About Agathon’s Thyestes

Abstract

Only a four-verse fragment, a quote by Athenaeus, has remained from Thyestes, the tragedy by Agathon. In that short fragment the Curetes appear as suitors of Amphithea, the niece of Adrastus: they say that they have shaved their hair off after being rejected. In this article it is posed the hypothesis that the topic in Agathon’s Thyestes might be similar to that of Thyestes in Sicion, by Sophocles, whose plot seems to be depicted in Hyg. Fab 88 and in a crater of Apulia: the rape of Pelopia by her father Thyestes and the abandonment of Aegisthus, the child of the incestuous union. Also, in the article there’s an attempt to reconstruct the plot of Agathon’s play by justifying the presence of the Curetes and trying to find the relationship between these and the legend of Thyestes as well as the episode of the Amphithea’s wedding. Finally, it is suggested the possibility that the Thyestes could have been a satirical play or a mixture of elements of both satirical play and tragedy.