In Greek mythology, Pleisthenes or Plisthenes, is the name of several members of the house of Tantalus, the most important being a son of Atreus, said to be the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. Although these two brothers are usually considered to be the sons of Atreus himself, according to some accounts, Pleisthenes was their father, but he died, and Agamemnon and Menelaus were adopted by their grandfather Atreus.

Father of Agamemnon and Menelaus

The Pleisthenes who was said to have been the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus is a puzzling figure, with a confused genealogy, complicated by the existence of other members of the house of Tantalus with the same name. According to the usual version of the story, followed by the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Atreus, the king of Mycenae was the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus, by Aerope, the daughter of the Cretan king Catreus. Grimal, s.v. Menelaus; Hard, pp. 355, 507, 508; Collard and Cropp 2008a, p. 517; Gantz, p. 552; Parada, s.v. Agamemnon; Euripides, Helen 390–392, Orestes 16; Hyginus, Fabulae 97; Apollodorus, E.3.12; Scholia on Iliad 1.7 (citing "Homer" = Hesiod Catalogue of Women fr. 137a Most) and Scholia on Tzetzes' Exegesis in Iliadem 1.122 (citing "Homer" = Hesiod Catalogue of Women fr. 137c Most). They are also the sons of Atreus, in the Iliad and Odyssey, see for example Iliad 11.131, Odyssey 4.462, although Aerope is not mentioned (see Gantz, p. 522). See also Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris 4–5, (Atreus as father, no mention of mother); Hesiod Catalogue of Women fr. 138 Most [= fr. 195 MW], and Sophocles, Ajax 1295–1297 (Aerope as mother, no mention of father). However, according to another tradition, Pleisthenes, the son of Atreus (or Pelops?) was the father, probably by Aerope, of Agamemnon and Menelaus, although some accounts have the mother as Cleolla or Eriphyle. According to varying accounts, Pleisthenes' wife was Aerope, who he had received from the mariner hero Nauplius. Aerope's father Catreus, either because, he found her in bed with a slave, or because of an oracle which said that one of his children would kill him, gave Aerope to Nauplius, to be either drowned, or sold as a slave. However, in both versions of the story, Nauplius spared Aerope and gave her to Pleisthenes. According to this tradition, apparently, Pleisthenes died young, and Agamemnon and Menelaus were raised by their grandfather Atreus. Such accounts were perhaps attempts to reconcile contradictory traditions.

Other Pleisthenes

There were apparently other members of the house of Tantalus also named Pleisthenes:

Sources

In Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Pleisthenes is nowhere mentioned, and Agamemnon and Menelaus were the sons of Atreus However, from ancient commentators on the Iliad we are told of another tradition, followed by Hesiod, Aeschylus, Porphyry, and "others", in which Pleisthenes was the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. An Iliad scholium says that, according to Hesiod, Agamemnon was the son of Pleisthenes and Aerope. Another Iliad scholium, citing Porphyry and "many others", says that Pleisthenes fathered Agamemnon and Menelaus, did nothing of note, and died young, with Atreus raising his sons. Neither, of these Iliad scholia say who Pleisthenes' parents were, but Tzetzes' in his commentary on the Iliad, says that his father was Atreus and that, rather than being his wife, Aerope was his mother: In a scholium on Euripides' Orestes (which has sometimes been attributed to Hellanicus), Pleisthenes is again the son of Atreus, and the father of Agamemnon, Menelaus and Anaxibia, but Cleolla, rather than being Pleisthenes' wife, is his mother, and his wife is the otherwise unknown Eriphyle. The patronymic "Pleisthenides" occurs in several ancient sources. Stesichorus uses it twice, probably referring to Menelaus, in one fragment (209 PMG), and Agamemnon, in another (219 PMG). Ibycus refers to Agamemnon as "the king Pleisthenides, leader of men, son of noble father Atreus" (282 PMG), which would seemingly make some Pleisthenes an ancestor of Atreus. Bacchylides, in the same poem, refers to Menelaus as both "Atreides" and "Pleisthenides". Aeschylus's Agamemnon, refers to Agamemnon's family as the Pleisthenidae ("house of Pleisthenes"), and the "race of Pleisthenes", although exactly which branch of Agamemnon's family is meant is unclear. Pleisthenes was also the subject of Euripides's lost tragedy, Pleisthenes. A possible plot for the play is found in Hyginus, Fabulae 86: The mythographer Apollodorus gives an account of how Aerope came to be Pliesthenes' wife: However, elsewhere he has Aerope as the wife of Atreus, and Agamemnon and Menelaus as the sons of her and Atreus, Scholia to Pindar's Olympian 1 mention a son, or bastard son, of Pelops, named Pleisthenes, which some scholars have identified with the Pleisthenes who was the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus.