[14]
But seeking by all means to pay Atreus out,
Thyestes inquired of the oracle on the subject, and received an answer that it could be
done if he were to beget a son by intercourse with his own daughter. He did so
accordingly, and begot Aegisthus by his daughter. And Aegisthus, when he was grown to
manhood and had learned that he was a son of Thyestes, killed Atreus, and restored the
kingdom to Thyestes.1
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1 The later history of Thyestes, including his incest with his daughter Pelopia, is narrated much more fully by Hyginus, Fab. 87, 88, who is believed to have derived the story from the Thyestes of Sophocles. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 185ff. The incest and the birth of Aegisthus, who is said to have received his name because he was suckled by a goat, are told more briefly by Lactantius Placidus （on Statius, Theb. iv.306） and the First and Second Vatican Mythographers （Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7ff., 126）. The incest is said to have been committed at Sicyon, where the father and daughter met by night without recognizing each other; the recognition occurred at a later time by means of a sword which Pelopia had wrested from her ravisher, and with which, on coming to a knowledge of her relationship to him, she stabbed herself to death.
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
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