Tantalus, residing near Mount Sipylus in Lydia, had two children, Pelops and Niobê. He was a man of immense possessions and preëminent happiness, above the lot of humanity: the gods communicated with him freely, received him at their banquets, and accepted of his hospitality in return. Intoxicated with such prosperity, Tantalus became guilty of gross wickedness. He stole nectar and ambrosia from the table of the gods, and revealed their secrets to mankind: he killed and served up to them at a feast his own son Pelops. The gods were horror-struck when they discovered the meal prepared for them: Zeus restored the mangled youth to life, and as Dêmêtêr, then absorbed in grief for the loss of her daughter Persephonê, had eaten a portion of the shoulder, he supplied an ivory shoulder in place of it. Tantalus expiated his guilt by exemplary punishment. He was placed in the under-world, with fruit and water seemingly close to him, yet eluding his touch as often as he tried to grasp them and leaving his hunger and thirst incessant and unappeased.[366] Pindar, in a very remarkable passage, finds this old legend revolting to his feelings: he rejects the tale of the flesh of Pelops having been served up and eaten, as altogether unworthy of the gods.[367]
[366] Diodôr. iv. 77. Hom. Odyss. xi. 582. Pindar gives a different version of the punishment inflicted on Tantalus: a vast stone was perpetually impending over his head, and threatening to fall (Olymp. i. 56; Isthm. vii. 20).
[367] Pindar, Olymp. i. 45. Compare the sentiment of Iphigeneia in Euripidês, Iph. Taur. 387.
Niobê, the daughter of Tantalus, was married to Amphiôn, and had a numerous and flourishing offspring of seven sons and seven daughters. Though accepted as the intimate friend and companion of Lêtô, the mother of Apollo and Artemas,[368] she was presumptuous enough to triumph over that goddess, and to place herself on a footing of higher dignity, on account of the superior number of her children. Apollo and Artemas avenged this insult by killing all the sons and all the daughters: Niobê, thus left a childless and disconsolate mother, wept herself to death, and was turned into a rock, which the later Greeks continued always to identify on Mount Sipylus.[369]