PELOPONNESUS, pit-o-Pon-nZ-sus, the penin sula forming the south of Greece proper, and connected with northern Greece by the Isthmus of Corinth, anciently Apia, from King Phoro neus's son Apis, of Argos, or Argos from its early chief city, afterwards Peloponnesus, " isle of Pelops," from its settler Pelops (q.v.), and now Moira, from its resemblance to a mulberry-leaf (tiopia), was divided into six states : Aclufier in N., Carinthia in E. and N., Laconia in E. and S., MesAnia in S. and W., Ells in W., and in the centre Arcadia, which alone had no seaboard. Its aborigines, the Pelas,gi, were conquered and confined to Arcadia by the Ionians, who took Achala, and the Achxans, who took Argfilis, Laconia, and Messenia. It was conquered by the Dorian under the Heraclidce (q. v.), eighty years after the Trojan war. It was regarded as the centre of the Doric race.
PELOPS son of King Tantalus of Phqgia, was murdered by his father and served up at a repast to the gods, whom Tan talus had invited ; but none of the gods touched the meat, except Ceres, who, absorbed in grief at the loss of Proserpine, ate of the shoulder.
Mercury was ordered by the gods to restore Pelops to life by boiling the pieces of his body, and Clotho replaced the lost shoulder with one of ivory, which could by its touch remove diseases ; and his descendants (Pilb,614e) were afterwards believed to have an ivory-white shoulder. King 'Pros, of Troy, afterwards in vaded Phrygia to avenge the loss of Gany rnedes (q. v.), whom he supposed Tantalus to have carried off ; and Tantalus and his son had to flee. Pelops came to Pisa in Elis, where he won the throne of Elis and the hand of Hippodamia (q. v.) by his victory in the chariot-race over her father, King le'nomaus, whose charioteer, Myrtilus, he had bribed. His sons were Atreus, Thyestes, Chrysippus (thrown into a well by the two former, fur which they were banished), Pittheus, Trcezen, Sze. Pelops was revered after death as the chief hero of Greece, and the epithet Pi/o250ius (or is frequently attached as an honourable epithet to his descendants or their cities. Peloponnesus (isle of Pelops) was named after him.