His mother is said variously to be the Amazon Myrto;[1] Phaethusa, daughter of Danaus;[2] or a nymph[3] or mortal woman named Clytie,[4] Clymene or Cleobule[5][AI-generated source?]
Myrtilus was the charioteer of King Oenomaus of Pisa in Elis, on the northwest coast of the Peloponnesus.
On the eve of the fateful horse race that would decide the marriage between Pelops and Hippodamia, Myrtilus was approached by Pelops (or in some accounts, by Hippodamia) who wanted him to hinder the efforts of his master, Oenomaus, to win the race.
Myrtilus, who loved Hippodamia himself but was too afraid to ask her hand of her father, agreed and sabotaged the king's chariot by replacing the bronze linchpins with fake ones made of bees' wax.
This curse would haunt future generations of Pelops' family, including Atreus, Thyestes, Agamemnon, Aegisthus, Menelaus, Orestes and Chrysippus.