Greek Mythology's 5 Worst Punishments - Homer Never Said Why

In the oldest description of the underworld we have, Homer walks past three men being punished forever. He tells you what one of them did. For the other two, he says nothing at all. Everything you think you know about why Sisyphus is pushing that stone, or why Tantalus is standing in water he cannot drink, was written centuries later - by people who did not agree with each other. In two cases the punishment itself is not even the one the Greeks described. Pindar gives Tantalus a rock hanging over his head, not water and fruit. And the most famous punishment of all, the forty-nine sisters with the leaking jars, may not have been theirs to begin with. CHAPTERS 0:00 A man who cannot drink 0:57 Where this actually is 1:58 The man with the stone 5:09 The man in the water 7:33 The man on the wheel 9:47 The giant 10:43 The forty-nine 13:18 The punishments came first WATCH THE WHOLE ARC The Titan War: https://youtu.be/Rd6KGeE2xIw Zeus vs Typhon: https://youtu.be/0Vnat6UowDY The 12 Titans: https://youtu.be/Sy_tGnXfMfo SOURCES Homer, Odyssey 11.576-600 - Tityos, Tantalus and Sisyphus, in that order. Homer gives a reason for Tityos only. Pindar, Olympian 1.36-64 - Pindar refuses the Pelops story, calls it a neighbour's slander, and gives Tantalus a hanging rock and a theft instead. Pindar, Pythian 2.21-48 - Ixion, the first kin-slayer, the cloud, and the wheel. Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.9.3 - Sisyphus informs on Zeus. Pausanias 10.31.9-11 - describing Polygnotus's painting at Delphi, he identifies the figures carrying water in broken pots as people who ignored the mysteries. He does not call them the Danaids. A note on sourcing: the story of Sisyphus chaining Death is not in Homer or Hesiod - it survives in fragments of later writers, and this video says so. The Danaids' leaking jars are attested late, and several of those sources are Roman. Where the Greeks disagreed with each other, this video says they disagreed rather than picking one. MUSIC "Desert Planet" by Quincas Moreira "Spine Chilling Cardiac Tension" by Biz Baz Studio Both from the YouTube Audio Library. #GreekMythology #Sisyphus #Tantalus #Tartarus #Homer #Pindar #GreekGods #Mythology #AncientGreece #Underworld #Ixion #TheDanaids #MythologyExplained #GreekMyths #MortalMyths #GreekMythology #Mythology #MortalMyths #AncientGods #Olympus