Oenomaus - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

OENOMAUS, in Greek legend, son of Ares and Harpinna, king of Pisa in Elis and father of Hippodameia. It was predicted that he should be slain by his daughter's husband. His father, the god Ares-Hippius, gave him winged horses swift as the wind, and Oenomaiis promised his daughter to the man who could outstrip him in the chariot race, hoping thus to prevent her marriage altogether. Pelops, by the treachery of Myrtilus, the charioteer of Oenomaiis, won the race and married Hippodameia. The defeat of Oenomaiis by Pelops, a stranger from Asia Minor, points to the conquest of native Aresworshippers by immigrants who introduced the new religion of Zeus.

See Diod. Sic. iv. 73; Pausanias vi. 21, and elsewhere; Sophocles, Electra, 504; Hyginus, Fab. 84.253. Fig. 33 in article Greek Art represents the preparations for the chariot race.