Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tantalus
TANTALUS, a hero of ancient Greek myth and legend. He was a son of Zeus and Pluto ("Wealth"), and became the father of Pelops, Proteus, and Niobe. He dwelt in splendour on Mount Sipylus near Smyrna, and was admitted to the table of the gods themselves. But he abused the divine favour by revealing to mankind the secrets he had learned in heaven, or by killing his son Pelops and serving him up to the gods at table. Another story was that he stole nectar and ambrosia from heaven and gave them to men. According to others, Pandareus stole a golden dog which guarded the temple of Zeus in Crete, and gave it to Tantalus to take care of. But, when Pandareus demanded the dog back, Tantalus denied that he had received it. Therefore Zeus turned Pandareus into a stone, and flung down Tantalus with Mount Sipylus on the top of him. The punishment of Tantalus in the lower world was famous. He stood up to his neck in water, which fled from him when he tried to drink of it; and over his head hung fruits which the wind wafted away whenever he tried to grasp them. From this myth is derived the English word "tantalize." Another story is that a rock hung over his head ready to fall and crush him. The tomb of Tantalus on Mount Sipylus was pointed out in antiquity, and has been in modern times identified by Texier with the great cairn beneath Old Magnesia; but Prof. W. M. Ramsay inclines to identify it with a remarkable rock-cut tomb beside Magnesia. The story of Tantalus contains a reminiscence of a semi-Greek kingdom which had its seat at Sipylus, the oldest and holiest city of Lydia, and one of the chief birthplaces of early Greek civilization. Of this ancient city the remains are still visible on the northern slope of Mount Sipylus, and about 4 miles east of Magnesia. They consist of sepulchral mounds, rock-cut tombs, and a small acropolis perched on an almost inaccessible crag which juts out from the nearly perpendicular limestone wall of Mount Sipylus. There was a tradition in antiquity that the city of Tantalus had been swallowed up in a lake on the mountain; but the legend may, as Prof. W. M. Ramsay thinks, have been suggested by the vast ravine which yawns beneath the acropolis. [1] This acropolis is too small ever to have been the seat of a great empire; rather, like Pessinus and other great religious centres of Asia Minor, it may have been "the seat of a priestly suzerainty maintained over the hiero-doulio [sacred slaves] of the surrounding district." Connected as the city was on the one hand with the sea, and on the other with the capital of the ancient kingdom of Phrygia by means of the "royal road," it was a natural meeting-place for Greek and Oriental culture. A comparison of the art of Phrygia with the early art of Mycenæ and Olympia has fully confirmed the legend which connects the family of Tantalus with the Peloponnesus.
See Pelops, Phrygia, and a paper by Prof. W. M. Ramsay in Journal of Hellenic Studies, iii. p. 33 sq.
- ↑ Legends of submerged cities and castles are common in different parts of Europe. It has been suggested that they are confused recollections of the ancient villages built on piles in lakes (Wood-Martin, Lake Dwellings of Ireland, p. 28).