Odes to Olympians Poetry Contest
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Iokaste: Description of the Novel
Iokaste:
Reading Guide - for Readers' Circles, Students, Teachers and Professors Pronunciation Guide to Characters in Iokaste and Works in Progress
Collaborative
Writing: Why Two Heads Are Better Than One Iokaste's Cover (English version)
Niobe & Pelops: Children of Tantalus
Niobe & Pelops: Children of Tantalus opens the sweeping saga of two Bronze Age royal families whose fates are intertwined: their triumphs and failures, their dreams, their loves, and the murders they commit. The themes are madness versus civilization, and ambition versus sacrifice.
The tale begins in ancient Lydia, ruled by the great King Tantalus, who is father to Princess Niobe and her brother Prince Pelops. An attack by Tantalus drives his children Pelops and Niobe from the kingdom. (The punishment Tantalus received for his crimes in the afterlife was to stand eternally in chest-deep water with branches of luscious fruit dangling over his head -- and yet he remains forever hungry and thirsty, for both the fruit and the water evade his grasp. From this terrible sentence comes our modern word "tantalize.")
Pelops and Niobe journey far from Lydia. Pelops’ intention is to become a king and found an empire and he lays down a plan to make this happen. But when his sister Niobe meets Amphion of Thebes, the Fates begin weaving a new pattern of love, ambition, rivalry, and murder.
Amphion was raised as a cowherd on the outskirts of Thebes. However, he has unusual gifts: he is a brilliant musician. The events that transpire reveal his birthright to be a noble one – but he will have difficulties claiming it.
Niobe & Pelops: Children of Tantalus ties in with Iokaste: The Novel of the Mother-Wife of Oedipus and contains some of the same characters, but the story can also be read independently.
The influence of Pelops is still visible today - the Peloponnesian peninsula, which bears his name, forms about half of present-day Greece. Pelops is also credited, in at least one version of events, for having founded the Olympic Games. Was this actually true? Most versions of the history of the Olympic Games claim that they began in 776 BCE. This is considerably later than Pelops would have lived, which we place around 1300 BCE. Still, our research shows that it is possible, even likely, that he had some sort of regular games, and that they were celebrated.
The English version of Niobe & Pelops: Children of Tantalus is currently with our agent. The Greek edition will come out in 2008, published by Kedros Publishers of Athens, Greece. In the meantime, we are hard at work on the next part of the saga: Niobe & Pelops: The Road to Thebes.
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