Tantalus

Tantalus was a king of Mount Sipylus in Lydia, a son of Zeus who was admitted to the feasts of the gods and then lost everything through his own excess. In the Odyssey he stands in the underworld, unable to drink the water that reaches his chin or to pick the fruit that hangs above him. He was the father of Pelops and Niobe and the ancestor of the house of Atreus.

Tantalus’ Family

Parents and Home

Hyginus calls Tantalus the son of Zeus and Plouto (Fabulae 82), and Pausanias, who saw a tomb on Mount Sipylus that was said to be his, gives the same parents (2.22.3). Euripides speaks of him as the “reputed son of Zeus” (Orestes 4–5). Pindar places his banquet for the gods at his “own dear Sipylus” (Olympian 1.37–38), and Pausanias adds that a lake bearing his name and a famous grave could still be seen there (5.13.7).

Wife and Children

Hyginus names Dione, one of the Atlantids, as the mother of Pelops (Fabulae 82, 83); other writers give other names for Tantalus’ wife. His children were Pelops, Niobe and Broteas. Niobe, whose twelve children were killed by Apollo and Artemis, is called his daughter by Apollodorus (Library 3.5.6; compare Iliad 24.602–617). Pausanias says the Magnesians credited Broteas with carving the very ancient image of the Mother of the Gods on the rock Coddinus (3.22.4). Through Pelops, Tantalus was the grandfather of Atreus and Thyestes and the great-grandfather of Agamemnon and Menelaus, a line Euripides traces from Tantalus through Pelops to Atreus (Orestes 11–16), so that he can call Atreus and Thyestes the “sons of Tantalus” (Orestes 811–813).

Tantalus at the Table of the Gods

Pindar says that if the watchers of Olympus ever honoured a mortal, it was Tantalus, but he “was not able to digest his great prosperity” (Olympian 1.54–57). Euripides gives the same account in different words: Tantalus was admitted to share the gods’ feasts like one of them and failed to keep a bridle on his tongue (Orestes 7–10). Hyginus says that Zeus used to confide his plans to Tantalus and admit him to the banquets of the gods, and that Tantalus reported them to men (Fabulae 82). Apollodorus’ Epitome repeats the two charges together: that he told men the secrets of the gods and that he tried to share ambrosia with his companions (Epitome 2.1).

Pindar is more exact about the theft. Tantalus stole nectar and ambrosia, by which the gods had made him immortal, and gave them to his drinking companions (Olympian 1.60–64). He took them to share with friends; the sources do not say he meant to make a whole people immortal.

Pausanias also alludes to a separate theft in which Pandareos of Miletus was implicated along with Tantalus, together with “the trick of the oath” (10.30.2). He does not tell the story.

The Banquet of Pelops

The best-known crime of Tantalus is the feast at which he served the gods his own son. Apollodorus’ Epitome says that Pelops was slaughtered and boiled at the banquet of the gods and came back to life fairer than before (Epitome 2.3). According to Hyginus, Ceres (Demeter) ate the shoulder, and when the limbs were joined together again she fitted an ivory shoulder in its place (Fabulae 83). Ovid agrees that Pelops’ left shoulder was of ivory, and that the gods found every part of his body except one (Metamorphoses 6.401–411). Pindar names Clotho as the one who lifted Pelops out of the cauldron with his gleaming ivory shoulder (Olympian 1.26–27).

Pindar refuses to believe the cannibal feast. In his version an envious neighbour invented the tale after Poseidon, overcome with desire, carried the boy off to Olympus; Tantalus’ offence was the theft of the nectar and ambrosia, and the gods sent Pelops back to the world of men as punishment for it (Olympian 1.36–66). In either telling Pelops lived and later won Hippodameia, and the quarrels of his sons are the beginning of the troubles of the Atreids.

The Punishment of Tantalus

Homer describes the earliest version. Odysseus sees Tantalus in the underworld standing in a pool with the water at his chin; each time the old man stoops to drink, the water drains away and black earth appears at his feet. Tall trees hang pears, pomegranates, apples, figs and olives over his head, but whenever he reaches for them the wind tosses them up toward the shadowy clouds (Odyssey 11.582–592). Homer mentions no stone.

Pindar knows a different penalty: a great boulder hung over Tantalus by Zeus, which he longs forever to throw off his head (Olympian 1.57–60). Euripides likewise has him flying in the air in terror of the rock above him (Orestes 5–7). Hyginus combines the traditions, giving him the water that recedes, the fruit that springs out of reach and the huge stone that he always fears will fall (Fabulae 82). Pausanias describes Polygnotus’ painting at Delphi, in which Tantalus suffers all the torments of Homer and also fears the stone, and he notes that Polygnotus seems to have followed the poet Archilochus on the stone (10.31.12). The Epitome adds that some said the punishment was for betraying the gods’ secrets and for trying to share their ambrosia (Epitome 2.1).

Other Figures Named Tantalus

A different Tantalus, a son of Thyestes (or of Broteas, according to Pausanias), was the first husband of Clytemnestra and was killed by Agamemnon (Pausanias 2.18.2, 2.22.2–3; Epitome 2.16). He should not be confused with the king of Sipylus.

Tantalus Sources

Homer, Iliad 24.602–617 and Odyssey 11.582–592; Pindar, Olympian 1.25–66; Euripides, Orestes 4–16, 811–813; Apollodorus, Library 3.5.6 and Epitome 2.1–3, 2.16; Hyginus, Fabulae 82–83; Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.401–411; Pausanias 2.18.2, 2.22.2–3, 3.22.4, 5.13.7, 10.30.2, 10.31.12.

See Also: Zeus, Pelops, Niobe, Atreus, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Demeter, Sisyphus, Poseidon