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91-554: Atreus and his twin brother Thyestes were exiled by their father for murdering their half-brother Chrysippus in their desire for the throne of Olympia . They took refuge in Mycenae , where they ascended to the throne in the absence of King Eurystheus , who was fighting the Heracleidae . Eurystheus had meant for their stewardship to be temporary, but it became permanent after his death in battle. According to most ancient sources, Atreus

182-476: A "shortage of animal protein" was also the underlying reason for Aztec cannibalism. The cultural anthropologist Marshall Sahlins , on the other hand, rejected such explanations as overly simplistic, stressing that cannibal customs must be regarded as "complex phenomen[a]" with "myriad attributes" which can only be understood if one considers "symbolism, ritual, and cosmology" in addition to their "practical function". In pre-modern medicine, an explanation given by

273-902: A belief that eating a person's flesh or internal organs will endow the cannibal with some of the positive characteristics of the deceased. However, several authors investigating exocannibalism in New Zealand , New Guinea , and the Congo Basin observe that such beliefs were absent in these regions. A further type, different from both exo- and endocannibalism, is autocannibalism (also called autophagy or self-cannibalism ), "the act of eating parts of oneself". It does not ever seem to have been an institutionalized practice, but occasionally occurs as pathological behaviour, or due to other reasons such as curiosity. Also on record are instances of forced autocannibalism committed as acts of aggression, where individuals are forced to eat parts of their own bodies as

364-697: A boy aged around 5 or 6. As the daily energy need of an adult man is about 2,400 kilocalories, a dead male body could thus have fed a group of 25 men for a bit more than two days, provided they ate nothing but the human flesh alone – longer if it was part of a mixed diet. The nutritional value of the human body is thus not insubstantial, though Cole notes that for prehistoric hunters, large megafauna such as mammoths , rhinoceros , and bisons would have been an even better deal as long as they were available and could be caught, because of their much higher body weight. Cases of people eating human livers and hearts , especially of enemies, have been reported from across

455-691: A double bag ... which was put into a large pot" and so boiled alive. While not mentioning live roasting or boiling, European authors also complained about cannibalism and cruelty during the Mongol invasion of Europe , and a drawing in the Chronica Majora (compiled by Matthew Paris ) shows Mongol fighters spit-roasting a human victim. Pedro de Margarit  [ es ] , who accompanied Christopher Columbus during his second voyage , afterwards stated "that he saw there with his own eyes several Indians skewered on spits being roasted over burning coals as

546-527: A drink, the water recedes before he can drink. Thus is derived the word " tantalizing " in English. The gods brought Pelops back to life, replacing the bone in his shoulder with a bit of ivory with the help of Hephaestus, thus marking the family forever afterwards. Pelops married Hippodamia after winning a chariot race against her father, King Oenomaus , by arranging for the sabotage of his would-be-father-in-law's chariot which resulted in his death. The versions of

637-459: A form of torture . Exocannibalism is thus often associated with the consumption of enemies as an act of aggression, a practice also known as war cannibalism . Endocannibalism is often associated with the consumption of deceased relatives in funerary rites driven by affection – a practice known as funerary or mortuary cannibalism . Medicinal cannibalism (also called medical cannibalism ) means "the ingestion of human tissue ... as

728-411: A golden lamb which he gave to his wife, Aerope , to hide from the goddess. She gave it to Thyestes, her lover and Atreus' brother, who then persuaded Atreus to agree that whoever had the lamb should be king. Thyestes produced the lamb and claimed the throne. Atreus retook the throne using advice he received from Zeus , who sent Hermes to him, advising him to make Thyestes agree that if the sun rose in

819-514: A group of cannibals in West Africa in the 14th century, the Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta recorded that, according to their preferences, "the tastiest part of women's flesh is the palms and the breast." Centuries later, the anthropologist Percy Amaury Talbot  [ fr ] wrote that, in southern Nigeria , "the parts in greatest favour are the palms of the hands, the fingers and toes, and, of

910-471: A major part of the grieving process. It has also been explained as a way of guiding the souls of the dead into the bodies of living descendants. In contrast, exocannibalism is the consumption of a person from outside the community. It is frequently "an act of aggression, often in the context of warfare", where the flesh of killed or captured enemies may be eaten to celebrate one's victory over them. Some scholars explain both types of cannibalism as due to

1001-533: A member of the enemy faction, which was enough to get her killed by an angry mob. After the others had left, he "cut open the girl's chest ..., dug out her heart, and took it home to enjoy". In a further case that took place in Wuxuan County , likewise in the Guangxi region, three brothers were beaten to death as supposed enemies; afterwards their livers were cut out, baked, and consumed "as medicine". According to

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1092-438: A narrow sense), but also " lungs , liver , brain , heart , nervous tissue , bone marrow , genitalia and skin ", as well as kidneys . For a typical adult man, the combined nutritional value of all these edible parts is about 126,000 kilocalories (kcal). The nutritional value of women and younger individuals is lower because of their lower body weight – for example, around 86% of a male adult for an adult woman and 30% for

1183-479: A single cooking pot." Al-Latif notes that, while initially people were shocked by such acts, they "eventually ... grew accustomed, and some conceived such a taste for these detestable meats that they made them their ordinary provender ... The horror people had felt at first vanished entirely". After the end of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), a Chinese writer criticized in his recollections of

1274-546: A son who killed his mother was abhorrent to gods and to men'. When he prayed to Apollo , the god advised him to kill his mother. Orestes realized that he must work out the curse on his house, exact vengeance and pay with his own ruin. After Orestes murdered Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, he wandered the land with guilt in his heart. After many years, with Apollo by his side, he pleaded to Athena. No descendant of Atreus had ever done so noble an act and 'neither he nor any descendant of his would ever again be driven into evil by

1365-467: A son, Penthilus . In the first century AD, Seneca the Younger wrote a tragedy called Thyestes . In 1560 Jasper Heywood , then a Fellow of All Souls College , Oxford , published a verse translation . Shakespeare 's tragedy Titus Andronicus derives some of its plot elements from the story of Thyestes. In 1681, John Crowne wrote Thyestes, A Tragedy , based closely on Seneca's Thyestes, but with

1456-458: A supposed medicine or tonic". In contrast to other forms of cannibalism, which Europeans generally frowned upon, the "medicinal ingestion" of various "human body parts was widely practiced throughout Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries", with early records of the practice going back to the first century CE. It was also frequently practised in China . Sacrificial cannibalism refers

1547-549: A treat for the gluttonous." Jean de Léry , who lived for several months among the Tupinambá in Brazil, writes that several of his companions reported "that they had seen not only a number of men and women cut in pieces and grilled on the boucans , but also little unweaned children roasted whole" after a successful attack on an enemy village. According to German ethnologist Leo Frobenius , children captured by Songye slave raiders in

1638-678: A variety of circumstances and for various motives. To adequately express this diversity, Shirley Lindenbaum suggests that "it might be better to talk about 'cannibalisms ' " in the plural. One major distinction is whether cannibal acts are accepted by the culture in which they occur – institutionalized cannibalism – or whether they are merely practised under starvation conditions to ensure one's immediate survival – survival cannibalism – or by isolated individuals considered criminal and often pathological by society at large – cannibalism as psychopathology or "aberrant behavior". Institutionalized cannibalism, sometimes also called "learned cannibalism",

1729-557: A woman, the breast." Regarding the north of the country, his colleague Charles Kingsley Meek added: "Among all the cannibal tribes the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet were considered the tit-bits of the body." Among the Apambia, a cannibalistic clan of the Azande people in Central Africa, palms and soles were considered the best parts of the human body, while their favourite dish

1820-488: A young cannibal who had just participated in a "human barbecue" and told him without hesitation: "It tastes just like chicken. Especially the liver – just the same as chicken." In 2013, during the Syrian civil war , Syrian rebel Abu Sakkar was filmed eating parts of the lung or liver of a government soldier while declaring that "We will eat your hearts and your livers you soldiers of Bashar the dog". Various accounts from around

1911-518: Is "eaten without ceremony (other than culinary), in the same manner as the flesh of any other animal". While the term has been criticized as being too vague to clearly identify a specific type of cannibalism, various records indicate that nutritional or culinary concerns could indeed play a role in such acts even outside of periods of starvation. Referring to the Congo Basin, where many of the eaten were butchered slaves rather than enemies killed in war,

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2002-569: Is a debate among anthropologists on how important functionalist reasons are for the understanding of institutionalized cannibalism. Diamond is not alone in suggesting "that the consumption of human flesh was of nutritional benefit for some populations in New Guinea" and the same case has been made for other "tropical peoples ... exploiting a diverse range of animal foods", including human flesh. The materialist anthropologist Marvin Harris argued that

2093-572: Is called a cannibal . The meaning of " cannibalism " has been extended into zoology to describe animals consuming parts of individuals of the same species as food. Anatomically modern humans , Neanderthals , and Homo antecessor are known to have practised cannibalism to some extent in the Pleistocene . Cannibalism was occasionally practised in Egypt during ancient and Roman times , as well as later during severe famines. The Island Caribs of

2184-575: Is close to modern explanations. He also pointed out that some acts of Europeans in his own time could be considered as equally barbarous, making his essay " Of Cannibals " ( c.  1580 ) a precursor to later ideas of cultural relativism . Archaeologist James Cole investigated the nutritional value of the human body and found it to be similar to that of animals of similar size. He notes that, according to ethnographic and archaeological records, nearly all edible parts of humans were sometimes eaten – not only skeletal muscle tissue ("flesh" or "meat" in

2275-515: Is different. Thyestes was the son of Pelops and Hippodamia , and father of Pelopia and Aegisthus . His three sons by a naiad , who were killed by Atreus , were named Aglaus, Orchomenus and Calaeus. Pelops and Hippodamia are parents to Thyestes. However, they were cursed by Myrtilus , a servant of King Oenomaus , the father of Hippodamia. Myrtilus was promised the right to Hippodamia's virginity and half of Pelops' kingdom, but Pelops denied both to him and killed him by throwing him into

2366-515: Is otherwise clearly rejected. The survivors of the shipwrecks of the Essex and Méduse in the 19th century are said to have engaged in cannibalism, as did the members of Franklin's lost expedition and the Donner Party . Such cases often involve only necro-cannibalism (eating the corpse of someone already dead) as opposed to homicidal cannibalism (killing someone for food). In modern English law,

2457-477: Is probably also the ultimate reason why cannibalism was widespread in traditional New Guinea highland societies", and both in New Zealand and Fiji , cannibals explained their acts as due to a lack of animal meat. In Liberia , a former cannibal argued that it would have been wasteful to let the flesh of killed enemies spoil, and eaters of human flesh in New Guinea and the neighbouring Bismarck Archipelago expressed

2548-524: Is the consumption of human body parts as "an institutionalized practice" generally accepted in the culture where it occurs. By contrast, survival cannibalism means "the consumption of others under conditions of starvation such as shipwreck, military siege, and famine, in which persons normally averse to the idea are driven [to it] by the will to live". Also known as famine cannibalism , such forms of cannibalism resorted to only in situations of extreme necessity have occurred in many cultures where cannibalism

2639-414: Is the source of modern phrase "Thyestean feast", meaning one at which human flesh is served . When Thyestes was done with his feast, he released a loud belch, which represents satiety and pleasure and his loss of self-control. An oracle then advised Thyestes that, if he had a son with his own daughter Pelopia , that son would kill Atreus. Thyestes did so by raping Pelopia (his identity hidden from her) and

2730-520: The DSM , presumably because at least serious cases (that lead to murder) are very rare. Within institutionalized cannibalism, exocannibalism is often distinguished from endocannibalism . Endocannibalism refers to the consumption of a person from the same community. Often it is a part of a funerary ceremony, similar to burial or cremation in other cultures. The consumption of the recently deceased in such rites can be considered "an act of affection" and

2821-529: The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), hundreds of incidents of cannibalism occurred, mostly motivated by hatred against supposed "class enemies", but sometimes also by health concerns. In a case recorded by the local authorities, a school teacher in Mengshan County "heard that consuming a 'beauty's heart' could cure disease". He then chose a 13- or 14-year-old student of his and publicly denounced her as

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2912-605: The Democratic Republic of the Congo . It was still practised in Papua New Guinea as of 2012, for cultural reasons. Cannibalism has been said to test the bounds of cultural relativism because it challenges anthropologists "to define what is or is not beyond the pale of acceptable human behavior ". A few scholars argue that no firm evidence exists that cannibalism has ever been a socially acceptable practice anywhere in

3003-467: The Lesser Antilles , whose name is the origin of the word cannibal , acquired a long-standing reputation as eaters of human flesh, reconfirmed when their legends were recorded in the 17th century. Some controversy exists over the accuracy of these legends and the prevalence of actual cannibalism in the culture. Cannibalism has been well documented in much of the world, including Fiji (once nicknamed

3094-638: The Solomon Islands in the 1980s, anthropologist Michael Krieger met a former cannibal who told him that women's breasts had been considered the best part of the human body because they were so fatty, with fat being a rare and sought delicacy. They were also considered among the best parts in New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago . Based on theoretical considerations, the structuralist anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss suggested that human flesh

3185-620: The Southern New Guinea lowland rain forests , hunting people "was an opportunistic extension of seasonal foraging or pillaging strategies", with human bodies just as welcome as those of animals as sources of protein, according to the anthropologist Bruce M. Knauft. As populations living near coasts and rivers were usually better nourished and hence often physically larger and stronger than those living inland, they "raided inland 'bush' peoples with impunity and often with little fear of retaliation". Cases of human predation are also on record for

3276-459: The Trojan War , Aegisthus seduced Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, and the couple plotted to kill her husband upon his return. They succeeded, killing Agamemnon and his new concubine, Cassandra . Clytemnestra and Aegisthus had three children: Aletes , Erigone , and Helen who died as an infant. Seven or eight years after the death of Agamemnon, Agamemnon's son Orestes returned to Mycenae and, with

3367-571: The "Cannibal Isles"), the Amazon Basin , the Congo , and the Māori people of New Zealand. Cannibalism was also practised in New Guinea and in parts of the Solomon Islands , and human flesh was sold at markets in some parts of Melanesia and of the Congo Basin . A form of cannibalism popular in early modern Europe was the consumption of body parts or blood for medical purposes . Reaching its height during

3458-478: The 13th century and their subsequent rule over China during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), some Mongol fighters practised cannibalism and both European and Chinese observers record a preference for women's breasts, which were considered "delicacies" and, if there were many corpses, sometimes the only part of a female body that was eaten (of men, only the thighs were said to be eaten in such circumstances). After meeting

3549-830: The 17th century, this practice continued in some cases into the second half of the 19th century. Cannibalism has occasionally been practised as a last resort by people suffering from famine . Well-known examples include the ill-fated Donner Party (1846–1847), the Holodomor (1932–1933), and the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 (1972), after which the survivors ate the bodies of the dead. Additionally, there are cases of people engaging in cannibalism for sexual pleasure, such as Albert Fish , Issei Sagawa , Jeffrey Dahmer , and Armin Meiwes . Cannibalism has been both practised and fiercely condemned in several recent wars, especially in Liberia and

3640-448: The Arab physician Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi repeatedly saw "little children, roasted or boiled", offered for sale in baskets on street corners during a heavy famine that started in 1200 CE. Older children and possibly adults were sometimes prepared in the same way. Once he saw "a child nearing the age of puberty, who had been found roasted"; two young people confessed to having killed and cooked

3731-557: The Chinese author Zheng Yi, who researched these events, "the consumption of human liver was mentioned at least fifty or sixty times" in just a small number of archival documents. He talked with a man who had eaten human liver and told him that "barbecued liver is delicious". During a massacre of the Madurese minority in the Indonesian part of Borneo in 1999, reporter Richard Lloyd Parry met

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3822-441: The Congo Basin, where cannibalism had been quite widespread and where even in the 1950s travellers were sometimes served a meat dish, learning only afterwards that the meat had been of human origin. The term gastronomic cannibalism has been suggested for cases where human flesh is eaten to "provide a supplement to the regular diet" – thus essentially for its nutritional value – or, in an alternative definition, for cases where it

3913-609: The Greeks and the Hittites which took place around the late 15th or early 14th centuries BC. The Greek leader was a man called Attarsiya, and some scholars have speculated that Attarsiya or Attarissiya was the Hittite way of writing the Greek name Atreus. Other scholars argue that even though the name is probably Greek (since the man is described as an Ahhiyawa ) and related to Atreus, the person carrying

4004-456: The anthropologist Emil Torday notes that "the most common [reason for cannibalism] was simply gastronomic: the natives loved 'the flesh that speaks' [as human flesh was commonly called] and paid for it". The historian Key Ray Chong observes that, throughout Chinese history, "learned cannibalism was often practiced ... for culinary appreciation". In his popular book Guns, Germs and Steel , Jared Diamond suggests that "protein starvation

4095-452: The cases, with roasting being slightly more common. In contrast to Lévi-Strauss's predictions, boiling was more often used in exocannibalism, while roasting was about equally common for both. Shankman observed that various other "ways of preparing people" were repeatedly employed as well; in one third of all cases, two or more modes were used together (e.g. some bodies or body parts were boiled or baked, while others were roasted). Human flesh

4186-611: The child. Another time, remains were found of a person who had apparently been roasted and served whole, the legs tied like those of "a sheep trussed for cooking". Only the skeleton was found, still undivided and in the trussed position, but "with all the flesh stripped off for food". In some cases children were roasted and offered for sale by their own parents; other victims were street children, who had become very numerous and were often kidnapped and cooked by people looking for food or extra income. The victims were so numerous that sometimes "two or three children, even more, would be found in

4277-895: The consumption of the flesh of victims of human sacrifice , for example among the Aztecs . Human and animal remains excavated in Knossos , Crete , have been interpreted as evidence of a ritual in which children and sheep were sacrificed and eaten together during the Bronze Age . According to Ancient Roman reports, the Celts in Britain practised sacrificial cannibalism, and archaeological evidence backing these claims has by now been found. Infanticidal cannibalism or cannibalistic infanticide refers to cases where newborns or infants are killed because they are "considered unwanted or unfit to live" and then "consumed by

4368-407: The flesh of his own sons and then taunted him with their hands and feet. Thyestes was forced into exile for eating human flesh . Thyestes responded by asking an oracle what to do, who advised him to have a son by his daughter, Pelopia , who would then kill Atreus. However, when their son Aegisthus was first born, he was abandoned by his mother, who was ashamed of the incestuous act. A shepherd found

4459-408: The goddess Artemis because he had killed a sacred deer in a sacred grove, and had then boasted that he was a better hunter than she was. When the time came, Artemis stilled the winds so that Agamemnon's fleet could not sail. A prophet named Calchas told him that in order to appease Artemis, Agamemnon would have to sacrifice the most precious thing that had come to his possession in the year he killed

4550-587: The help of his cousin Pylades and his sister Electra , killed both their mother, Clytemnestra, and Aegisthus. Tired of the bloodshed, the gods exonerated Orestes and declared this the end of the curse on the house of Atreus, as described in Aeschylus ' play The Eumenides . However, other stories say that when Aletes and Erigone came of age and became rulers at Mycenae, Orestes returned with an army then killed his half-brother and raped his half-sister, who gave birth to

4641-421: The house's curse. Pelops and Hippodamia had many sons; two of them were Atreus and Thyestes . Depending on myth versions, they murdered Chrysippus , who was their half-brother. Because of the murder, Hippodamia, Atreus, and Thyestes were banished to Mycenae , where Hippodamia is said to have hanged herself. Atreus vowed to sacrifice his best lamb to Artemis. Upon searching his flock, however, Atreus discovered

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4732-473: The incongruous addition of a love story. Prosper Jolyot Crebillon (1674–1762) wrote a tragedy "Atree et Thyeste" (1707), which is prominent in two tales of ratiocination by Edgar Allan Poe . In 1796, Ugo Foscolo (1778–1827) wrote a tragedy called Tieste that was first presented in Venice one year later. Caryl Churchill , a British dramatist, also wrote a rendition of Thyestes. Churchill's specific translation

4823-634: The infant Aegisthus and gave him to Atreus, who raised him as his own son. Only as he entered adulthood did Thyestes reveal the truth to Aegisthus, that he was both father and grandfather to the boy. Aegisthus then killed Atreus, although not before Atreus and Aerope had had two sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus , and a daughter Anaxibia . Agamemnon married Clytemnestra , and Menelaus married Helen , her famously attractive sister. Helen later left Sparta with Paris of Troy , and Menelaus called on all of his wife's former suitors to help him take her back. Prior to sailing off to war against Troy, Agamemnon had angered

4914-504: The influence of Seneca is apparent. "The reminiscence of Atreus' speech in the Thyestes of Seneca, which might subtend Cleopatra's own passionate, distended rhetoric about Antony" (Edgecombe, 257). Human cannibalism Note: Varies by jurisdiction Note: Varies by jurisdiction Human cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh or internal organs of other human beings. A person who practices cannibalism

5005-451: The irresistible power of the past.' Thus Orestes ended the curse of the House of Atreus. This story is the major plot line of Aeschylus 's trilogy The Oresteia . Plato in his dialogue The Statesman tells a "famous tale" that "the sun and the stars once rose in the west, and set in the east, and that the god reversed their motion, and gave them that which they now have as a testimony to

5096-624: The lamb should be king. Thyestes produced the lamb and claimed the throne. Atreus retook the throne using advice he received from the gods. Zeus sent Hermes to him, advising him to get Thyestes to agree that should the sun rise in the west and set in the east, Atreus could have his throne back. Atreus did so, and Helios reversed his normal course, in anger over Thyestes' actions. Atreus then learned of Thyestes' and Aerope's adultery and plotted revenge. He killed Thyestes' sons and cooked them, save their hands and heads. He served Thyestes his own sons and then taunted him with their hands and heads. This

5187-464: The latter is always considered a crime, even in the most trying circumstances. The case of R v Dudley and Stephens , in which two men were found guilty of murder for killing and eating a cabin boy while adrift at sea in a lifeboat, set the precedent that necessity is no defence to a charge of murder. This decision outlawed and effectively ended the practice of shipwrecked sailors drawing lots in order to determine who would be killed and eaten to prevent

5278-622: The like". Human flesh was also often "cooked into soup " or stewed in cauldrons. Eating human flesh raw was the "least popular" method, but a few cases are on record too. Chong notes that human flesh was typically cooked in the same way as "ordinary foodstuffs for daily consumption" – no principal distinction from the treatment of animal meat is detectable, and nearly any mode of preparation used for animals could also be used for people. Though human corpses, like those of animals, were usually cut into pieces for further processing, reports of people being roasted or baked whole are on record throughout

5369-539: The marketplace" during the Taiping Rebellion in 1850–1864, human hearts became a popular dish, according to some who afterwards freely admitted having consumed them. According to a missionary's report from the brutal suppression of the Dungan Revolt of 1895–1896 in northwestern China, "thousands of men, women and children were ruthlessly massacred by the imperial soldiers" and "many a meal of human hearts and livers

5460-401: The more distant descendants of Atreus. The House of Atreus begins with Tantalus . Tantalus, the son of Zeus and the maiden Pluto , enjoyed cordial relations with the gods until he decided to slay his son Pelops and feed him to the gods as a test of their omniscience. Most of the gods, as they sat down to dinner with Tantalus, immediately understood what had happened, and, because they knew

5551-443: The mother, father, both parents or close relatives". Infanticide followed by cannibalism was practised in various regions, but is particularly well documented among Aboriginal Australians . Among animals, such behaviour is called filial cannibalism , and it is common in many species, especially among fish. Human predation is the hunting of people from unrelated and possibly hostile groups in order to eat them. In parts of

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5642-446: The name is not necessarily identical to the famous Atreus. Thyestes In Greek mythology , Thyestes (pronounced / θ aɪ ˈ ɛ s t iː z / , Greek : Θυέστης , [tʰyéstɛːs] ) was a king of Olympia . Thyestes and his brother, Atreus , were exiled by their father for having murdered their half-brother, Chrysippus , in their desire for the throne of Olympia. They took refuge in Mycenae , where they ascended

5733-456: The nature of the meat they were served, were appalled and did not partake. But Demeter , who was distracted due to the abduction by Hades of her daughter Persephone , obliviously ate Pelops's shoulder. The gods threw Tantalus into the underworld to spend eternity standing in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reaches for the fruit, the branches raise his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bends down to get

5824-519: The neighbouring Bismarck Archipelago and for Australia . In the Congo Basin, there lived groups such as the Bankutu who hunted humans for food even when game was plentiful. The term innocent cannibalism has been used for cases of people eating human flesh without knowing what they are eating. It is a subject of myths, such as the myth of Thyestes who unknowingly ate the flesh of his own sons. There are also actual cases on record, for example from

5915-499: The now-discredited theory of humorism for cannibalism was that it was caused by a black acrimonious humor, which, being lodged in the linings of the ventricles of the heart, produced a voracity for human flesh. On the other hand, the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne understood war cannibalism as a way of expressing vengeance and hatred towards one's enemies and celebrating one's victory over them, thus giving an interpretation that

6006-512: The others from starving, a time-honoured practice formerly known as a " custom of the sea ". In other cases, cannibalism is an expression of a psychopathology or mental disorder , condemned by the society in which it occurs and "considered to be an indicator of [a] severe personality disorder or psychosis". Well-known cases include Albert Fish , Issei Sagawa , and Armin Meiwes . Fantasies of cannibalism, whether acted out or not, are not specifically mentioned in manuals of mental disorders such as

6097-404: The period that some Mongol soldiers ate human flesh because of its taste rather than (as had also occurred in other times) merely in cases of necessity. He added that they enjoyed torturing their victims (often children or women, whose flesh was preferred over that of men) by roasting them alive, in "large jars whose outside touched the fire [or] on an iron grate". Other victims were placed "inside

6188-400: The repast" at feasts for chiefs and warriors. The ethnologist Felix Speiser  [ de ] writes: "Apart from the breasts of women and the genitals of men, palms of hands and soles of feet were the most coveted morsels." He knew a chief on Ambae , one of the islands of Vanuatu, who, "according to fairly reliably sources", dined on a young girl's breasts every few days. When visiting

6279-605: The right of Atreus." Virgil , in book IV of the Aeneid , refers to the House of Atreus and specifically Orestes in describing the death of Dido . The first English language translation of the Oresteia in 1777 contributed greatly to the development of the Romantic period in literature. There is a possible reference to Atreus in a Hittite text known as the "Indictment of Madduwatta ". The indictment describes several army clashes between

6370-401: The sacred deer. This was his first-born daughter, Iphigenia . He sent word home for her to come (in some versions of the story on the pretense that she was to be married to Achilles ). Iphigenia accepted her father's choice and was honored to be a part of the war. Clytemnestra tried to stop Iphigenia but was sent away. After doing the deed, Agamemnon's fleet was able to get under way. While he

6461-719: The same sentiment. In many cases, human flesh was also described as particularly delicious, especially when it came from women, children, or both. Such statements are on record for various regions and peoples, including the Aztecs, today's Liberia and Nigeria , the Fang people in west-central Africa, the Congo Basin, China up to the 14th century, Sumatra , Borneo , Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Vanuatu , and Fiji. Some Europeans and Americans who ate human flesh accidentally, out of curiosity, or to comply with local customs likewise tended to describe it as very good. There

6552-417: The sea. With his dying gasp, Myrtilus cursed their line, which is where Thyestes and Atreus come in. Thyestes' brother and King of Mycenae, Atreus , vowed to sacrifice his best lamb to Artemis . Upon searching his flock, however, Atreus discovered a golden lamb which he gave to his wife, Aerope , to hide from the goddess. She gave it to her lover, Thyestes, who then convinced Atreus to agree that whoever had

6643-454: The son, Aegisthus , did kill Atreus. However, when Aegisthus was first born, he was abandoned by his mother, ashamed of the origin of her son. A shepherd found the infant Aegisthus and gave him to Atreus, who raised him as his own son. Only as he entered adulthood did Thyestes reveal the truth to Aegisthus, that he was both father and grandfather to the boy and that Atreus was his uncle. Aegisthus then killed Atreus. While Thyestes ruled Mycenae,

6734-508: The sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus , were exiled to Sparta . There, King Tyndareus accepted them as the royalty that they were. Shortly after, he helped the brothers return to Mycenae to overthrow Thyestes, forcing him to live in Kythira , where he died. As a token of good will and allegiance, King Tyndareus offered his daughters to Agamemnon and Menelaus as wives, Clytemnestra and Helen respectively. When Agamemnon left Mycenae for

6825-405: The story differ. The sabotage was arranged by Myrtilus , a servant of the king who was killed by Pelops for one of three reasons: 1) because he had been promised the right to take Hippodamia's virginity, which Pelops retracted; 2) because he attempted to rape her, or; 3) because Pelops did not wish to share the credit for the victory. As Myrtilus died, he cursed Pelops and his line, further adding to

6916-427: The throne upon the absence of King Eurystheus , who was fighting the Heracleidae . Eurystheus had meant for their lordship to be temporary; it became permanent because of his death in conflict. The most popular representation of Thyestes is that of the play Thyestes by Seneca in 62 AD. This play is one of the originals for the revenge tragedy genre. Although inspired by Greek mythology and legend, Seneca's version

7007-564: The west and set in the east, the throne of the kingdom should be given back to Atreus. Thyestes agreed, but then Helios did exactly that, rising where he usually set and setting where he usually rose, not standing the injustice of Thyestes' usurpation. The people then bowed to the man who had managed to reverse the circuit of the Sun. Atreus then learned of Thyestes' and Aerope's adultery and plotted revenge. He killed Thyestes' sons and cooked them, save their hands and feet. He tricked Thyestes into eating

7098-472: The world mention women's breasts as a favourite body part. Also frequently mentioned are the palms of the hands and sometimes the soles of the feet , regardless of the victim's gender. Jerome , in his treatise Against Jovinianus , claimed that the British Attacotti were cannibals who regarded the buttocks of men and the breasts of women as delicacies. During the Mongol invasion of Europe in

7189-540: The world, but such views have been largely rejected as irreconcilable with the actual evidence. The word "cannibal" is derived from Spanish caníbal or caríbal , originally used as a name variant for the Kalinago (Island Caribs), a people from the West Indies said to have eaten human flesh. The older term anthropophagy , meaning "eating humans", is also used for human cannibalism. Cannibalism has been practised under

7280-491: The world. After the Battle of Uhud (625), Hind bint Utba ate (or at least attempted to) the liver of Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib , an uncle of Muhammad . At that time, the liver was considered "the seat of life". French Catholics ate livers and hearts of Huguenots at the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, in some cases also offering them for sale. In China, medical cannibalism

7371-591: The world. At the archaeological site of Herxheim , Germany, more than a thousand people were killed and eaten about 7000 years ago, and the evidence indicates that many of them were spit-roasted whole over open fires. During severe famines in China and Egypt during the 12th and early 13th centuries, there was a black-market trade in corpses of little children that were roasted or boiled whole. In China, human-flesh sellers advertised such corpses as good for being boiled or steamed whole, "including their bones", and praised their particular tenderness. In Cairo , Egypt,

7462-778: Was baked in steam on preheated rocks or in earth ovens (a technique widely used in the Pacific), smoked (which allowed to preserve it for later consumption), or eaten raw. While these modes were used in both exo- and endocannibalism, another method that was only used in the latter and only in the Americas was to burn the bones or bodies of deceased relatives and then to consume the bone ash. After analysing numerous accounts from China, Key Ray Chong similarly concludes that "a variety of methods for cooking human flesh" were used in this country. Most popular were " broiling , roasting, boiling and steaming", followed by " pickling in salt, wine, sauce and

7553-427: Was confused and tangled up. Clytemnestra then stabbed him to death. Agamemnon's only son, Orestes , was quite young when his mother killed his father. He was sent into exile. In some versions he was sent away by Clytemnestra to avoid having him present during the murder of Agamemnon; in others his sister Electra herself rescued the infant Orestes and sent him away to protect him from their mother. In both versions he

7644-487: Was fighting the Trojans, his wife Clytemnestra, enraged by the murder of her daughter, began an affair with Aegisthus. When Agamemnon returned home he brought with him a new concubine, the doomed prophetess, Cassandra . Upon his arrival that evening, before the great banquet she had prepared, Clytemnestra drew a bath for him and when he came out of the bath, she put the royal purple robe on him which had no opening for his head. He

7735-459: Was most typically boiled , with roasting also used to prepare the bodies of enemies and other outsiders in exocannibalism , but rarely in funerary endocannibalism (when eating deceased relatives). But an analysis of 60 sufficiently detailed and credible descriptions of institutionalized cannibalism by anthropologist Paul Shankman failed to confirm this hypothesis. Shankman found that roasting and boiling together accounted for only about half of

7826-533: Was partaken of by soldiers", supposedly out of a belief that this would give them "the courage their enemies had displayed". In World War II, Japanese soldiers ate the livers of killed Americans in the Chichijima incident . Many Japanese soldiers who died during the occupation of Jolo Island in the Philippines had their livers eaten by local Moro fighters, according to Japanese soldier Fujioka Akiyoshi. During

7917-680: Was performed at the Royal Court Theater Upstairs in London on June 7, 1994. In 2004, Jan van Vlijmen (1935–2004) completed his opera Thyeste . The libretto was a text in French by Hugo Claus , based on his 20th century play with the same title (in Dutch: Thyestes ). Thyestes appears in Ford Ainsworth 's one-act play, Persephone . Seneca's influence in literature is reflected through other works. In Arnold's Sonnet on Shakespeare,

8008-659: Was practised over centuries. People voluntarily cut their own body parts, including parts of their livers, and boiled them to cure ailing relatives. Children were sometimes killed because eating their boiled hearts was considered a good way of extending one's life. Emperor Wuzong of Tang supposedly ordered provincial officials to send him "the hearts and livers of fifteen-year-old boys and girls" when he had become seriously ill, hoping in vain this medicine would cure him. Later private individuals sometimes followed his example, paying soldiers who kidnapped preteen children for their kitchen. When "human flesh and organs were sold openly at

8099-466: Was prepared with "fat from a woman's breast", according to the missionary and ethnographer F. Gero. Similar preferences are on record throughout Melanesia . According to the anthropologists Bernard Deacon and Camilla Wedgwood , women were "specially fattened for eating" in Vanuatu , "the breasts being the great delicacy". A missionary confirmed that "a body of a female usually formed the principal part of

8190-465: Was the father of Pleisthenes , but in some lyric poets ( Ibycus , Bacchylides ) Pleisthenides (son of Pleisthenes) is used as an alternative name for Atreus himself. Atreides is a patronymic form of Atreus which refers to one of his sons— Agamemnon or Menelaus . The plural form Atreidae or Atreidai refers to both sons collectively. Atreides is commonly used to translate both the singular and plural form to English. The term can also be used for

8281-415: Was the legitimate heir apparent and as such a potential danger to his usurper uncle. Goaded by his sister Electra, Orestes swore revenge. He knew it was his duty to avenge his father's death, but saw also that in doing so he would have to kill his mother. He was torn between avenging his father and sparing his mother. 'It was a son's duty to kill his father's murderers, a duty that came before all others. But

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