The Story of Tantalus
The King Who Fed His Son to the Gods
Tantalus was a king of Lydia and a son of Zeus who enjoyed extraordinary privileges — he was invited to dine with the gods on Mount Olympus, a honor granted to almost no mortal. But Tantalus abused this privilege in the most horrifying way imaginable.
Tantalus committed three great sins against the gods. First, he stole nectar and ambrosia — the food and drink of the gods that granted immortality — and shared them with mortals. Second, he revealed the gods' secrets to humans. Third, and most horrifically, he killed his own son Pelops, cut him into pieces, cooked him in a stew, and served him to the gods at a banquet to test whether they were truly all-knowing. Every god recognized the terrible meal and refused to eat — except Demeter, who was distracted by grief over her daughter Persephone's abduction and accidentally ate Pelops's shoulder. The gods restored Pelops to life with an ivory shoulder to replace the one Demeter consumed. Tantalus was sent to Tartarus for eternal punishment: he stands in a pool of water beneath branches heavy with fruit. When he bends to drink, the water recedes. When he reaches for fruit, the branches lift beyond his grasp. This is the origin of the English word tantalize — to offer something desirable that remains forever out of reach.
Which crime? The ancient authors disagree
The familiar list of Tantalus's offences is really a composite of several traditions, and the ancient writers did not all accept the same one. The cannibal feast is the version most people know, but the earliest detailed treatment of Tantalus, Pindar's First Olympian Ode (476 BCE), openly refuses to tell it. Pindar says Poseidon fell in love with the boy Pelops at a banquet his father held for the gods and carried him off to Olympus. When the child vanished, a jealous neighbour spread the story that he had been boiled and eaten. Pindar calls this slander and will not call any god a cannibal. For him, Tantalus's real crime was stealing nectar and ambrosia, the food that had made him deathless, and sharing it with his mortal drinking companions.
A third tradition puts the fault in his mouth. In Euripides' Orestes, Electra says Tantalus was punished for an "unbridled tongue", meaning he repeated what he had heard at the gods' table. Diodorus Siculus repeats the idea that he gave away divine secrets. Yet another story, told by later mythographers, ties him to the golden dog that guarded the infant Zeus on Crete. Pandareus stole the dog and left it with Tantalus, who then swore by Zeus that he had never received it. On this account his sin was perjury.
Two punishments, not one
The punishment described in the story above, standing in water that drains away beneath branches that rise out of reach, comes from the Odyssey. Odysseus sees Tantalus in the underworld up to his chin in a pool, with pears, pomegranates, apples, figs and olives hanging over his head and the wind snatching them away. But a second image was just as old and, for many Greeks, more vivid: a huge stone balanced over his head, always about to fall. Pindar uses the stone, Euripides has him hanging in the air in terror of it, and the painter Polygnotus, in his underworld scene at Delphi described by Pausanias, showed both torments together. The Roman poet Lucretius later read the hanging rock as an allegory for the empty fear of the gods that torments people while they are still alive.
The stories also disagree about where he suffers. Homer places him among the dead Odysseus meets at the edge of Hades. Later writers move him into Tartarus with the other great offenders such as Sisyphus and Ixion, and he became one of the standard examples in lists of eternal punishments.
Family, kingdom and the curse
Tantalus is usually called a son of Zeus by the nymph Plouto (whose name means "wealth"), and his wealth was legendary. His kingdom lay around Mount Sipylus in western Asia Minor, and writers call it Lydia or Phrygia without much difference. Pausanias, who came from that region, reports that a lake and a tomb of Tantalus were still pointed out near Sipylus, along with a "throne of Pelops" on the mountain. His wife is named as Dione in some sources and as Euryanassa in others. Besides Pelops he had a daughter, Niobe, whose boasting about her children brought another disaster on the family. Her grieving figure was said to survive as a weeping rock face on the same mountain.
The banquet is the first link in the curse on the house of Pelops. Pelops won his bride Hippodamia by a chariot race arranged with treachery. His sons Atreus and Thyestes repeated their grandfather's crime when Atreus served Thyestes his own children at a feast. The next generation brought Agamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigenia, his murder by Clytemnestra, and the revenge of Orestes. Greek tragedians often mention Tantalus to show how far back the family's guilt reaches.
The ivory shoulder and Olympia
The detail of Pelops's replacement shoulder had a real afterlife. Ovid mentions the ivory shoulder in the Metamorphoses. Pausanias says a giant shoulder blade believed to be Pelops's had once been kept as a relic and was later lost at sea. Pelops himself was honoured at Olympia with his own sacred precinct, the Pelopion, and the east pediment of the temple of Zeus there showed the preparations for his chariot race. The son served up by Tantalus was therefore remembered as one of the founding heroes of the Olympic sanctuary.
Ancient sources
- Homer, Odyssey 11.582–592: Odysseus sees Tantalus in the underworld standing in a receding pool beneath fruit trees whose branches the wind lifts away.
- Pindar, Olympian 1: rejects the cannibal feast as slander. Says Poseidon carried off Pelops, that Tantalus's crime was sharing nectar and ambrosia with mortals, and that he is punished by a stone hanging over him.
- Euripides, Orestes (opening speech): Electra describes Tantalus suspended in the air, fearing a rock above his head, as punishment for his unrestrained tongue.
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 6: mentions Pelops's ivory shoulder in the episode following Niobe's punishment.
- Pausanias, Description of Greece: records the lake and tomb of Tantalus near Sipylus, Polygnotus's painting of him at Delphi, and the relic of Pelops's shoulder.
- Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.74: describes Tantalus as a wealthy Asian king punished for revealing the gods' secrets to mortals.
Frequently asked questions
What does "tantalize" have to do with Tantalus?
The English verb comes from his punishment of water and fruit that always move out of reach. It came into English in the late sixteenth century. The "tantalus", a locked decanter stand where the drink is visible but cannot be taken, is named after him for the same reason.
Did Tantalus really serve his son to the gods?
In the best-known version, yes. But Pindar, one of the oldest surviving sources, explicitly denies it and gives a different crime. Later writers such as Apollodorus and Ovid follow the feast version, and that is the one that became standard.
Which goddess ate Pelops's shoulder?
Most sources name Demeter, distracted by grief for Persephone. The gods then gave Pelops an ivory shoulder when they brought him back to life.
Is Tantalus related to Agamemnon?
Yes. Tantalus was Agamemnon's great-grandfather: Tantalus fathered Pelops, Pelops fathered Atreus, and Atreus fathered Agamemnon and Menelaus. The family's later crimes are often traced back to him.