Introduction
Atreus was a son of Pelops and king of Mycenae, father of Agamemnon and Menelaus, the two brothers who would lead the Achaean cause at Troy.
Family
A Terrible Vengeance
Atreus's reign was marred by bitter rivalry with his brother Thyestes over the Mycenaean throne. Discovering that Thyestes had seduced his wife, Atreus took a horrifying revenge: he killed Thyestes's own sons and served their flesh to him at a banquet, revealing the truth only after Thyestes had eaten. This atrocity, layered atop the earlier curse of Myrtilus, is treated by Greek tragedians as the deep root of the doom that follows Atreus's descendants, including Agamemnon's own murder.
As with all figures of Greek heroic legend, sources diverge on many particulars; the account above follows the most widely transmitted classical tradition.