Atreus
Role: father of Menelaus · First appears: Book 2 · Chapter 18
In Book 2, Chapter 18, Atreus and his brother Thyestes were connected by Thyestes’ seduction of his brother’s wife. Atreus then “slaughtered the children of Thyestes and served them up to him at table.”
By Book 3, Chapter 1, Menelaus is identified as Atreus’s son. In Book 5, Chapter 3, Atreus’s sons are associated with the overthrow of Priam’s kingdom. In Book 9, Chapter 40, the sacred sceptre passed from Pelops to Atreus, then to Thyestes, and from him to Agamemnon.
Relationship record
Life events
- The sacred sceptre passed from Zeus through successive holders until Agamemnon possessed it.(Book 9 · Chapter 40 · 📍 Chæronea)
Book 2 · Chapter 18
- siblings with Thyestes “when he seduced his brother’s wife”
- with Thyestes (interaction) “Atreus could not be satisfied with the law of Tit for Tat, but slaughtered the children of Thyestes and served them up to him at table”
Book 3 · Chapter 1
- child: Menelaus “And his sons reigned after him, as well as his son-in-law Menelaus the son of Atreus, and Orestes the husband of Hermione the daughter of Menelaus.”
Book 5 · Chapter 3
- with Priam (Atreus is named through the sons of Atreus, who participated in overthrowing Priam's kingdom.) “who in conjunction with the sons of Atreus had overturned the kingdom of Priam”
Book 9 · Chapter 40
- with Pelops (interaction) “and Pelops left to Atreus”
- with Thyestes (interaction) “and Atreus to Thyestes”
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Extracted from the original text of Pausanias' Description of Greece. Made with Rho MD.