Oenomaus was born in Pisa, a city in the region of Elis in the northwestern Peloponnese, the son of Ares, the Olympian god of war, and either the nymph Harpina or the mortal woman Sterope. His divine parentage gave him strength, courage, and a temper that flared as quickly as a spark in dry grass. He inherited the throne of Pisa, a kingdom whose wealth came from the fertile plain of Olympia, the sacred ground where Zeus, the king of the gods, was worshipped with athletic contests that would one day become the most famous games in the Greek world. Oenomaus ruled with justice in most matters, but his love for his daughter Hippodamia was not love but possession, a king's claim upon his child that no suitor could challenge without dying.

Hippodamia was his only daughter, and she was beautiful. Princes from across Greece came to Pisa to ask for her hand, drawn by her beauty and by the wealth of her father's kingdom. Oenomaus received them with hospitality, fed them at his table, and then proposed the race. The suitor would drive away from Pisa with Hippodamia in his chariot, and Oenomaus would pursue him in his own war-car, drawn by the divine horses that Ares had given him. If the suitor reached the altar of Poseidon at Corinth before the king caught him, he could marry the princess and claim the throne. If the king caught him, he would die by the spear. The race was not a contest but an execution, for the horses of Ares were faster than any mortal steeds, and Oenomaus was the most skilled charioteer in Greece.

Eighteen young men died in this way. Some were princes of great cities, others were warriors of renown, and all of them believed that love or honour or divine favour would carry them to safety. None escaped. Oenomaus caught each one before the halfway mark, drove his spear through their backs, and nailed their heads to the wooden pillars of his palace as trophies. The pile of skulls grew, and the smell of rotting flesh became part of the air of Pisa, a warning to the next fool who thought he could outrun a son of Ares. The suitors stopped coming, and Hippodamia grew old in her father's house, unmarried and unmarriageable, until Pelops arrived.

Pelops was different. He was the son of Tantalus, the king who had once been a favourite of the gods and had lost everything through hubris, the dangerous pride that leads mortals to challenge the gods. Tantalus had killed his son Pelops and served him to the gods at a feast, and though the gods had restored Pelops to life, the family was stained with an ancestral guilt that would pursue them for generations. Pelops came to Pisa not merely with courage but with cunning, and he understood that no mortal could defeat Oenomaus in a fair race. He needed help from inside the king's household, and he found it in Myrtilus, the charioteer of Oenomaus.

Myrtilus was the son of Hermes, the messenger god whose domain included thieves, travellers, and charioteers, and he was the only man who knew every joint and pin of the king's chariot. Pelops approached him with a bargain: sabotage the chariot, and receive half the kingdom and one night with Hippodamia. Myrtilus agreed. He removed the bronze linchpins that held the wheels to the axle and replaced them with pins of wax, knowing that the heat and friction of the race would melt them and send the chariot to pieces. On the day of the race, Pelops drove away with Hippodamia, and Oenomaus pursued in his sabotaged car. The king's horses were faster, as always, and he was closing the gap when the wax pins began to melt. The wheels came loose, the chariot collapsed, and Oenomaus was thrown from the car and caught in the reins. His own horses, the divine steeds of Ares, dragged him across the rocks of the plain until his body was torn to pieces, and he died cursing Myrtilus and prophesying doom upon Pelops and all his descendants.

The curse was fulfilled. Pelops murdered Myrtilus rather than pay him, and the charioteer's dying curse destroyed the house of Pelops for four generations, producing the tragedies of Atreus, Thyestes, Agamemnon, and Orestes. But Oenomaus was not forgotten. Pelops buried him with honours and founded the Olympic Games beside his tomb, establishing the contests that would celebrate the victory and commemorate the dead king. The games were held every four years for more than a thousand years, and the grave of Oenomaus remained one of the most sacred spots in the sanctuary of Olympia, a reminder that even the son of a god cannot outrun a traitor's pin.