Oinomaos (King of Pisa)
Oinomaos (lat. Oenomaus ) was king of Pisa and son of the god Ares and Harpina , daughter of the river god Asopos , or the Eurythoe or the Pleiade Sterope in Greek mythology .
His daughter Hippodameia was a beautiful woman and therefore very popular. However, her father was prophesied by the oracle in Delphi that the man who would marry his daughter would also be his murderer. Therefore, he required anyone who asked for his daughter's hand to take part in a chariot race from Pisa to Corinth with him. The victor should get Hippodameia, the loser death.
In these races, Oinomaos was able to rely entirely on the speedy horses his father Ares gave him and his charioteer Myrtilos . In every race he let his opponent drive ahead and quietly sacrificed a ram to Zeus . After this sacrifice, he caught up with his opponents and killed them by throwing a spear into their backs. In this way, 13 suitors were killed (according to other sources, twelve). The next, Pelops , son of Tantalus , had made a pact with Poseidon and managed to defeat Oinomaos either with his help or through the betrayal of Myrtilos. In this way Pelops became king and later a peninsula in the south of Greece was named Peloponnese in his honor .
literature
- Paul Weizsäcker : Oinomaos 1 . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 3.1, Leipzig 1902, Col. 764-784 ( digitized version ).
- Hans von Geisau : Oinomaos 1. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 4, Stuttgart 1972, Col. 261.