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Demeter replaced the missing shoulder she had eaten during dinner with ivory. The gods restored Pelops to life by putting all of the carved parts of his body to boil in a magical cauldron. The exception was the goddess Demeter, who was distracted by the loss of her daughter Persephone who had been abducted to the underworld. The gods realized what their meal consisted of and refused to eat. What he served for their dinner was the body of his own son, Pelops, who he had murdered, carved into pieces, and roasted. But the unscrupulous and unworthy king continued on a path that would lead to his demise. Pandareus, unable to return the stolen object, was turned into stone for his crime.Īlthough the gods were disturbed by his behavior, Tantalus had not yet pushed his luck to the point of punishment by the deities as they were hoping he would correct his ways.

When Pandareus returned to retrieve it, Tantalus denied knowing anything about the golden dog. Pandareus, a friend of Tantalus, took the dog, and gave it to him to hide. The dog acted as a guardian for Zeus when he was a baby and later stood in his temple in Crete.

The unworthy Tantalus took nectar and ambrosia to share with mortals, and gossiped about the divine secrets of the gods.Īdding further to his attempts to deceive his divine father, he coveted one of the god’s favorite objects: a golden dog, which Zeus had received as a gift from Hephaestus, the blacksmith god. In an effort to impress his mortal friends, he took advantage of the hospitality of the gods and betrayed their trust. A trusted confidant, he was privy to the divine secrets discussed among the gods and goddesses during meals of nectar and ambrosia, the foods of immortality and sustenance of the gods.

OriginĪs a favored son of Zeus, Tantalus was often invited to Mount Olympus to dine at the table of his father. Tantalus was damned to the fate of being forever tantalized. He was condemned to eternity in Tartarus standing in water up to his chin, with branches of fruit always just out of reach and water draining away as soon as he tried to drink. Once a welcomed guest at the dinner table of his powerful father Zeus, Tantalus ended up in the depths of the underworld with a punishment befitting the worst criminals.