They had a marvelous time ruining everything.
Taylor Swift’s lyrics can easily be applied to what may be the world’s most infamous dynasty, the legendary Greek House of Atreus, or simply, the Atreides. Frank Herbert fans, this is long before Dune.
The Atreides’ story spans several generations and includes some of the most dramatic and compelling tales in ancient literature, involving key figures in the Trojan War and the aftermath.
The tales of heroes and gods of ancient Greece have often been framed as children’s stories, but they are absolutely not stories designed for the little ones.
Between cannibalism, parricide, matricide, infanticide, rape and betrayal, there are few crimes the story of the Atreides family leaves out.
It all started with Tantalus, the progenitor of the family, who offended the gods by serving his son Pelops as a meal to them. From the Olympian perspective, what's worse than an atheist?
Revived by the gods, Pelops went on to marry Hippodamia and through a series of manipulations, won her father’s kingdom, which was situated in the region of the Peloponnese, named after him. At least he got something out of being turned to stew.
Pelops had two sons, Atreus and Thyestes. Atreus became king of Mycenae but fell out with his brother over the throne. In the process, he tricked Thyestes into eating his own sons, served as a meal in revenge for Thyestes’ affair with Atreus’ wife. The gods can't be tricked into cannibalism again, but some humans can.
Atreus’s son Agamemnon became the king of Mycenae and the leader of the Greek forces in the war against Troy. The fleet, however, was unable to set sail due to unfavorable winds, and, to appease the gods, Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia, something his wife Clytemnestra never forgave him for.
After trading the captured Trojan women Chryseis and Briseis like horses, and forcing another, Cassandra, back to Greece as his concubine after the war, he is killed by Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, to avenge Iphigenia’s death and Atreus’ murder of his brothers, served to his father Thyestes as a goulash meal.
The family collects all the points and goes for another round.
After Agamemnon’s murder, Orestes, his son, was sent away to live in exile, while Electra, Agamemnon’s daughter, remained in Mycenae, seething with hatred for her mother and Aegisthus. Reunited years later, the siblings plotted and executed the murder of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. If matricide was missing from the accounts, well, not anymore.
Running out of murder options and having ticked off all the taboos, the Atreides went on the defense. After killing his mother, Orestes was tormented by the Furies, ancient deities of vengeance who pursued him relentlessly for the crime of matricide. Crossing the line brings the load of history on one's head. The pursuit drove Orestes to the brink of madness, and sent the gods into DEFCON 1. Presiding over the first courtroom trial in mythological history, Athena secured Orestes’ acquittal, putting an end to the cycle of Atreides vengenge. Order was restablished, and some lessons were learned. But not all, and not by everyone.
In mythological time, the atrocities committed by the members of the Atreides dynasty happened once, in illo tempore, but also all the time, every time. As Freud and others pointed out, there might be an Atreid in all of us.
Who knows, if they never showed up what could've been…