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Ancient

Aeschylus

Agamemnon

1568–1573 [Sommerstein]

I am willing to make a sworn agreement

with the spirit of the Pleisthenids³²⁷

that I will be content with what has happened,

hard though it is to endure, but that for the future it

should leave

this house and vex some other family with internecine killings.

³²⁷ Pleisthenes is a shadowy name in the family to which Agamemnon belongs, found at several different points in its genealogy (see Gantz 552–6). Most often, Pleisthenes is a son of Atreus who dies young and whose children, Agamemnon and Menelaus, are brought up by Atreus who comes to be regarded as their father. However, on the version of events that is assumed in this play, the curse or evil spirit originated not with this Pleisthenes but with Atreus (and Thyestes), and both this passage and 1602 will make most sense if “Pleisthenes” is assumed to be here merely an alternative name for Atreus himself (cf. the doubly named Paris/Alexander); such an equation will have been encouraged by the practice of some lyric poets (Ibycus, PMG 282; Bacchylides 15.6, 48) who speak of Agamemnon and/or Menelaus both as “Pleisthenids” and as “Atreids” or “sons of Atreus”.

1568–1573 [Weir Smyth]

[Clytaemestra:] As for me, however, I am willing to make a sworn compact with the Fiend of the house of Pleisthenes¹ [1570] that I will be content with what is done, hard to endure though it is. Henceforth he shall leave this house and bring tribulation upon some other race by murder of kin.

¹ The Pleisthenidae, here apparently a synonym of Atreidae, take their name from Pleisthenes, of whom Porphyry in his Questions says that he was the son of Atreus and the real father of Agamemnon and Menelaus; and that, as he died young, without having achieved any distinction, his sons were brought up by their grandfather and hence called Atreidae.

1590–1602 [Weir Smyth]

[1590] But Atreus, the godless father of this slain man, with welcome more hearty than kind, on the pretence that he was cheerfully celebrating a happy day by serving meat, served up to my father as entertainment a banquet of his own children's flesh. [1595] The toes and fingers he broke off ... sitting apart. And when all unwittingly my father had quickly taken servings that he did not recognize, he ate a meal which, as you see, has proved fatal to his race. Now, discovering his unhallowed deed, he uttered a great cry, reeled back, vomiting forth the slaughtered flesh, and invoked [1600] an unbearable curse upon the line of Pelops, kicking the banquet table to aid his curse, “thus perish all the race of Pleisthenes!"

1602 [Weir Smyth]

... thus perish all the race of Pleisthenes!

Apollodorus

3.2.2

And Catreus gave Aerope and Clymene to Nauplius to sell into foreign lands; and of these two Aerope became the wife of Plisthenes, who begat Agamemnon and Menelaus; and Clymene became the wife of Nauplius, who became the father of Oeax and Palamedes.

E.2.10

The sons of Pelops were Pittheus, Atreus, Thyestes, and others. Now the wife of Atreus was Aerope, daughter of Catreus, and she loved Thyestes. And Atreus once vowed to sacrifice to Artemis the finest of his flocks; but when a golden lamb appeared, they say that he neglected to perform his vow,

E.3.12

Of the Mycenaeans, Agamemnon, son of Atreus and Aerope: a hundred ships. Of the Lacedaemonians, Menelaus, son of Atreus and Aerope: sixty ships.

Bacchylides

15.6 (Castriota, p. 233)

[5] of the Argives, to Odysseus [son of Laertes] and Menelaus, the royal son of Atreus,

15.48 (Castriota, p. 234)

[45] and raising their hands to the immortal gods, they prayed for an end to their griefs. Muse, who was the first to begin the words of justice? Menelaus son of Pleisthenes ...

Dictys Cretensis (4th century AD)

1.1

Also Menelaus and his older brother Agamemnon, the sons of Aerope and Plisthenes, came to get their share. (They had a sister, Anaxibia, who at that time was married to Nestor.) People often thought that their father was Atreus, because when their real father, Plisthenes, died young without having made a name for himself, Atreus, pitying their plight, had taken them in and brought them up like princes.

Euripides

Cretan Women

test. iiia

'You (Menelaus) were yourself born from a Cretan mother, whom her own father (Catreus) caught with a man taken into her bed, and sent her to death and destruction by dumb fishes': the story is in Euripides' Cretan Women, that when (Aerope) had been secretly violated by her servant her father handed her over to Nauplius with orders to drown her; Nauplius did not do this, however, but pledged her in marriage to Pleisthenes.

Webster pp. 37–38

The scholiast on the reference to Aerope in ‘’Ajax’’ 1297 says ‘the story is in Euripides’ ‘’Cretan Women’’ that when Aerope had been seduced by a servant, her father (Katreus of Crete) handed her over to Nauplios with instructions to drown her, but he failed to do so and engaged her to Pleisthenes’.

Hesiod

fr. 137 Most [= fr. 194 MW]

137 (194 MW)

137

a Schol. D in Hom. Il. 1.7 (p. 21 van Thiel²)

a Scholia on Homer’s Iliad

According to Homer, Agamemnon was the son of Pelops’ son Atreus, and his mother was Aerope; but according to Hesiod he was the son of Pleisthenes.

b Tzetz. Exeg. Il. 1.122 (p. 68.19 Hermann)

b Tzetzes’ commentary on Homer’s Iliad

Agamemnon, and Menelaus likewise, are considered to be children of Atreus’ son Pleisthenes according to Hesiod and Aeschylus, but according to the poet (i.e., Homer) and everyone they were simply sons of Atreus himself. . . . According to Hesiod, Aeschylus, and some others, Pleisthenes was the son of Atreus and Aerope, and the children of Pleisthenes and Dias’ daughter Cleolla were Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Anaxibia. Because Pleisthenes died young, they were brought up by their grandfather Atreus, and so they are considered by many to be Atreids.

c Schol. in Tzetz. ad loc. (p. 11 Papathomopoulos)

c Scholia on Tzetzes’ commentary on Homer’s Iliad

According to Homer, Agamemnon and Menelaus were the sons of Pelops’ son Atreus and of Aerope from Crete, Catreus’ daughter; according to Hesiod they were the sons of Pleisthenes, a hermaphrodite or lame, who wore women’s clothing.

fr. 138 Most [= fr. 195 MW]

138 (195 MW; 91 H) 1–Scutum 18: P. Oxy. 2494A; 1–Scutum 5: P. Oxy. 2355

138 1–Shield 18: Oxyrhynchus papyrus; 1–Shield 5: Oxyrhynchus papyrus

from Crete] he¹ led off [

the daughter of Catreus] and of the beautiful-haired Naead

] beautiful-ankled Aeropea

] to his home, to be called [his dear wife. [5]

she bore]bius, and warlike Menelaus and godly Agamemnon, who over spacious [Argos

to his father, was lord and ruler. [5]

¹ Pleisthenes

Gantz, p. 552

fragmentary lines of that poem [the Ehoiai] just preceding the tale of Alkmene appear to attest that Aerope (not Kleola) is the mother of Agamemnon and Menelaos (and a third son: Anaxibios?), although whether by Atreus or Pleisthenes we cannot tell (Hes fr 195 MW).

Hyginus

Fabulae [Grant]

86

Because Thyestes, son of Pelops and Hippodamia, lay with Aëropa, Atreus’ wife, he was banished from the kingdom by his brother Atreus. But he sent Atreus’ son, Plisthenes, whom he had reared as his own, to Atreus to be killed. Atreus, believing him to be his brother’s son, unknowingly killed his own son.

88

Atreus, son of Pelops and Hippodamia, eager to take vengeance on his brother Thyestes for his injuries, made peace with him, brought him back into his kingdom, and after slaying his infant sons, Tantalus and Plistheens, served them to Thyestes at a banquet.

246

Those Who Ate Their Own Sons at Meals

...

Thyestes, son of Pelops, his children by Aerope – Tantalus and Plisthenes.

Scholia on Sophocles, Ajax

1297a (= Euripides, Cretan Women test. iiia)

'You (Menelaus) were yourself born from a Cretan mother, whom her own father (Catreus) caught with a man taken into her bed, and sent her to death and destruction by dumb fishes': the story is in Euripides' Cretan Women, that when (Aerope) had been secretly violated by her servant her father handed her over to Nauplius with orders to drown her; Nauplius did not do this, however, but pledged her in marriage to Pleisthenes.

Scholia on Iliad

1.7 [= Hesiod fr. 137a Most = fr. 194 MW]

According to Homer, Agamemnon was the son of Pelops' son Atreus, and his mother was Aerope; but according to Hesiod he was the son of Pleisthenes.

Gantz, p. 552

Iliad scholia tell us that while Homer makes Agamemnon the son of Atreus and Aerope (she is not mentioned in the Iliad or Odyssey; presumably the scholiast gets this from the Epic Cycle), in Hesiod he and his brother are the sons of Pleisthenes (ΣA Il 1.7 = Hes fr. 194 MW).

2.249

Gantz, p. 552

Another Iliad scholion repeats this idea, although without mentioning Hesiod; it does cite Porphyrios and "many others" for it, and adds that Pleisthenes died young, having done nothing of note, whereupon his sons were raised by Atreus (ΣA Il 2.249)

Scholia on Orestes

4

Gantz, p. 553

But in the scholia to Orestes (where Dias is again a brother of Atreus), we find just the opposite: here Atreus marries Kleola, daughter of Dias, she who was the wife of Pleisthenes in Tzetzes, the two of them become the parents of the (infirm of body) Pleisthenes (Σ Or 4).

Seneca

Thyestes

726

Then that savage drags Plisthenes to the altar, and adds him to his brother.

Scholia on Tzetzes' Exegesis in Iliadem 1.122

Hesiod fr. 137c Most [= fr. 194 MW]

According to Homer, Agamemnon and Menelaus were the sons of Pelops’ son Atreus and of Aerope from Crete, Catreus’ daughter; according to Hesiod they were the sons of Pleisthenes, a hermaphrodite or lame, who wore women’s clothing.

Gantz, p. 553

Tzetzes offers one other curious bit of information, not in his Exegesis but in his scholia to that work: while in Homer Agamemnon and Menelaos are the sons of Atreus, son of Pelops, in Hesiod they are the sons of Pleisthenes, the hermaphrodite or lame one, who wore a woman's mantle (addendum to Hes fr. 194 MW).²⁴

Servius

Servius, Commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil 1.458

ATRIDAS Atrei filios, Agamemnonem et Menelaum; sed usurpatum est, nam Plisthenis filii fuerunt.

Translation (according to Cynwolfe):

the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus; but this is to make an unjustified assertion, for they were the sons of Pleisthenes.

Tzetzes

Allegories of the Iliad

Prolegomena

508–511

The Greeks were commanded by two kings:

the famous Agamemnon and Menelaos

sons, according to most authorities, of Atreus and Aerope;

according to others, the children of Pleisthenes and Kleole.

Exegesis in Iliadem

1.122

Hesiod fr. 137b Most

Agamemnon, and Menelaus likewise, are considered to be children of Atreus' son Pleisthenes according to Hesiod and Aeschylus, but according to the poet (i.e. Homer) and everyone they were simply sons of Atreus himself. ... According to Hesiod, Aeschylus, and some others, Pleisthenes was the son of Atreus and Aerope, and the children of Pleisthenes and Dias' daughter Cleolla were Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Anaxibia. Because Pleisthenes died young, they were brought up by their grandfather Atreus, and so they are considered by many to be Atreids.

(Evelyn-White pp. 202–203)

Agamemnon and Menelaus likewise according to Hesiod and Aeschylus are regarded as the sons of Pleisthenes, Atreus' son. And according to Hesiod, Pleisthenes was a son of Atreus and Aerope, and Agamemnon, Menelaus and Anaxibia were the children of Pleisthenes and Cleolla the daughter of Dias.

Gantz, p. 552

Tzetzes (in his Exegesis in Iliadem) explains further what we will have already guessed, that in this version Pleisthenes is the son of Atreus. He goes on to say that for Hesiod, Aischylos, and others, Pleisthenes is born of Aerope, and that this Pleisthenes, wed to Kleola, daughter of Atreus' brother Dias (she is thus his own first cousin), begets Agamemnon and Menelaos, and Anaxibia (pp. 68-69 Hermann, reproduced in part as Hes fr. 194 MW).^{23 [Pelops' children here (which in fact match perfectly those reported by Σ Or 4) are in part omitted by Merkelbach and West. For the form "Kleolla" actually reported by Tzetzes, see West 1985.111-12.]}

Modern

Collard and Cropp

p. 516

Euripides’ plot is summarized with extreme concision in the Scholia on Sophocles, Ajax 1297a (= test. iiia below): when the Cretan king Catreus discovered that his daughter Aerope had slept with a servant, he handed her to Nauplius to drown, but instead Nauplius married her to Pleisthenes. Aerope’s behaviour in the play is described by the scholiast on Aristophanes, Frogs 849 (= test. iiib) as ‘like a whore’s’; since Frogs 1043 uses the word ‘whore’ of Phaedra (see Hippolytus Veiled) and Stheneboea (Stheneboea), who are other ‘wicked’ women in this early phase of Euripides’ career, it looks as if Aerope was an important character here. Apollodorus 3.2.1–2 and 5 (= test. *iiic), however, tells Aerope’s story differently, with no sexual wrongdoing (and without mention of Euripides): Catreus received an oracle that he would die at the hands of one of his children and tried to prevent this by giving his two daughters Aerope and Clymene to Nauplius to sell into [cont.]

p. 517

slavery (see note on F 466); but Pleisthenes married Aerope and she bore him Menelaus and Agamemnon. Apollodorus is at least consistent with the Sophocles scholiast in this last detail; myth more commonly has Atreus as Aerope’s husband, and Menelaus and Agamemnon their sons, not Pleisthenes as the husband and father (see further our Introduction to Pleisthenes).

p. 520

αὐτὸς δὲ μητρὸς ἐξέφυς Κρήσσης, ἐφ᾽ ᾗ | λαβὼν ἐπακτὸν ἄνδρ᾽ ὁ φιτύσας πατὴρ | ἐφῆκεν ἐλλοῖς ἰχθύσιν διαφθοράν. ...

Sophocles, Ajax 1295-7 and Schol. on 1279a

p. 521

'You (Menelaus [should be Agamemnon]) were yourself born from a Cretan mother, whom her own father (Catreus) caught with a man taken into her bed, and sent her to death and destruction by dumb fishes':¹ the story is in Euripides' Cretan Women, that when (Aerope) had been secretly violated by her servant her father handed her over to Nauplius with orders to drown her; Nauplius did not do this, however, but pledged her in marriage to Pleisthenes.

¹ 'Dumb fishes': to consume her totally, so that nothing of her disgrace should ever be told.

2008b

p. 79

Not much can be said about the subject of this play. Pleisthenes is an obscure figure, unknown or ignored in the Homeric poems but apparently identified in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (F 194) as a son of Atreus; in this tradition Pleisthenes and (probably) Aerope, rather than Atreus and Aerope, were the parents of Agamemnon and Menelaus.¹ In Cretan Women Euripides seems to have had Pleisthenes take Aerope as his wife after her expulsion from Crete (see our Introduction to that play). In 5th-century poetry Agamemnon and Menelaus could be referred to both as Atreus’ sons and as Pleisthenes’ offspring (see e.g. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1569, 1602). According to the [cont.]

¹ Alternatively Pleisthenes is a son, or bastard son, of Pelops, and thus Atreus' brother or half-brother (Schol. on Pindar, Olympians 1.89). A Pleisthenes son of Thyestes (Hyginus, Fab. 88.1, Seneca, Thyestes 726) and a Pleisthenes son of Menelaus and Helen (Cypria fr. 10 Davies) are best regarded as separate inventions.

p. 80

Byzantine scholar John Tzetzes, ‘Hesiod’ explained that the two had become Atreus’ heirs after Pleisthenes died prematurely, and that Pleisthenes had been lame and sexually ambiguous;² but it is not clear whether these details really stem from early mythical traditions (as Papathomopoulos argues) or from later rationalizations of conflicting legends about their parentage.

One might guess that Euripides’ play was about Pleisthenes’ relationship with Aerope and his early death, but no evidence confirms this. Instead, a possible plot has been found in a brief summary in Hyginus, Fab. 86: ‘Thyestes . . . because he had lain with Atreus’ wife Aerope was expelled by Atreus from his kingdom; but he sent Atreus’ son Pleisthenes, whom he had raised as his own son, to kill Atreus. Atreus, believing him to be his brother’s son, unknowingly killed his own son.’ In the absence of any alternative, many scholars have been inclined to follow Musgrave’s guess that this reflects Euripides’ plot, but the story may well have been, as Wilamowitz put it, ‘one of the wild contrivances of late tragedy’.

The fragments and testimonia of the play itself give no clear guidance. It would appear to have included an apologia for the killing of someone’s father (F 625, difficult to relate to Hyginus’ summary), a ruler giving political advice (F 626, father to son?), comments (negative?) on oracle-mongers and sacrifices (F 627, 628), defiance of a persecutor or punisher (F 629), and a man connected with Sardis renouncing his connection with Argos (see F 630 [cont.]

p. 81

with note). The lyric fragment about a symposium (F 631) need not refer to an event within the play.

Brief fragment: F 633 ‘censure’. Other ascriptions: None.

If Aristophanes, Birds 1232 is an echo of F 628 (see note there), Pleisthenes will have been produced before 414 (perhaps not long before, but the occurrence of three resolutions in the 14 extant trimeters, with two in the single verse F 625, does not prove this: cf. Cropp–Fick 89).

No literary or artistic descendants of the play have been Identified.

Fowler

p. 434

This scholion [schol. on Eur. Or. 4) has sometimes been ascribed to Hellanikos (see EGM 1.215), ...

p. 435

The scholion on Eur. Or. 4, which we saw in the last section might derive from Hellanikos, ... goes on to say that Atreus married Kleola daughter of Dias, another son of Pelops, and fathered Pleisthenes, who had a weak constitution; Pleisthenes married Eriphyle (unknown) and had Agamemnon, Menelaos, and a daughter Anabixia; when Pleisthenes died the children reverted to Atreus' care.²⁸

²⁸Cf. Hes. fr. 194, schol. Il. 2.249. The story above is a typical attempt to accomodate the shadowy Pleisthenes (below, n. 44).

p. 439

Genealogically, matters are complicated by the unknown position of the baffling Pleisthenes, but it is interesting that Aerope, either his wife or Atreus' (then Thyestes'), came from completely outside the usual frame of reference (daughter 0f Katreus son of Minos).⁴⁴

⁴⁴ On Pleisthenes see the overview in Gantz 552-6; for his position in the Hesiodic Catalogue, West, HCW 111. He may be a son of Pelops in some sources, followed it would seem by Aischylos (West, ibid. 109 n. 183); but the Pleisthenes who is an illegitimate son of Pelops in schol. Pind. Ol. 1.144d is hardly this one. Compare the 'younger Pelops' in schol. 1.144e; this is an invention of someone trying to reconcile competing accounts.

Gantz

p. 271

We know at any rate that this play [Euripides' Kressai] told how Katreus discovered his daughter Aerope to have been seduced by a servant, and gave her to Nauplios to drown; the latter instead gave her to Pleisthenes to wife (Σ Ai 1297). In Apollodorus, Katreus hands over two daughters, Aerope and Klymene, to Nauplios to be sold (not drowned); Nauplios gives Aerope to Pleisthenes, as in Euripides, but keeps Klymene for himself, and she becomes the mother of Palamedes and Oiax (ApB 3.2.2).

p. 322

The section ... The Kypria appears to have known yet another child of Helen and Menelaos, one Pleisthenes (fr 12 PEG); the implication of our scholiast source is that this child was in lieu of Nikostratos, since he juxtaposes the information to that from Lysimachos.

p. 544

his scepter ... These last [scholia to Olympian 1] actually offer three slightly different lists, as follows: (1) Atreus, ... Pleisthenes, ... (2) Atreus, ... , Dias, plus the bastard sons Chrysippos and Pleisthenes; (3) Atreus, ... Pleisthenes, ...

p. 547

... Certainly she and Thyestes are the parents in Hyginus (Fab 246).

p. 548

As for the ... Seneca gives Thyestes three sons, Tantalos, Pleithenes, and a third child unnamed; Atreus slaughters them all for the banquet.

p. 549

In Apollodoros ... One other story occurs only in Hyginus, namely that after his expulsion Thyestes sends Atreus' son Pleisthenes, whom he has brought up as his own, to Atreus in order to kill the man; Atreus, still believing this to be his brother's son, has him killed instead (Fab 86; cf. perhaps the garbled Σ Or 16). We shall see below that the other accounts involving this same son of Atreus do not square well with such a tragedy, even though Pleisthenes does as a rule die young. But Euripides composed a lost work entitled Pleisthenes for whose plot there are few candidates other than this one, and thus the story may well be as old as the fifth century, or before.

p. 552

We come last of all in this chapter to the most perplexing member of the house of Tantalos. Homer never mentions him, ...

p. 553

Tzetzes offers one other curious bit of information, not in his Exegesis but in his scholia to that work: while in Homer Agamemnon and Menelaos are the sons of Atreus, son of Pelops, in Hesiod they are the sons of Pleisthenes, the hermaphrodite or lame one, who wore a woman's mantle (addendum to Hes fr. 194 MW).²⁴

p. 554

p. 556

p. 572

scholia add for the Kypria that Helen also takes her child Pleistenes with her to Cyprus, ... (fr 12 PEG)

p. 573

... The Kypria's Pleisthenes seems nowhere else mentioned.

Grimal

s.v. Pleisthenes

(Πλεσθένης) Pleisthenes appears in the genealogy of the family of Atreus and of Pelops but his parentage varies from tradition to tradition. He is most frequently said to be a son of Pelops and Hippodamia, and therefore a brother of Thyestes and Atreus (Table 2); another related version claims that he was the son of Pelops by another woman. In some versions Pleisthenes is the son of Atreus and Cleola, the daughter of DIAS, whom Atreus married after he had settled at Macistus in Triphylia, and in others AEROPE is said to be his mother, but other versions make her his wife. Although Agamemnon and Menelaus are usually considered to be the sons of Atreus, another tradition claims that Pleisthenes was their father. This genealogy seems to have developed in the work of the tragedians in particular. To make the two traditions correspond it was assumed that Pleisthenes was indeed the father of the two heroes, and was himself the son of Atreus. but being sickly he died young, entrusting his two sons and his daughter Anabixia to their granfather to bring up. This is why Agamemnon and Menelaus are generally designated under the title of Atridae.

A story summarized by Hyginus makes Pleisthenes a son of Thyestes and brother of Tantalus. Pleisthenes were said to have been killed by Atreus who wanted to avenge himself on his brother THYESTES. This legend is a late one and probably based upon a misconception. Another story claims that Pleisthenes was the son of Atreus and had been brought by Thyestes, who believed that Pleisthenes was his own son. Thyestes wanted to avenge himself on Atreus and sent Pleisthenes to kill him, but Atreus killed the young man instead, realizing too late that he was his own son. The origin of this legend is probably a tragedy.

Hard

p. 355

Katreus had come to fear that his daughters KLYMENE and AEROPE might present a danger to him, and therefore handed them over to Nauplios to be sold abroad. Nauplios treated them more generously, however, as in the similar story of Auge (see p. 543), by offering Aerope to Pleisthenes, king of Mycenae, as a wife and taking Kymene as his own wife.¹⁰⁵ Or according to a conflicting tale from a lost play by Euripides, Katreus asked Nauplios to drown Aerope at sea after discovering that she had been seduced by a slave, but Nauplios took her to Pleisthenes instead¹⁰⁶ Although there was disagreement on whether she married Atreus or Pleisthenes (an obscure figure who was sometimes interposed into the Mycenean king-list between Atreus and Agamemnon, see p. 508), she became the mother of Agamemnon and Menelaos in either case. It so happens that Nauplios is said to have deliveried her to Pleisthenes in surviving accounts of that story.

¹⁰⁵ Apollod. 3.2.2

¹⁰⁶ Schol. Soph. Ajax 1279 citing Eur. Kressai.

p. 507

Atreus left two young sons AGAMEMNON and MENELAOS, ...

p. 508

Agamemnon and Menelaos are sometimes described as the sons of PLEISTHENES, son of Atreus, rather than as sons of Atreus himself.^{178 [Hes. fr. 194, 195.]} It is stated in this connection that Atreus was married to his niece Kleola or Kleolla, a daughter of Dias, son of Pelops, while Pleisthenes was married to Aerope; or else the pattern is inverted and Atreus is said to have married Aerope as usual while Pleisthenes married Kleola.^{179 [Aerope seems to be the mother of Menelaos in the papyrus fragment in Hes. fr. 195, even if Tzetzes (under fr. 194) quotes 'Hesiod' as saying that Menelaos and Agamemnon were chidren of Pleisthenes and Kleolla. According to Apollod. 3.2.2, Nauplios married Aerope to Pleisthenes, who fathers A. and M. by her (a story probably derived from Euripides, see schol. Soph. Ajax 1297).]} This makes little difference since Pleisthenes is a shadowy figure who is said to have died prematurely, leaving his sons to be reared by Atreus.^{180 [Schol. Il. 2.249.]}

Parada

s.v. Agamemnon

s.v. Plisthenes

Smith

s.v. Pleisthenes

（Πλεισθένης), a son of Atreus, and husband of Aerope or Eriphyle, the daughter of Catreus, by whom he became the father of Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Anaxibia (Apollod. 2.2.2; Schol. ad Eurip. Or. 5; Aeschyl. Agam. 1569; comp. AGAMEMNON; ATREUS). A son of Thyestes, who was killed by Atreus, was like-wise called Pleisthenes. (Hyg. Fab. 88.)

Sommerstein

p. 191 n. 327

Pleisthenes is a shadowy name in the family to which Agamemnon belongs, found at several different points in its genealogy (see Gantz 552–6). Most often, Pleisthenes is a son of Atreus who dies young and whose children, Agamemnon and Menelaus, are brought up by Atreus who comes to be regarded as their father. However, on the version of events that is assumed in this play, the curse or evil spirit originated not with this Pleisthenes but with Atreus (and Thyestes), and both this passage and 1602 will make most sense if “Pleisthenes” is assumed to be here merely an alternative name for Atreus himself (cf. the doubly named Paris/Alexander); such an equation will have been encouraged by the practice of some lyric poets (Ibycus, PMG 282; Bacchylides 15.6, 48) who speak of Agamemnon and/or Menelaus both as “Pleisthenids” and as “Atreids” or “sons of Atreus”.

Tripp

s.v. Pleisthenes

A son of Atreus and Aërope. Hesiod and Aeschylus say that Pleisthenes was the father of Agamemnon and Menelaüs, and Anaxibia by Cleolla, daughter of Dias, although the two brothers are usually said to be sons of ATREUS [A, B]. The conflicting versions seemed to have confused ancient writers. Apollodorus gives both parternities in different parts of his narative [3.2.1-2, "Epitome" 2.10.]