1. Minos, who was a son of Jupiter. (Od. xi. 568.)
2. Orion: he was of divine extraction according to the later tradition. In Homer he has no parentage, but he had at least attained to divine honours, inasmuch as he was translated into a star. (Od. v. 274 et alibi.)
3. Tityus, son of Γαῖα. (Od. xi. 596, and vii. 324.)
4. Sisyphus, son of Æolus; therefore descended from Jupiter.
5. Hercules, son of Jupiter (ibid. 620.)
But I rely specially upon the passages towards the end, where these are all called ἄνδρες ἥρωες, and where Ulysses says he might have seen others, namely, Θήσεα Πειρίθοόν τε, θεῶν ἐρικύδεα τέκνα, illustrious children of the gods: as if to be a child of the gods were a condition of appearing in this august, though mournful, company.
Hereas, a Megarian author of uncertain age, is quoted by Plutarch[794] as having declared that the last cited verse was among the interpolations of Pisistratus. But Hereas was as likely to be wrong in this statement, through Megarian antipathy, as Pisistratus to have interpolated the verse in favour of Athenian vanity. The internal evidence is, I think, in its favour. For the phrase θεῶν ἐρικύδεα τέκνα is, according to the view here given, really characteristic. It is, at the same time, characteristic through the medium of an idea which, though it can be deduced fairly from the text, is not obvious upon its surface; namely the idea that all the heroes of the Νεκυΐα were divine. The verse is therefore supported by something in the nature of a spontaneous or undesigned coincidence.
The post-Homeric tradition makes Niobe the daughter of Tantalus; and, if this be so, then we may derive from her very high position a further support to the presumption that Tantalus was of the race of Jupiter, as also to the hypothesis of his personal connection with Greece. For that the tradition of Niobe is Greek we see, from its being cited by Achilles; and that she was a sovereign is clearly implied by the combined effect of various circumstances. The first is her being compared by Achilles with Priam. The second, that the vaunt of an inferior person would hardly have been noticed by the direct intervention of the gods. The third is the singular extent and dignity of that intervention: Apollo slays the sons, Diana the daughters; Jupiter converts the people to stone; the Immortals at large bury the dead. The fourth is the use of the term λαοὺς, which means plainly the subjects of the kingdom where Niobe was queen.
We cannot now carry farther the presumptions that Tantalus was the descendant of Jupiter, and Agamemnon of Tantalus: but if, in considering the cases of the other members of his class, we shall sufficiently shew that they were all descended in common repute from Jupiter, we shall then perhaps be warranted in relying more decidedly upon the connection, which is suggested by the text in the case of Agamemnon through his presumed ancestor Tantalus.