(Ἀτρεῖδαι, οἱ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Collective name for AGAMEMNON and MENELAUS, the sons of ATREUS, mythical king of MYCENAE. Herodotus mentions the brothers’ expedition to TROY (to recover Helen) as one of the massive expeditions in Greek history (“according to the story,” kata ta legomena), only to say that their force in no way compared to that of XERXES in size (7.20.2). He thus impresses his reader with the sheer scale of Xerxes’ endeavor (Shimron 1973, 46–47).
SEE ALSO: Historical Method; Myth; Trojan War
REFERENCE
1 Shimron, B. 1973. “Πρῶτος τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν.” Eranos 71: 45–51.
ATTAGINUS (Ἀτταγῖνος, ὁ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Theban, son of PHRYNON. Attaginus, along with TIMAGENIDES, was the most prominent of the leaders of the OLIGARCHY at THEBES and led the city’s medizing efforts in 481–479 BCE (9.86.1; cf. Thuc. 3.62.3–4). Before the Battle of PLATAEA, Attaginus hosted an elaborate feast at Thebes for fifty high‐ranking Persians, including the general MARDONIUS, and fifty members of the Theban elite; each dining couch paired a Persian and a Theban (9.15.4–16.1; cf. Ath. 4.148e). After their victory at Plataea, the Greeks besieged Thebes and demanded that Attaginus and Timagenides be handed over. When a settlement had been worked out but Attaginus succeeded in escaping, the Thebans delivered his sons in his place to PAUSANIAS, but the Spartan commander refused to hold them responsible for their father’s actions (9.88).
PLUTARCH writes that Attaginus was a guest‐friend of the exiled Spartan king DEMARATUS, who arranged the same relationship for Attaginus with XERXES (Mor. 864f). Attaginus’ subsequent fate is otherwise unknown. The Roman‐era author Pausanias includes him in a list of great traitors in Greek history (7.10.2).
SEE ALSO: Blame; Boeotians; Feasting; Guest‐friendship; Medize; Thersander of Orchomenus
FURTHER READING
1 Bowie, A. M. 2003. “‘Fate May Harm Me, I Have Dined Today’: Near‐Eastern Royal Banquets and Greek Symposia in Herodotus.” Pallas 61: 91–99.
ATTICA, see ATHENS
ATYS ( Ἄτυς, ὁ) father of Pythius
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Patronymic, father of PYTHIUS, a wealthy Lydian who entertains XERXES and the entire Persian army at CELAENAE during their march to Greece in 480 BCE (7.27–29, 38–40). This Atys may be the son of the Lydian king CROESUS whose tragic, divinely foretold death is memorably narrated by Herodotus (1.34–45); he does not make the identification, but the ages and CHRONOLOGY for Atys and Pythius internal to the narrative make it possible.
SEE ALSO: Atys son of Croesus; Lydia
FURTHER READING
1 Dusinberre, Elspeth R. M. 2003. Aspects of Empire in Achaemenid Sardis, 120–22, 154. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ATYS ( Ἄτυς, ὁ) son of Croesus
ANTHONY ELLIS
University of Bern
Atys, son of the Lydian king CROESUS, is doomed from his first mention in the Histories, where a dream prophesies his DEATH. This dream, the narrator comments, was presumably “nemesis from god” taking Croesus because he thought himself “the most happy/blessed (ὀλβιώτατος) of all men” (1.34). Croesus vainly attempts to avert this dream‐vision, which reveals that Atys will die at an IRON spear‐point, by (among other things) keeping his son away from his usual military campaigns (compare the ultimately futile responses to prophetic DREAMS by ASTYAGES and CYRUS (II): 1.107–8, 209.1). When a request comes for Atys to drive out a dangerous boar, Croesus refuses but Atys overhears. In the ensuing argument Atys persuades Croesus that a boar, bereft of iron weaponry, presents no threat (for the sophistic overtones of Atys’ rationalistic but ultimately flawed arguments, see Fornara 1990, 35–36) and expresses his SHAME at being kept from his usual manly pursuits. Croesus reluctantly dispatches Atys and appoints the ill‐fated ADRASTUS SON OF GORDIAS as his guard. But Adrastus’ misthrown spear kills Atys during the hunt, and the PROPHECY thus comes to fulfillment through Croesus’ own attempt to evade it (1.36–43). Atys, like Adrastus, seems a wholly blameless character, and the suffering and death of both is purely collateral damage (on ancestral and communal guilt in Herodotus, see Gagné 2013, 275–343). The unlucky PYTHIUS of 7.27.1 may be the son of this same Atys (if so, presumably named for Croesus’ relationship with the Delphic ORACLE).
The name Ἄτυς, like Ἄδρηστος/Adrastus, has an ominous ring in Greek (ἄτη means “ruin,” “misfortune,” or “disastrous delusion”), but it is well‐attested in LYDIA and PHRYGIA (van Bremen 2010, 448; cf. Hdt. 1.7.3, 1.26, 7.27.1) and thus fits the Anatolian and specifically Lydian setting. Similarities with one version of the myth of Attis, lover of the Phrygian goddess CYBELE, who was also killed by a boar, may indicate a link between the two stories—alternatively it may be nothing more than the coincidence of a common Anatolian name and the folk motif of porcine demise (so Roller 1999, 244–45).
SEE ALSO: Atys father of Pythius; Atys son of Manes; Disaster; Fate; Happiness; Hunting; Mysia; Pigs
REFERENCES
1 Fornara, Charles. 1990. “Human History and the Constraint of Fate in Herodotus.” In Conflict, Antithesis, and the Ancient Historian, edited by June W. Allison, 25–45. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
2 Gagné, Renaud. 2013. Ancestral Fault in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3 Roller, Lynn E. 1999. In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
4 van Bremen, Riet. 2010. “Adrastos at Aphrodisias.” In Onomatologos. Studies in Greek Personal Names Presented to Elaine Matthews, edited by Richard Catling and Fabienne Marchand, 440–55. Exeter: Oxbow Books.
ATYS ( Ἄτυς, ὁ) son of Manes
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Legendary king of the Lydians, at that time called MEIONES. Herodotus reports that during Atys’ kingship, a harsh famine struck LYDIA, which eventually compelled half the population to emigrate to ITALY, led by Atys’ son TYRSENUS (1.94.3–6). The other half remained in Lydia; after Atys’ death, his other son LYDUS became king there, after whom the people were renamed (1.7.3; 7.74.1). The name Atys reappears later in Herodotus in the Lydian royal family (1.34; perhaps
