Pelops

Pelops (Ancient Greek: Πέλοψ) was a king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus in Greek mythology. He was a son of Tantalus and Dione. Other names given as his mother were Euryanassa and Eurythemista.

Pelops married Hippodamia and they had many children, including: Pittheus, Troezen, Alcathous, Dimoetes, Pleisthenes, Atreus, Thyestes, Copreus, Hippalcimus, Sciron, Cleones, Letreus, Astydamia, Nicippe, Lysidice, and Eurydice.

Pelops also had an affair with Axioche and they had one child: Chrysippus.

Death and resurrection
Pelops' father, Tantalus, murdered him as a sacrifice to the gods and tried to serve his flesh in a banquet that he hosted for the gods. The gods knew what he had done and they all refused to eat the meat that Tantalus had served except Demeter who accidentally ate a part of Pelops' shoulder.

Clotho resurrected Pelops by boiling the pieces of his body in a sacred cauldron and he was brought up to Mount Olympus. The part of his shoulder that was eaten by Demeter was replaced with an ivory one made by Hephaestus. There, he was taught the art of chariot driving by Poseidon but was eventually thrown out by Zeus because he was angered at the boy's father; he discovered that Tantalus had stolen some of the food of the gods and revealed their secrets to the mortal world.

Marriage
Pelops fell in love with Hippodamia, a daughter of King Oenomaus of Pisa. Previously, Oenomaus had killed eighteen suitors of Hippodamia due to a prophecy that told he would be killed by his son-in-law after defeating them in a chariot race.

Pelops wished to marry Hippodamia so he invoked Poseidon, a former lover of him. Poseidon then sent Pelops a chariot that was drawn by untamed winged horses. Still unsure if he could beat Oenomaus in the chariot race, he convinced Oenomaus' charioteer, Myrtilus, to help him by promising him half of Oenomaus' kingdom and the first night in bed with Hippodamia. Agreeing to this, Myrtilus replaced the linchpins holding the wheels to the chariot with ones made of beeswax. During the race, the wheels busted off of the chariot and Oenomaus was dragged to his death. Pelops then killed Myrtilus.

Before Myrtilus died, he cursed Pelops for his betrayal which was one of the ways their family was thought to have been cursed.