LAIOS AND CHRYSIPPOS
A widely reported Greek myth, sometimes said to be the first instance of pederasty, tells of how the Theban prince and exile Laios, aged about 21,[1] fell in love with and abducted the boy Chrysippos, bastard son of Pelops King of Pisa (a city in what was to be known after him as the Peloponnese). As Pelops’s son Atreus, mentioned in what follows, was the father of the leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War, these events were imagined as having taken place in the 13th century BC. While some Greeks of the classical age apparently believed Laios introduced humanity to pederasty, they can hardly have thought the gods were previously impervious to it considering Pelops himself was believed to have earlier been the loved boy of Poseidon, god of the sea.[2]
Presumably much the greatest source of information on Laios and Chrysippos was the lost 4th century BC tragedy of Euripides, Chrysippos. Presented here are all the surviving ancient references (sadly only allusions or fragments) to Laios and Chrysippos together or, in a pederastic context, individually. The Latinisation of Greek names in all the translations has been undone in favour of closer transliteration of the Greek in all the translations presented here.
Pseudo-Apollodoros, Library III 5 v
The Βιβλιοθήκη Bibliotheke (Library), a compendium of Greek mythology, was traditionally attributed to the 2nd century BC Apollodoros of Athens, but was actually written in the 1st or possibly even 2nd century AD. The translation is by James G. Frazer. For the Loeb Classical Library volume 121 (William Heinemann, London, 1921).
On what befell Laios on being expelled from Thebes:
| He [Laios] resided in Peloponnese, being hospitably received by Pelops; and while he taught Chrysippos, the son of Pelops, to drive a chariot, he conceived a passion for the lad and carried him off. | ὁ δὲ ἐν Πελοποννήσῳ διατελῶν ἐπιξενοῦται Πέλοπι, καὶ τούτου παῖδα Χρύσιππον ἁρματοδρομεῖν διδάσκων ἐρασθεὶς ἀναρπάζει. |
Hyginus, Myths 85 and 271
The Fabulae (Myths), three hundred short and crude tellings of myths, was attributed to the imperial freedman and librarian C. Julius Hyginus (ca. 64 BC-AD 17), but was more likely written by someone else, perhaps as much as a century and a half later. The translation is by Mary A. Grant, The Myths of Hyginus (University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, 1960).
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CHRYSIPPOS: Laios son of Labdakos, carried off Chrysippos, illegitimate son of Pelops, at the Nemean games because of his exceeding beauty. Pelops made war and recovered him. At the instigation of their mother Hippodameia, Atreus and Thyestes killed him. When Pelops blamed Hippodameia, she killed herself. YOUTHS WHO WERE MOST HANDSOME: […] Chrysippos, son of Pelops, whom Theseus stole from the games. |
[85] CHRYSIPPUS: Laius Labdaci filius Chrysippum Pelopis filium nothum propter formae dignitatem Nemeae ludis rapuit, quem ab eo Pelops bello recuperauit. hunc Atreus et Thyestes matris Hippodamiae impulsu interfecerunt; Pelops cum Hippodamiam argueret, ipsa se interfecit. [271 QVI EPHEBI FORMOSISSIMI FVERVNT …] Chrysippus Pelopis filius quem Theseus ludis rapuit. |
Plutarch, Life of Pelopidas 19 i
The Greek biographer and essayist Plutarch wrote this life of the Theban general Pelopidas (died 364 BC) at the beginning of the second century AD, as one of his Parallel Lives.
| Speaking generally, however, it was not the passion of Laios that, as the poets say, first made this form of love customary among the Thebans; but their law-givers, | Ὅλως δὲ τῆς περὶ τοὺς ἐραστὰς συνηθείας οὐχ, ὥσπερ οἱ ποιηταὶ λέγουσι, Θηβαίοις τὸ Λαΐου πάθος ἀρχὴν παρέσχεν, ἀλλ᾿ οἱ νομοθέται |
Plutarch, Greek and Roman Parallel Stories 313e
Greek and Roman Parallel Stories Συναγωγὴ ἱστοριῶν παραλλήλων Ἑλληνικῶν καὶ Ρωμαϊκῶν was one of the essays in the same Plutarch’s Moralia, written ca. AD 100.
| [33] Pelops, the son of Tantalos and Euryanassa, married Hippodameia and begat Atreus and Thyestes; but by the nymph Danaïs he had Chrysippos, whom he loved more than his legitimate sons. But Laios the Theban conceived a desire for him and carried him off; and, although he was arrested by Thyestes and Atreus, he obtained mercy from Pelops because of his love. But Hippodameia tried to persuade Atreus and Thyestes to do away with Chrysippos, since she knew that he would be a contestant for the kingship; but when they refused, she stained her hands with the pollution. For at dead of night, when Laios was asleep, she drew his sword, wounded Chrysippos, and fixed the sword in his body. Laios was suspected because of the sword, but was saved by Chrysippos who, though half-dead, acknowledged the truth. Pelops buried Chrysippos and banished Hippodameia. So Dositheos in his Descendants of Pelops. | [33] Πέλοψ Ταντάλου καὶ Εὐρυανάσσης γήμας Ἰπποδάμειαν ἔσχεν Ἀτρέα καὶ Θυέστην, ἐκ δὲ Δαναΐδος νύμφης Χρύσιππον, ὃν πλέον τῶν γνησίων ἔστερξε. Λάιος δὲ ὁ Θηβαῖος ἐπιθυμήσας ἥρπασεν αὐτόν. καὶ συλληφθεὶς ὑπὸ Θυέστου καὶ Ἀτρέως ἐλέους ἔτυχε παρὰ Πέλοπος διὰ τὸν ἔρωτα. Ἱπποδάμεια δ᾿ ἀνέπειθεν Ἀτρέα καὶ Θυέστην ἀναιρεῖν αὐτόν, εἰδυῖα ἔσεσθαι ἔφεδρον βασιλείας. τῶν δ᾿ ἀρνησαμένων, αὐτὴ τῷ μύσει τὰς χεῖρας ἔχρισε. νυκτὸς γὰρ βαθείας κοιμωμένου Λαΐου, τὸ ξίφος ἑλκύσασα καὶ τρώσασα τὸν Χρύσιππον ἐγκαταπήγνυσι τὸ ξίφος. ὑπονοηθεὶς δὲ ὁ Λάιος διὰ τὸ ξίφος ῥύεται ὑπὸ ἡμιθνῆτος τοῦ Χρυσίππου τὴν ἀλήθειαν ὁμολογήσαντος· ὁ δὲ θάψας τὴν Ἱπποδάμειαν ἐξώρισεν· ὡς Δοσίθεος ἐν Πελοπίδαις. |
Athenaios, The Learned Banqueters 602f-603a
The Deipnosophistai Δειπνοσοφισταί (The Learned Banqueters) of the Greek rhetorician Athenaios Ἀθήναιος of Naukratis in Egypt, written around the late 2nd century AD, was presented as an account of conversations at a series of banquets and quoting or citing heavily earlier ancient authors (many of whose works have not survived). The translation is by Charles Burton Gulick for the Loeb Classical Library, The Deipnosophists volume 6, published by William Heinemann Ltd. in London in 1937.
| The practice of paederasty came into Greece from the Cretans first, according to Timaios.[3] But others declare that Laios initiated such love-practices when he was the guest of Pelops; he became enamoured of Pelops’s son, Chrysippos, whom he seized and placed in his chariot, and then fled to Thebes. Yet Praxilla of Sicyon says that Chrysippos was carried off by Zeus. | τοῦ παιδεραστεῖν παρὰ πρώτων Κρητῶν εἰς τοὺς Ἕλληνας παρελθόντος, ὡς ἱστορεῖ Τίμαιος. ἄλλοι δέ φασι τῶν τοιούτων ἐρώτων κατάρξασθαι Λάιον [603a] ξενωθέντα παρὰ Πέλοπι καὶ ἐρασθέντα τοῦ [603a] υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Χρυσίππου, ὃν καὶ ἁρπάσαντα καὶ ἀναθέμενον εἰς ἅρμα εἰς Θήβας φυγεῖν. Πράξιλλα δ᾿ ἡ Σικυωνία ὑπὸ Διός φησιν ἁρπασθῆναι τὸν Χρύσιππον. |
Tit. Flavius Clemens, The Exhortation to the Greeks, II
The author, known in English as Clement of Alexandria, was a Christian convert considered a Church Father, and his book here quoted from, and written in about 190, was an exhortation to the Greeks to adopt Christianity, arguing that the Greek gods were false and poor moral examples, in the following example because they were given over to lust. The translation is by G. W. Butterworth in the Loeb Classical Library volume XCII (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1919).
| For your gods did not abstain even from boys. One loved Hylas, another Hyakinthos, another Pelops, another Chrysippos, another Ganymedes. | οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐδὲ παίδων ἀπέσχοντο οἱ παρ᾿ ὑμῖν θεοί, ὁ μέν τις Ὕλα, ὁ δὲ Ὑακίνθου, ὁ δὲ Πέλοπος, ὁ δὲ Χρυσίππου, ὁ δὲ Γανυμήδους ἐρῶντες. |
Aelian, Historical Miscellany XIII 5
The Historical Miscellany of Claudius Aelianus, a Roman writer of the early 3rd century AD who wrote in Greek, is a series of anecdotes from older writers.
The translation is by Nigel G. Wilson for the Loeb Classical Library volume 486 published by the Harvard University Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1997. His Latinisation of Greek names has been undone. A few words have been amended with full explanations in footnotes.
| They say Laios was the first lover of a noble boy; he made off with Chrysippos, son of Pelops. As a result the Thebans thought it a good thing to love the handsome.[4] | Ἐρασθῆναι πρῶτον γενναίων παιδικῶν λέγουσι Λάιον, ἁρπάσαντα Χρύσιππον τὸν Πέλοπος. καὶ ἐκ τούτου τοῖς Θηβαίοις ἓν τῶν καλῶν ἐδόκει τὸ τῶν ὡραίων ἐρᾶν. |
Aelian, On the Nature of Animals VI 15
The same Aelian wrote Περὶ ζῴων ἰδιότητος On the Nature of Animals, a collection of facts and beliefs about the behaviour of animals in seventeen books, around the same time. The translation is by A. F. Scholfield for the Loeb Classical Library volume 446, published by the Harvard University Press, 1958.
| But Laios, my good Euripides, did not act so in the case of Chrysippos, although, as you yourself and the common report tell me, he was the first among the Greeks to inaugurate the love of boys.[5] | Λάιος δὲ ἐπὶ Χρυσίππῳ, ὦ καλὲ Εὐριπίδη, τοῦτο οὐκ ἔδρασε, καίτοι τοῦ τῶν ἀρρένων ἔρωτος, ὡς λέγεις αὐτὸς καὶ ἡ φήμη διδάσκει, Ἑλλήνων πρώτιστος ἄρξας. |
Scholia on Euripides, The Phoenician Women 1605 and 1748
This is an annotation made sometimes in the 9th to 12th centuries (but taking on board earlier scholarship) to a manuscript of Euripides’s 5th century BC play. The Phoenician Women. The translation is this website’s.
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1605. “Having received curses.” […] Another interpretation: “Having received curses” means “having taken curses from Laios,” that is, “having inherited them,” and “having passed them along to my children.” By “curses” he refers to those that follow their race from Pelops, not to those that Laios had supposedly laid upon Oidipos (for no such curse by Laios against Oidipos is recorded), but to those which Pelops called down upon Laios, being angered over the abduction of his own son Chrysippos, whom Laius had seized.[6] 1748. Peisandros relates that the Sphinx was sent against the Thebans by Hera in her anger, from the remotest regions of Ethiopia, because they did not punish Laios, who had acted impiously in his transgressive desire for Chrysippos, whom he had seized from Pisa.[7] […] Laios, however, was the first to conceive the transgressive desire. He kept him. But Chrysippos, out of shame, destroyed himself with the sword. Then indeed Teiresias, as a prophet, seeing that Laios was hated by the gods, kept turning him away from the road leading to Apollo, and told him rather to sacrifice sacred rites to Hera, the goddess who appoints marriages; but he treated him with utter contempt. |
1605. Αρὰς παραλαβών […] “Αλλως. ̓Αρὰς παραλαβών] Κατάρας παρὰ τοῦ Λαΐου λαβὼν, ἀντὶ τοῦ κληρονομήσας, καὶ πρὸς τοὺς παῖδας παραπέμψας. ἀρὰς δὲ λέγει τὰς παρακολουθούσας τῷ γένει αὐτῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ Πέλοπος, οὐχ ἃς αὐτῷ ὁ Λάϊος κατηράσατο (ἐπεὶ οὐδὲ φέρεταί τι τοιοῦτον ἀπὸ τοῦ Λαΐου πρὸς τὸν Οἰδίποδα) ἀλλ ̓ ἂς ὁ Πέλοψ Λαΐῳ κατηράσατο, δυσθυμήσας ἐπὶ τῇ υἱοῦ αὑτοῦ Χρυσίππου ἁρπαγῇ, ἣν ἡρπάξατο ὁ Λάϊος. Ότι 1748. Σφιγγὸς ὃς μόνος] Ἱστορεῖ Πείσανδρος, ὅτι κατὰ χόλον τῆς Ἥρας ἐπέμφθη ἡ Σφίγξ τοῖς Θη βαίοις ἀπὸ τῶν ἐσχάτων μερῶν τῆς Αἰθιοπίας, ὅτι τὸν Λάϊον ἀσεβήσαντα εἰς τὸν παράνομον ἔρωτα τοῦ Χρυσίππου, ὃν ἥρπασεν ἀπὸ τῆς Πίσης, οὐκ ἐτιμωρήσαντο. […] πρῶτος δὲ ὁ Λάϊος τὸν ἀθέμιστον ἔρωτα. τοῦτον ἔσχεν. ὁ δὲ Χρύσιππος ὑπὸ αἰσχύνης ἑαυτὸν διεχρήσατο τῷ ξίφει. τότε μὲν οὖν ὁ Τειρεσίας, ὡς μάντις, ἰδὼν ὅτι θεοστυγὴς ἦν ὁ Λάϊος, ἀπέτρεπεν αὐτὸν τῆς ἐπὶ τὸν ̓Απόλλωνα ὁδοῦ· τῇ δὲ Ἥρᾳ μᾶλλον τῇ γαμοστόλῳ θεᾷ θύειν ἱερά· ὁ δὲ αὐτὸν ἐξεφαύλιζεν. |
More on Chrysippos
Chrysippos is further mentioned in the following ancient sources that say nothing about his having been loved by any man or god:
Thoukydides, The Peloponnesian War I 9, Hellanikos of Lesbos fragment 85, Plato, Kratylos 395b and Scholia on Euripides, Orestis 5.01 mention his murder by Atreus. Pausanias, Description of Greece VI 20 vii mentions Pelops’s anger with Hippodameia over his death. Hyginus, Myths 243 says she killed herself because his murder was done at her urging.
Reconciliation and amalgamation of the sources
If one disregards only the brief, semi-literate and self-contradictory account of Hyginus (including the absurdly discrepant idea that it was Theseus rather than Laios who abducted Chrysippos), the sources are barely in conflict (as they so often are severely with famous myths) and seriously so on only one point. Putting them together, one may say this of Laios and Pelops:
Laios, an exiled Theban prince aged about 21, went to Pisa, where the King, Pelops, gave him refuge and hospitality. There he gave lessons in riding a chariot to Pelops’s beautiful and beloved bastard son Chrysippos, with a view to the boy competing in the Nemean games. However, Laios fell in love with him and abducted him from the games. It is unexplained whether Chrysippos went willingly or whether this was an abduction only in the important sense that the boy was taken away without his father’s consent, a gross abuse of the hospitality Pelops had given Laios. Pelops was naturally furious and “made war” with the help of his legitimate sons Atreus and Thyestes, resulting in the recovery of Chrysippos and capture of Laios. However, he then realised that Laios genuinely loved the boy and accordingly forgave him, even allowing them to sleep together in his own palace. This last point may be surmised from his wife Hippodameia, intent on destroying Chrysippos as a rival to her own sons, killing him at dead of night with Laios’s own sword (the only unavoidable variation in this being that some sources say she got her sons to do it on her behalf) while Laios himself was asleep. Laios was suspected of the foul deed, since it was done with his own sword, but the dying Chrysippos insisted on his innocence. From all of this, it would seem incontestably probable that Chrysippos, whatever his feelings may originally have been when Laios had abducted him, had accepted him as his lover. Nevertheless, Laios’s violation of the reciprocal laws governing hospitality was so outrageous that, despite Pelops’s alleged forgiveness, an alternative account of the curse that plagued the royal house of Thebes blamed Laios’s misconduct for it.
The one serious discrepancy is that the latest source quoted here, the Byzantine scholiast to Euripides’s Phoenician Women claims that Chrysippos killed himself out of shame, but this runs counter to not only all the ancient sources quoted, but all those besides that did not mention the boy’s abduction but agree that he was murdered by his step-mother or her sons. One is bound to wonder if this claim is not an anachronistic and Christian interpolation.
[1] These details appear in the most detailed account of Laios by pseudo-Apollodoros, immediately preceding the passage quoted on this webpage.
[2] Pindar, Olympian 1. lines 39–52.
[3] Timaios was a Sicilian historian of the early 3rd century BC.
[4] Aelian is the only surviving source to draw a connection between this story and the Theban sexual taste for boys in the classical age, apparently strong and overt even by general Greek standards, though, as quoted above, Plutarch says this was the general view of the poets.
[5] The comparison being made is with the dolphin in the just-related story of the boy of Iasos. The heart-broken dolphin killed himself after accidentally killing the boy he loved. The implication is that Laios, in Euripides’s lost play Chrysippos, did not treat Chrysippos as lovingly (or perhaps loyally) as the dolphin did his beloved.
[6] This interpretation of the curse laid upon the Theban King Oidipos is presented as an alternative to a first one given, that Laios himself had “realised that I [Oidipos] had been born not in accordance with the will of the gods, and so he called down curses upon me.”
[7] Peisandros almost certainly refers to the 7th century BC epic poet Peisandros of Kameiros in Rhodes, author of the mythological work the Herakleia. This is the only source for this particular explanation of the appearance of the monstrous and murderous Sphinx when Laios had become King of Thebes. It was solving the riddles posed by the Shinx and thus destroying her that led to Laios’s son Oidipos becoming King and unwittingly marrying his mother, leading to much further tragedy.
Laios’s wish to abduct Chrysippos was παράνομος (transgressive or contrary to custom) as a violation of xenia (guest-friendship): Pelops had given him hospitality and he repaid him by abducting his son.
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