1. Tantalus, son of Zeus, king of Lydia in Asia Minor, invites the gods for dinner and cooks his little son Pelops - to try if they will sense the human flesh. - They did (except Demeter, who, distraught over her daughter's departure to the underworld, absent-mindedly ate a piece.) Gods threw the pieces of meat in a caldron, re-cooked it, and the boy thus was miraculously brought back to life. (Sacrificial death & revival = rite of passage?) (Tantalus was punished in the underworld by eternal thirst and hunger in view of drink and food: hence "tantalize.")

2.  Pelops migrates to Greece (he is the eponym of Peloponnessus) and wins the bride Hippodameia in the chariot race against her father Oenomaus, who had been killing every suitor. Pelops bribes Oenomaus' charioteer Myrtilus, son of Hermes, to sabotage the race and kills the father-in-law, instead of being killed by him. Pelops' victory is commemorated by the institution of the Olympic Games!

3.  O-ops! Pelops fails to reward Myrtilus and pushes him off tghe cliff; while falling down, Myrtilus curses Pelops and his descendants. (Now Myrtilus is among the stars, as the constellation of Charioteer - Auriga.)

4.  The sons of Pelops and Hippodameia are Atreus and Thyestes: They share the love of Atreus' wife, queen Aerope and quarrel over the kingdom of Mycenae. Atreus cooks Thyestes' little sons and invites him for dinner. Crushed by learning the ingredients of his meal, Thyestes mates with his own daughter Pelopia to produce the avenger: the son Aegisthus (exposed and suckled by a goat, whence his name < Aigis-: goat-ie).

5.  Sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus, come to power and marry the daughters of Leda: Menelaus takes the beautiful Helen (who later eloped and caused the Trojan War); Agamemnon takes Clytemnestra. (O-ops! some reports indicate that Clytemnestra had already been married to a son of Thyestes, Pleisthenes or Tantalus, what's his name, and in order to repossess the lady, Agamemnon had to kill her young husband and their newly-born baby.) From Agamemnon, Clytemnestra has the daughters Iphigenia and Electra, and the son Orestes.

6.  The Trojan War breaks out, and Agamemnon is made commander-en-chief of the united Greek forces. (O-ops! there is no wind for the fleet to sail off from the harbor of Aulis; the goddess Artemis demands that Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia is sacrificed on her altar.) The bereaved mother Clytemnestra vows revenge. (See Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis.)

7.  In the absence of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra befriends Aegisthus, the surviving son of Thyestes. She axes her home-coming husband Agamemnon in the bathtub, and also slaughters, as his concubine, the captive princess Cassandra, prophetic virgin of Apollo. (See Aeschylus, Agamemnon.)

8.  After some years, the queen Clytemnestra, now happily married to Aegisthus, has a nightmare of breastfeeding a snake which suckles blood from her nipples. On the hint from the palace sooth-sayers, she feels it's time to send some appeasing offerings to the grave of Agamemnon. Coming with libations, her daughter Electra meets there the brother Orestes, who had been raised away from home. He came with the mission, following the command of the Delphic oracle of Apollo to avenge the murder of their father Agamemnon.
      Assisted by Electra and his foster brother Pylades (whom Electra later is to marry), Orestes kills Aegisthus and (after some hesitation) Clytemnestra. Furies (Erinyes), goddesses of blood-vengeance, arise from the ground and chase the matricide Orestes. (Aeschylus, Libation-Bearers = Choephori; Sophocles, Electra; Euripides, Electra.)

9.   Rushed by maternal Furies, Orestes and Pylades once come to the remote barbaric land of Tauris (modern Crimea peninsula), where they are about to be sacrificed to the local Artemis, who demands every stranger slaughtered at her altar. The high priestess of this savage cult appears to be Iphigenia, Orestes' sister, whom their father Agamemnon had sacrificed to Artemis in Aulis: the goddess miraculously saved her from the altar and sent by air to Tauris, substituting a hind at the altar. Brother and sister recognize each other ant flee from this barbaric land back to Greece, taking with them the sacred image of primitive Artemis, the xoanon.Iphigenia settles in Brauron, Attica, as the priestess of the local cult of Artemis Brauronia, where 5-10 years old Athenian girls performed the Bear Dances in order to be eligible to marry. (Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris.)

10.  Pursued by the Furies=Erinyes, Orestes comes to the temple of Delphic Apollo. The god sends him to Athens, where the wise goddess Athena will (hopefully) find some way to assuage the old Furies. Athena institutes the sacred court Areopagus, which judges the case of Orestes: Erinyes are pressing charges; Apollo represents the defence. Athena presided over the court proceedings. Orestes is acquitted by 50% of votes. The Furies finally rest their case (and assume the name Eumenides, the Well-Meaning Ones), in exchange for eternal honors and their own sanctuary under the hill of Areopagus. (Aeschylus, Eumenides.)