Epitome

Tantalus is punished in Hades by having a stone impending over him, by being perpetually in a lake and seeing at his shoulders on either side trees with fruit growing beside the lake. The water touches his jaws, but when he would take a draught of it, the water dries up; and when he would partake of the fruits, the trees with the fruits are lifted by winds as high as the clouds. Some say that he is thus punished because he blabbed to men the mysteries of the gods, and because he attempted to share ambrosia with his fellows.[*](As to the punishment of Tantalus, see Hom. Od. 11.582-592, who describes only the torments of hunger and thirst, but says nothing about the overhanging stone. But the stone is often mentioned by later writers. See Archilochus, quoted by Plutarch, Praecept. Ger. Reipub. 6, and by the Scholiast on Pind. O. 1.60(97); Pind. O. 1.55(87)ff. with the Scholia on 60(97); Pind. I. 8.10(21); Eur. Or. 4-10; Plat. Crat. 395d-e; Hyp. Fr. 176, ed. Blass; Antipater, in Anth. Pal., Appendix Planudea, iv.131.9ff.; Plut. De superstitione 11; Lucian, Dial. Mort. 17; Paus. 10.31.10; Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. iii.25; Apostolius, Cent. vii.60, xvi.9; Nonnus, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum 73, p. 386; Athenaeus vii.14, p. 281 BC; Lucretius iii.980ff.; Cicero, De finibus i.18.60; Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iv.16.35; Hor. Epod. 17, 65ff.and Sat. i.1.68ff.; Ov. Met. 4.458ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 82. Ovid notices only the torments of hunger and thirst, and Lucian only the torment of thirst. According to another account, Tantalus lay buried under Mount Sipylus in Lydia, which had been his home in life, and on which his grave was shown down to late times (Paus. 2.22.3, 5.13.7). The story ran that Zeus owned a valuable watchdog, which guarded his sanctuary in Crete; but Pandareus, the Milesian, stole the animal and entrusted it for safekeeping to Tantalus. So Zeus sent Hermes to the resetter to reclaim his property, but Tantalus impudently denied on oath that the creature was in his house or that he knew anything about it. Accordingly, to punish the perjured knave, the indignant Zeus piled Mount Sipylus on the top of him. See the Scholiast on Pind. O. 1.60(97); Scholiast on Hom. Od. xix.518, xx.66. In his lost play Tantalus Sophocles seems to have introduced the theft of the dog, the errand of Hermes to recover the animal, and perhaps the burial of the thief under the mountain. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 209ff. )

Broteas, a hunter, did not honor Artemis, and

Pelops, after being slaughtered and boiled at the banquet of the gods, was fairer than ever when he came to life again,[*](The story was that at a banquet of the gods, to which he had been invited, Tantalus served up the mangled limbs of his young son Pelops, which he had boiled in a kettle. But the murdered child was restored to life by being put back into the kettle and then drawn out of it, with an ivory shoulder to replace the shoulder of flesh which Demeter or, according to others, Thetis had unwittingly eaten. See Pind. O. 1.24(37)ff., with the Scholiast on Pind. O. 1.37; Lucian, De saltatione 54; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 152; Nonnus, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum 57, p. 380; Serv. Verg. A. 6.603, and on Verg. G. 3.7; Hyginus, Fab. 83; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 109, 186 (Second Vatican Mythographer 102; Third Vatican Mythographer vi.21). The ivory shoulder of Pelops used afterwards to be exhibited at Elis (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii.34); but it was no longer to be seen in the time of Pausanias (Paus. 1.13.6).) and on account of his surpassing beauty he became a minion of Poseidon, who gave him a winged chariot, such that even when it ran through the sea the axles were not wet.[*](Compare Pind. O. 1.37(60)ff., Pind. O. 1.71(114)ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 156. Pindar describes how Pelops went to the shore of the sea and prayed to Poseidon to give him a swift chariot, and how the god came forth and bestowed on him a golden chariot with winged steeds. On the chest of Cypselus at Olympia the horses of Pelops in the chariot race were represented with wings (Paus. 5.17.7).)

Now Oenomaus, the king of Pisa, had a daughter Hippodamia,[*](The following account of the wooing and winning of Hippodamia by Pelops is the fullest that has come down to us. Compare Pind. O. 1.67(109)ff.; Diod. 4.73; Paus. 5.10.6ff.; Paus. 5.14.6; Paus. 5.17.7; Paus. 6.20.17; Paus. 6.21.6-11; Paus. 8.14.10ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.104; Scholiast on Pind. O. 1.71(114); Scholiast on Soph. El. 504; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 982, 990; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.752; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 156; Hyginus, Fab. 84; Serv. Verg. G. 3.7, ed. Lion; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7, 125 (First Vatican Mythographer 21; Second Vatican Mythographer 146). The story was told by Pherecydes, as we learn from the Scholiasts on Sophocles and Apollonius Rhodius (ll.cc.). It was also the theme of two plays called Oenomaus, one of them by Sophocles, and the other by Euripides. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 233ff.,539ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 121ff. The versions of the story given by Tzetzes and the Scholiast on Eur. Or. 990 agree closely with each other and with that of Apollodorus, which they may have copied. They agree with him and with the Scholiast on Pindar in alleging an incestuous passion of Oenomaus for his daughter as the reason why he was reluctant to give her in marriage; indeed they affirm that this was the motive assigned for his conduct by the more accurate historians, though they also mention the oracle which warned him that he would perish at the hands of his in-law. The fear of this prediction being fulfilled is the motive generally alleged by the extant writers of antiquity. Diodorus Siculus mentions some particulars which are not noticed by other authors. According to him, the goal of the race was the altar of Poseidon at Corinth, and the suitor was allowed a start; for before mounting his chariot Oenomaus sacrificed a ram to Zeus, and while he was sacrificing the suitor drove off and made the best of his way along the road, until Oenomaus, having completed the sacrifice, was free to pursue and overtake him. The sacrifice was offered at a particular altar at Olympia, which some people called the altar of Hephaestus, and others the altar of Warlike Zeus (Paus. 5.14.6). In the eastern gable of the temple of Zeus at Olympia the competitors with their chariots and charioteers were represented preparing for the race in the presence of an image of Zeus; among them were Hippodamia and her mother Sterope. These sculptures were found, more or less mutilated, by the Germans in their excavation of Olympia and are now exhibited in the local museum. See Paus. 5.10.6ff. with (Frazer, commentary vol. iii. pp. 504ff.) Curiously enough, the scene of the story is transposed by the Scholiast on Eur. Or. 990, who affirms that Oenomaus reigned in Lesbos, though at the same time he says, in accordance with the usual tradition, that the goal of the race was the Isthmus of Corinth. The connexion of Oenomaus with Lesbos is to a certain extent countenanced by a story for which the authority cited is Theopompus. He related that when Pelops was on his way to Pisa (Olympia) to woo Hippodamia, his charioteer Cillus died in Lesbos, and that his ghost appeared to Pelops in a dream, lamenting his sad fate and begging to be accorded funeral honours. So Pelops burned the dead man's body, buried his ashes under a barrow, and founded a sanctuary of Cillaean Apollo close by. See the Scholiast on Hom. Il. i.38 (where for ἐξερυπάρου τὸ εἴδωλον διὰ πυρός we should perhaps read ἐξεπύρου τὸ εἴδωλον διὰ πυρός, “he burned the body to ashes with fire,” εἴδωλον being apparently used in the sense of “dead body”). Strabo describes the tomb of Cillus or Cillas, as he calls him, as a great mound beside the sanctuary of Cillaean Apollo, but he places the grave and the sanctuary, not in Lesbos, but on the opposite mainland, in the territory of Adramyttium, though he says that there was a Cillaeum also in Lesbos. See Strab. 13.1.62-63. Professor C. Robert holds that the original version of the legend of Oenomaus and Hippodamia belonged to Lesbos and not to Olympia. See his Bild und Lied, p. 187 note.) and whether it was that he loved her, as some