Source Verification: Tantalus
Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.
What the Sources Attest
What did Tantalus do and why did he do it?
The ancient sources name different crimes. Pindar's first Olympian Ode says Tantalus stole nectar and ambrosia from the gods and gave them to his drinking companions, because he could not digest his great prosperity. Euripides's Orestes blames a tongue he could not bridle after dining with the gods. Apollodorus reports that he revealed the gods' mysteries to men. The best-known crime, serving his son Pelops at a banquet of the gods, is one Pindar explicitly rejects as a neighbor's slander.
Source: Pindar, Olympian Ode 1.52-66
Why can't Tantalus eat or drink?
Because the gods made his punishment in Hades out of food and water kept just beyond him. In Homer's Odyssey he stands in a pool with the water at his chin. When he stoops to drink, the water drains away. Fruit trees hang over him, but when he reaches up, the wind tosses the fruit toward the clouds. Pindar and Euripides describe a different torment: a great stone hanging over his head. Apollodorus's Epitome combines the two.
Source: Homer, Odyssey 11.582-592
Which fate is worse: the fate of Sisyphus or the fate of Tantalus?
No ancient source ranks them, but Homer sets them side by side. In Odyssey Book 11, Odysseus sees Tantalus in violent torment, thirsty in a pool that drains whenever he stoops. Right after, he sees Sisyphus in violent torment too, pushing a monstrous stone uphill only to watch it roll back down. Homer uses the same phrase for both. Tantalus suffers want in the middle of plenty; Sisyphus suffers labor that never finishes. Pindar calls Tantalus's fate a helpless life of never-ending labor.
Source: Homer, Odyssey 11.582-600
Is Tantalus good or bad?
Neither simply: the poets show a favored mortal who went wrong. Pindar says the gods honored him above all men, but he could not digest his great prosperity and stole their nectar and ambrosia. Euripides's Orestes opens by calling him blessed, then says he paid for an unbridled tongue after sharing the gods' table. In Homer's Odyssey he is one of the great sinners Odysseus sees punished in Hades.
Source: Euripides, Orestes 4-10
What does Tantalus symbolize?
In the ancient sources, Tantalus stands for a mortal who could not bear the favor of the gods. Pindar says the gods honored him above all men, but he could not digest his prosperity. His stone became a figure of speech: in the eighth Isthmian Ode, Pindar calls a danger just lifted from Greece the stone of Tantalus above our heads. Plato's Cratylus reads the name as fitting his fate, a play on the balancing of the stone and on the word for most wretched.
Source: Plato, Cratylus 395e
Who is Tantalus in Greek mythology?
Tantalus is a king of Mount Sipylus in Lydia, a mortal the gods let eat at their own table. Pausanias calls him the son of Zeus and Pluto and says he saw his grave on Sipylus. He is the father of Pelops and of Niobe, and through Pelops the ancestor of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus. He is best known for his punishment in Hades, which Homer's Odyssey describes: water and fruit that always move out of reach.
Source: Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.22.3
Where Accounts Differ
- what crime Tantalus committed
- whether Tantalus served Pelops to the gods
- water and fruit or a hanging stone
- where Pelops's ivory shoulder came from
- whether Tantalus was a son of Zeus
- two figures named Tantalus
- The sources name different crimes. Pindar (Olympian 1.52-66) says Tantalus stole nectar and ambrosia and gave them to his drinking companions. Euripides (Orestes 4-10) blames his unbridled tongue at the gods' table. Apollodorus (Epitome 2.1) reports that some say he revealed the gods' mysteries to men and tried to share ambrosia. Pausanias (10.30.2) links him to a theft and a false oath with Pandareos, which Antoninus Liberalis (Metamorphoses 36) explains as the golden dog of Zeus.
- Pindar (Olympian 1.35-52) explicitly rejects the story that Pelops was cut up and eaten at a banquet of the gods, calling it the whisper of an envious neighbor; in his version Poseidon carried Pelops off. Apollodorus (Epitome 2.3) says Pelops was slaughtered and boiled at the gods' banquet without naming the killer, and Ovid (Metamorphoses 6.403-411) says it was his father's hands.
- The punishment differs by source. Homer (Odyssey 11.582-592) describes only the receding water and fruit and gives no crime. Pindar (Olympian 1.52-66) and Euripides (Orestes 4-10, 982-994) describe a stone hanging over him. Apollodorus (Epitome 2.1) combines stone, lake and fruit. Pausanias (10.31.12) credits the stone to Archilochus, and Antoninus Liberalis (Metamorphoses 36) has Zeus strike him with a thunderbolt and set Mount Sipylus on his head.
- Pindar (Olympian 1.23-27) gives Pelops an ivory shoulder as he comes out of Clotho's cauldron, with no mention of anyone eating it. Ovid (Metamorphoses 6.403-411) explains the ivory as a patch for flesh missing after his father cut him up.
- His parentage is reported with hedging. Pausanias (2.22.3) calls him the son of Zeus and Pluto as a matter of legend, and Euripides (Orestes 4-10) calls him the reputed son of Zeus.
- Two figures share the name. Pausanias (2.22.3) separates this Tantalus, buried on Sipylus, from a later Tantalus, son of Thyestes or Broteas, who was Clytemnestra's first husband and was said to be buried at Argos.
Sources
- Homer, Odyssey 11.582-592
- Homer, Odyssey 11.582-600
- Pindar, Olympian Ode 1.23-27
- Pindar, Olympian Ode 1.23-45
- Pindar, Olympian Ode 1.35-52
- Pindar, Olympian Ode 1.52-66
- Pindar, Isthmian Ode 8.10
- Euripides, Orestes 4-10
- Euripides, Orestes 4-17
- Euripides, Orestes 982-994
- Apollodorus, Epitome 2.1
- Apollodorus, Epitome 2.3
- Apollodorus, Library 3.5.6
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.458-459
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.172-173
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.403-411
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.41-42
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.22.3
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.13.7
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.30.2
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.31.12
- Plato, Cratylus 395e