We are to remember that Homer has nowhere asserted the connection between Pelops and Tantalus, or between Tantalus and Phrygia.
But not even the latter connection, and far less the former, would disprove the title of Agamemnon to represent lineally the character of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. For, as we have seen, that title subsisted in the line of Dardanus, and the causes which planted it there might also have planted it in Phrygia; which is not irrationally supposed to have been the line of march for the Hellic race in its original movement westwards[790]. Moreover, Phrygia is not a name confined to Asia.
Connection of Tantalus with the Greeks.
There are, however, many indirect Homeric indications, as well as much extra-Homeric tradition, which tend to connect Pelops both with Tantalus and with Greece.
First, even if Tantalus were known to Homer as the father of Pelops, he could not have been named in the tradition of Il. ii. 101-8, unless he had occupied, like Pelops, the throne to which Agamemnon succeeded.
From the appearance of Tantalus in the Νεκυΐα, it is probable that Homer regarded him as Greek, either by birth or by what we may call naturalization. This he might be in the Poet’s view, if the traditions concerning him, without assigning to him Greek birth or even residence, made him the father of one who became a great Greek sovereign. If, for instance, we take the name of Æolus; it is the source of some of the most famous Greek houses, yet Homer never mentions it, except in the patronymic, and gives us no means of absolutely attaching it to any part of Greece. Æolus may have been known only as the father of Greeks. So Minos was not of Greek birth; but was naturalized, and therefore appears in the Νεκυΐα as the judge of the nether world. All the other personages, without exception, who are introduced there, are apparently Greek: Sisyphus, Hercules, Tityus, Theseus, Pirithous, from clear marks of residence: even Orion, since he is made the hero of a scene in Delos[791], appears, whatever his origin, to have been already Hellenized by tradition. Nor is it easy to avoid the same assumption with respect to Tantalus.
Again, we may be quite sure, that Tantalus was a person of the highest rank and position. None others seem to have been distinguished by an express notice of their fate after death. Orion was the object of the passion of Aurora (Od. v. 121). Tityus was an offender so lofty, that he became the occasion of a voyage of Rhadamanthus himself to deal with his crime[792]. Sisyphus was, as we have found reason to believe[793], of the most exalted stock.
The punishment of Tantalus in the nether world is probably, as in other cases, the reflection of a previous catastrophe, certainly of a previous character, upon earth. The nature of his punishment is a perpetual temptation, of irresistible force, presented to the appetites of hunger and thirst, while the gratification of it is wholly and perpetually denied. This shews that his offence on earth must have been some form of πλεονεξία, of greediness, presumption, or ambition. It is therefore not unlikely that by restless attempts at acquisition, he may have convulsed his dominions, and caused his son to migrate.
Now this supposed vein of character in Tantalus would thoroughly accord with that of the Pelopid line. He is punished for covetousness or acquisitiveness. His son gains a kingdom through Mercury, who is the god of increase by fair means or foul. His grandson Thyestes gathers wealth (πολύαρς, Il. ii. 106): his great-grandson Agamemnon is deeply marked by the avarice everywhere glanced at in the Iliad: and finally we have the reckless and guilty cravings of the ambition of Ægisthus.
We are by no means without reasons from the poems for placing Tantalus, as the later tradition places him, among the heroes of the stock of Jupiter. One ground is afforded us by the text of the Eleventh Odyssey for supposing that he was, I do not say a son, but at least a descendant of Jupiter. It is this; that apparently all the heroes, to whom we are thus introduced, were at least of divine extraction. They are, besides Tantalus, as follows:—