Scion of the Pelopid house (son of the quartigod Pelops). King of Mycenae; brother and mortal enemy of Thyestes. Their feud over the golden lamb — token of rule, stolen by Atreus's adulterous wife Aerope for Thyestes — culminates in Atreus's revenge: the Thyestean feast, at which he serves Thyestes the flesh of his own sons. Aeschylus's Oresteia makes that banquet the house's primal pollution. Atreus is in turn killed by Aegisthus, Thyestes's incest-begotten avenger. Father of Agamemnon, Menelaus (see UPDATE-NEEDED), and Anaxibia by Aerope.