Hippodamia

Daughter of King Oenomaus of Pisa in Elis, by his wife Evarete daughter of Acrisius in the catalogue tradition (Hyg. *Fab.* 84; the wife's name is one of the points on which the sources disagree sharply, with Eurythoe and Sterope also attested in minority traditions). An oracle had warned Oenomaus that his son-in-law would kill him, and he accordingly turned every one of Hippodamia's suitors into a chariot-race contestant on conditions he could not lose: the suitor drove the princess herself in his chariot with a head-start, Oenomaus pursued alone, and whoever was overtaken was speared in the back. Twelve or thirteen suitors had been killed this way before Pelops arrived (Apollod. *Epit.* 2.4–6; Pindar *Olympian* 1.79–88; Hyg. *Fab.* 84). Hippodamia, in the tradition followed by Pherecydes (FGrH 3 F37), Apollod. *Epit.* 2.7–8, and Hyginus *Fab.* 84, fell in love with Pelops and colluded with him to bribe her father's charioteer Myrtilus — a son of Hermes — to replace the bronze linchpins of the axle with wax; the chariot threw Oenomaus to his death, and Pelops won the race and the bride. She bore him, among others, Atreus, Thyestes, and Pittheus — the founders of the house that would reach to Troy.

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