said Thesprotos, ‘but of very fine workmanship. I hardly like to tell you this: it’s engraved with the trident symbol of the House of Pelops. Its owner, your attacker, must have been some distant relative of yours, unless of course he was a thief and had stolen it.’

  Pelopeia was not too dismayed. The attack had happened long before, she was the much respected queen of Argos and already married, after all, to a relative, her uncle, though he didn’t know it. She took the sword back to Mycenae and gave it to her son, Aigisthos, now a boy of twelve. He was a physically weak child, but imaginative and addicted to the stories of heroes, and possessing the sword made him feel that he himself would grow up to be a hero. He kept it always beside his bed at night and strutted about wearing it by day. His elder half-brothers Agamemnon and Menelaos smiled at his pretensions and were sometimes irritated enough to mock him, but never in front of their formidable father or the boy’s doting mother, their very young stepmother, scarcely older than themselves.

  But through all these years Argos, usually one of the most fertile areas in Greece, had suffered from a lack of rain. As the drought worsened and the crops failed and famine threatened, the Argives began to blame their ruler. Unpleasant rumours spread about the disappearance of his brother and his previous wife. Atreus recalled that the Delphic oracle had told him to bring his brother back to Argos and that instead of doing so he had brought back a new wife, who had only borne him one son. Clearly the gods were seriously displeased with him. He knew that his brother had taken refuge in Lydia and sent a messenger begging him to return to Argos, swearing solemnly that no harm would be done to him and that he would have the palace at Tiryns to live in and all the eastern part of the kingdom to govern.

  Thyestes came, not innocently and trustingly this time, but still looking for revenge, well aware that the Argives were blaming Atreus for their troubles and might even be stirred to open rebellion in Thyestes’ favour. When he reached Mycenae he would not enter the palace, but stayed with one of the elders who had originally supported his claim to the kingdom and demanded that Atreus meet him in the open, without guards, in the presence of enough citizens to ensure his safety. Atreus, anxious to mollify both the gods and his people and if possible end the famine, readily agreed. So, in the open space in front of the palace portico, from where the chariot had carried Thyestes cursing down the street on that dreadful night when he ate his own children, the brothers met again.

  The crowd of witnesses fell silent as Thyestes walked up from the street and Atreus came out of the palace. The brothers stopped some distance apart and stared at each other. Atreus moved first, stepping close to his brother and speaking in a voice too low for the crowd to hear.

  ‘Well, Thyestes, your beard and hair are white.’

  ‘As yours are, Atreus.’

  ‘Just so. And in other ways too we are quits, aren’t we?

  ‘Are we? You have two sons and a daughter – three sons now, I hear – while I have only a daughter, a priestess vowed to celibacy when I last heard of her, though I have long since lost touch with her.’

  ‘You took my wife, I took your sons.’

  ‘A very unequal exchange. And you have a kingdom, I have none.’

  ‘I will share it with you if you can agree that we are quits.’

  ‘Then say it so that everyone can hear!’

  Atreus did so.

  ‘And one more thing,’ said Thyestes. ‘I require a pledge for your sincerity, a hostage. I will take your youngest son to live with me – he is after all my nephew and I shall treat him lovingly and gently and not at all as you treated your nephews, my sons. I will send him back to you as soon as I feel that I’m securely installed in the palace at Tiryns and truly sharing the kingdom with you.’

  Atreus agreed. He no longer had much affection for Aigisthos, who was always afraid of him and clung to his mother.

  There in front of the citizens the brothers drank together from the same cup, then each returned the way he had come. But when Atreus told Pelopeia that Aigisthos was to go to Thyestes, she was devastated and said she must go with him. This Atreus could not permit, afraid that Thyestes might seduce this wife as he had Aerope. It would do the boy good, he said, to be separated for a while from his mother. His own servants at Tiryns, which was less than ten miles away, would bring them regular news of Aigisthos and he did not think he would be absent for more than a few months. The child made even more fuss than his mother when told that he was to live with his uncle, but he had no choice. He was sent to Tiryns, where his uncle was now installed, and his precious sword went with him.
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br />   Thyestes was already taking advantage of his new powers as governor of eastern Argolis to weaken his brother’s hold over the whole kingdom. He had little difficulty in finding men who had been pushed aside or passed over by Atreus and would be glad to see him overthrown, but he had to be careful that his conversations with them were not overheard by the servants at Tiryns, whom he intended gradually to replace but who for the moment had to be considered as spies for Atreus. He made frequent journeys through the territory he governed and held secret meetings along his route.

  When Aigisthos arrived at Tiryns, Thyestes was just returning from one of his subversive trips and not in a good mood. His conversations with several local chieftains had been inconclusive and he thought one of them was not to be trusted, might even have been deliberately leading him on before reporting back to Atreus. As his chariot passed through the gate and drove up the steep ramp between the mighty stone walls built by a former king of the Perseid dynasty, it overtook the wagon carrying Aigisthos and his escort. Thyestes jumped down in the courtyard at the top of the ramp, ordered his servants to fetch the women from the palace and himself helped Aigisthos out of the wagon.

  ‘Welcome to Tiryns, dear boy!’ he said, ‘But what’s this? You’re a bit young to carry such a big sword. I hope you don’t mean to murder your uncle.’

  ‘My mother gave it to me,’ said Aigisthos, nervous and tearful, ‘and it’s a very special sword. I always keep it with me. Do you want to see it?’

  And taking it out of his belt, he held it up so that Thyestes could see its fine workmanship and the Pelopian trident engraved on the blade. His uncle humoured him by looking at it with pretended attention. But what he saw jolted him into real attention.

  ‘Your mother gave it to you? Where did she get it?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. I think it came from my grandparents in Sikyon.’

  ‘Very likely. I haven’t met your mother. What’s her name?’

  ‘What’s her name? My mother is the queen – Queen Asteria.’

  ‘Yes, of course. My mind was wandering.’

  Far from wandering, Thyestes’ mind was working so fast he felt giddy. How could his own sword have come into the hands of Atreus’ wife? Did she know that it belonged to him, and that it was he who had raped the woman at Sikyon? Why had she given it to her son? Would this mean that all his hopes of revenge were for nothing, that he must go on the run again? Somehow he must meet and speak to the queen privately and get answers to these questions, but what chance was there of that, given Atreus’ jealousy?

  In the meantime he devoted himself to making a friend of the boy, treating him as his own son (as he really was, though neither of them yet knew it), playing draughts and backgammon with him, seating him at his own table and beside him in the throne room on official occasions, demanding from all his servants the deference to Aigisthos which he had never had at Mycenae. Aigisthos’ own tutor had come with him from Mycenae, but Thyestes often looked in on their lessons and himself taught him the rudiments of astronomy and mathematics.

  All this was reported back to Atreus and passed on by him to Pelopeia. Her son was evidently happy and flourishing, but the more she was assured of this the more she missed him and wanted to see him again. Her health began to deteriorate; she was eating little and taking no interest in anything but news of Aigisthos. Atreus felt obliged at last to allow her to visit him, but she must stay only for the day and return to Mycenae by nightfall.

  So when she arrived at Tiryns, Thyestes discovered that he was not welcoming an unknown woman called Asteria, but his own daughter Pelopeia. And when they had embraced and gone inside and were alone together, she told him how she had been raped on the night of the festival in Sikyon and adopted by King Thesprotos as his daughter and as such married to Atreus, who was still ignorant of her real identity. But what of Aigisthos, Thyestes wanted to know, was he Atreus’ son or the child of her attacker? She could not say for sure, but she feared he was the latter.

  Thyestes did not tell Pelopeia that he was the rapist, that the sword was his sword, and Aigisthos his own incestuous son. He sent her back that evening to Mycenae with instructions not to disturb Atreus, not to tell him anything except that she had found her son well and happy and that Thyestes now felt perfectly secure and would soon send his hostage back to Mycenae. His own course was clear. He had already gained Aigisthos’ confidence, he must now gradually detach him from any lingering loyalty to Atreus and turn him into the perfect instrument of revenge. And remembering now what the oracle had told him all those years ago, he felt that the gods were with him and that he could hardly fail.

  By the time Aigisthos returned to Mycenae he was fully prepared for his task. He believed that he was Thyestes’ son and that Pelopeia/Asteria was not his mother but his sister; that his uncle Atreus was a monster who had stolen the throne and murdered all his elder brothers; that his precious sword was indeed his father’s, who had given it to his sister, his supposed mother, to pass on to him, so that when the time came he could use it to avenge his father and his brothers. Aigisthos’ weak character and strong imagination had been forged into a fierce desire to right his family’s wrongs and prove himself a true heir to his legendary grandfather Pelops.

  One night, as Atreus, tired and sleepy after a heavy meal, was about to retire to bed, he met Aigisthos in the corridor. The boy was trailing his precious sword as usual.

  ‘Where are you off to, boy?’ said Atreus. ‘It’s late and you should be in bed.’

  Aigisthos said nothing but stood staring at him with what seemed to Atreus a look of insolence.

  ‘You’re getting rather too old to be always carrying that ridiculous toy around with you. In fact, it’s not a toy but a dangerous weapon. I can’t imagine why your mother gave it to you. I think you’d better give it to me before you harm yourself or someone else with it.’

  Aigisthos still said nothing and went on staring at him.

  ‘Come on, boy!’ said Atreus, beginning to be angry, ‘Give it to me and go off to bed!’

  Aigisthos seemed about to do so, but instead grasped the hilt with both hands and, as he had been carefully taught by his father, plunged the blade under Atreus’ rib-cage and upwards to his heart. With a great cry of pain and fury, Atreus fell dead at his feet. Guards and servants came running from all directions and surrounded the dead king and his boy murderer. He was still holding the bloody sword and looking about with an air of confidence and triumph, as if expecting to be congratulated. No one dared come too near him until Pelopeia appeared with some of her women attendants.

  ‘What have you done, Aigisthos?’ she said.

  ‘I have killed my brothers’ killer,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean? You have killed your father and your brothers are both alive.’

  Indeed Agamemnon and Menelaos were just pushing their way to the front of the crowd of servants.

  ‘They are not my brothers and this is not my father. Thyestes is my father and this is his sword.’

  ‘What nonsense! Who told you that?’

  ‘He told me. My father Thyestes told me.’

  ‘His sword?’

  ‘Yes. And you are not my mother, but my sister Pelopeia.’

  Then Pelopeia knew who had raped her in Sikyon.

  ‘You gave me the sword,’ said Aigisthos, ‘so that one day I could avenge you and your dead brothers. And now I’ve done it.’

  ‘Give me back the sword!’ said Pelopeia. ‘You have done a terrible thing, but so have we all. And now everything must come into the light. Your uncle murdered your brothers and mine, but you are my son as well as my brother, and your father was my father. I don’t wonder that the rivers have dried up and the crops failed in Argos. Our family is its curse and we are all cursed.’

  She took the sword from Aigisthos, turned the blade towards her own breast and pressed it home.

  As soon as the news reached Thyestes, he and his supporters took possession of Mycenae and seized contr
ol of the kingdom. Atreus and Pelopeia were quietly buried in the royal cemetery just inside the Lion Gate. Aigisthos, who had been locked in a dungeon at Mycenae, was released and sent to the small neighbouring kingdom of Troezen to be ritually cleansed of murdering his uncle. But Atreus’ three children, Agamemnon, Menelaos and Anaxibia, knowing only too well what fate awaited them at their uncle’s hands, had already fled into the mountains of Arcadia and made their way from there to Sparta, where they were given asylum by its king, Tyndareus.

  Thyestes ruled Argos for several years with increasing severity, since however much the Argives pitied him for the horrible murder of his sons, they could not forgive him for his own and his son Aigisthos’ acts of rape and murder, and to judge by the continuing lack of rain and poor harvests, the gods were still displeased. When Agamemnon returned at the head of an army from Sparta there was little opposition. Hoping to end the curse, Agamemnon spared his uncle’s life on the condition that he left the kingdom and swore never to return. Aigisthos, now fully grown, fled back to Troezen, but he did not seem a threat to Agamemnon, who had always despised him and considered that the murder of Atreus had really been committed not by the foolish, impressionable boy, but by his instigator, Thyestes.

  While they were living in Sparta, Agamemnon and Menelaos married King Tyndareus’ daughters, Clytemnestra and Helen. They hardly looked like sisters, though they were both certainly the daughters of Tyndareus’ wife, the lovely Leda. Clytemnestra resembled her tall, sharp-faced father, but in those days, when the gods still frequently intervened in human affairs, many believed that Zeus himself had seduced Leda and was the father of the dazzling Helen. Her god-like beauty was often compared to Aphrodite’s, and perhaps it was from anger at such a comparison that the goddess of love picked Helen to be the first cause of so much death and destruction to both Greeks and Trojans. People were really thinking of Aphrodite’s statues, of course, since few had ever set eyes on the goddess of love herself. After King Tyndareus abdicated his throne, Menelaos and Helen became king and queen of Sparta and the surrounding territory of Lakonike; while Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, whose imposing figure and relentless will reminded people of the statues and stories of the goddess Hera, jealous consort of the multiprogenitive Zeus, became king and queen of Argos.