Thyestes

Thyestes and his brother, Atreus, were exiled by their father for having murdered their half-brother, Chrysippus, in their desire for the throne of Olympia.

Upon searching his flock, however, Atreus discovered a golden lamb which he gave to his wife, Aerope, to hide from the goddess.

Zeus sent Hermes to him, advising him to get Thyestes to agree that should the sun rise in the west and set in the east, Atreus could have his throne back.

Only as he entered adulthood did Thyestes reveal the truth to Aegisthus, that he was both father and grandfather to the boy and that Atreus was his uncle.

Shortly after, he helped the brothers return to Mycenae to overthrow Thyestes, forcing him to live in Kythira, where he died.

As a token of good will and allegiance, King Tyndareus offered his daughters to Agamemnon and Menelaus as wives, Clytemnestra and Helen respectively.

Tired of the bloodshed, the gods exonerated Orestes and declared this the end of the curse on the house of Atreus, as described in Aeschylus' play The Eumenides.

However, other stories say that when Aletes and Erigone came of age and became rulers at Mycenae, Orestes returned with an army then killed his half-brother and raped his half-sister, who gave birth to a son, Penthilus.

Prosper Jolyot Crebillon (1674–1762) wrote a tragedy "Atree et Thyeste" (1707), which is prominent in two tales of ratiocination by Edgar Allan Poe.

The libretto was a text in French by Hugo Claus, based on his 20th century play with the same title (in Dutch: Thyestes).

"The reminiscence of Atreus' speech in the Thyestes of Seneca, which might subtend Cleopatra's own passionate, distended rhetoric about Antony" (Edgecombe, 257).