Tanas, a river of Numidia. Sallust, Jugurthine War, ch. 90.
Tanetum, a town of Italy, now Tonedo, in the duchy of Modena.
Tanfanæ lucus, a sacred grove in Germany, in the country of the Marsi, between the Ems and Lippe. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 1, ch. 51.
Tanis, a city of Egypt, on one of the eastern mouths of the Nile.
Tantălĭdes, a patronymic applied to the descendants of Tantalus, such as Niobe, Hermione, &c.——Agamemnon and Menelaus, as grandsons of Tantalus, are called Tantalidæ fratres. Ovid, Heroides, poem 8, lis. 45 & 122.
Tantălus, a king of Lydia, son of Jupiter by a nymph called Pluto. He was father of Niobe, Pelops, &c., by Dione, one of the Atlantides, called by some Euryanassa. Tantalus is represented by the poets as punished in hell with an insatiable thirst, and placed up to the chin in the midst of a pool of water, which, however, flows away as soon as he attempts to taste it. There hangs also above his head a bough richly loaded with delicious fruit, which, as soon as he attempts to seize, is carried away from his reach by a sudden blast of wind. According to some mythologists, his punishment is to sit under a huge stone hung at some distance over his head, and as it seems every moment ready to fall, he is kept under continual alarms and never-ceasing fears. The causes of this eternal punishment are variously explained. Some declare that it was inflicted upon him because he stole a favourite dog, which Jupiter had entrusted to his care to keep his temple in Crete. Others say that he stole away the nectar and ambrosia from the tables of the gods, when he was admitted into the assemblies of heaven, and that he gave it to mortals on earth. Others support that this proceeds from his cruelty and impiety in killing his son Pelops, and in serving his limbs as food before the gods, whose divinity and power he wished to try, when they had stopped at his house as they passed over Phrygia. There were also others who impute it to his lasciviousness in carrying away Ganymedes to gratify the most unnatural of passions. Pindar, Olympian, bk. 1.—Homer, Odyssey, bk. 11, li. 581.—Cicero, Tusculanæ Disputationes, bk. 1, ch. 5; bk. 4, ch. 16.—Euripides, Iphigeneia.—Propertius, bk. 2, poem 1, li. 66.—Horace, bk. 1, satire 1, li. 68.——A son of Thyestes, the first husband of Clytemnestra. Pausanias, bk. 2.——One of Niobe’s children. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 6, fable 6.
Tanusius Germinus, a Latin historian intimate with Cicero. Seneca, ltr. 93.—Suetonius, Cæsar, ch. 9.
Taphiæ, islands in the Ionian sea between Achaia and Leucadia. They were also called Teleboides. They received these names from Taphius and Telebous, the sons of Neptune who reigned there. The Taphians made war against Electryon king of Mycenæ, and killed all his sons; upon which the monarch promised his kingdom and his daughter in marriage to whoever could avenge the death of his children upon the Taphians. Amphitryon did it with success, and obtained the promised reward. The Taphians were expert sailors, but too fond of plunder and piratical excursions. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 1, lis. 181 & 419; bk. 15, li. 426.—Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 4.—Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 12.
Taphius, a son of Neptune by Hippothoe the daughter of Nestor. He was king of the Taphiæ, to which he gave his name. Strabo, bk. 16.—Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 4.
Taphius, or Taphiassus, a mountain of Locris on the confines of Ætolia.