Myrtilus

Mythology

Myrtilus, the charioteer of King Oenomaus, was approached by Pelops (or, in some versions, by Hippodamia) on the night before the crucial horse race that would decide Pelops’ marriage to Hippodamia. The request was to sabotage Oenomaus, who had a habit of killing the suitors he defeated in races. As a bribe, Myrtilus was offered the right to spend the first night with Hippodamia. Myrtilus himself loved Hippodamia but had been too afraid to ask her father for her hand. He agreed to the plan and replaced the bronze linchpins on the king’s chariot with fake ones made of beeswax. During the race, Oenomaus died in the resulting crash, cursing Myrtilus with his last breath. Afterward, Myrtilus attempted to seduce Hippodamia, who ran crying to Pelops. Myrtilus insisted this was their bargain, but Pelops, enraged, killed him by throwing him into the sea off the east coast of the Peloponnesus. That sea was later named the Myrtoan Sea in his honor. His body was recovered and placed in the temple of Hermes, where annual sacrifices were made. Some say Myrtilus became the constellation Auriga. As he died, he cursed Pelops, a curse that haunted later generations including Atreus, Thyestes, Agamemnon, Aegisthus, Menelaus, Orestes, and Chrysippus. His burial site in Olympia was a taraxippus.