Ganymede

The prince missing from Troy

Ganymede was a prince of Troy. He vanished from his father’s house and was taken up to live with the gods.

The Iliad, Homer’s poem of the Trojan War, tells this inside a family history spoken on the battlefield. Aeneas, of the Trojan royal family, tells Achilles how their line began. First came Dardanus, then Erichthonius, then Tros. Tros had three sons: Ilus, Assaracus and Ganymede.

The poem calls the youngest the most beautiful of mortal men. Because of that beauty, the gods carry him up to pour drink for Zeus and to live among the immortals. This early account has no eagle, no courtship and no return. A single line moves him from a Trojan family into the household of the gods.

That move also cuts him off from the family lines that stay on earth. Ilus becomes the father of Laomedon and the ancestor of Priam. The line of Assaracus leads to Anchises and Aeneas. Ganymede has no children in this family history. His future is to serve the gods and to live with them forever.

What Tros receives for a son

The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, an early poem in praise of the goddess, tells the story from the father’s side. Zeus carries Ganymede off because of his beauty. On Olympus, the home of the gods, the prince draws red nectar, the drink of the gods, from a golden bowl. He pours it for the gods, and they honour him.

Down on earth, Tros does not know where a whirlwind sent by the gods has taken his child. He mourns without rest until Zeus takes pity on him. Zeus sends him high-stepping immortal horses as payment for his son. The god Hermes explains that Ganymede will never die and never grow old.

Tros stops mourning when he learns what has become of his son. Still, the exchange is uneven. The horses come into the Trojan house, and the son does not. The hymn gives the father knowledge and payment, but it does not undo the taking.

The hymn tells this story beside that of another mortal taken by a god, Tithonus. The goddess Eos wins immortality for him but forgets to ask for lasting youth, and old age wears him away.

Ganymede receives both gifts. He will neither die nor grow old in the house where he serves.

A cupbearer with no mortal future

The cup is at the centre of what he becomes. The Iliad gives his new role: cupbearer to Zeus, the servant who pours his drink. The hymn fills out the scene, so that he can be seen lifting nectar from gold while all the gods watch. His beauty is the reason he is taken. His daily task gives his new life its shape.

Elsewhere in the Iliad, the goddess Hebe does the same work, pouring nectar when the gods meet in council. The poems never show one of them handing the role to the other. Both can appear as cupbearers, and no surviving source explains how their roles relate.

Nor do the early accounts make Ganymede a general god of youth, or a god with worship of his own. What they settle is narrower and harder. He is a mortal prince whom Zeus made ageless, honoured among the gods and set forever at their bowl.

The carrying shown in clay

At Olympia, the scene of the taking survives as a large group of clay figures. It dates to about 470 BC and was found nearly intact in 1878, during excavations in the Stadium area. It is now in the Archaeological Museum of Olympia. An unknown artist from a Corinthian workshop made it, probably as the central ornament on the roof of a building.

Zeus strides forward, carrying the smaller Ganymede towards Olympus. The god holds a rod. The prince holds a rooster, a love gift. Traces of paint survive, and the triangular piece beneath the figures shows that the group was part of a building as well as a story.

The clay figures are clearer than the Iliad about who does the taking. Homer says the gods carry Ganymede off. The hymn names Zeus. At Olympia, Zeus’s own body surrounds the action. The group was found at the sanctuary of Zeus, his sacred ground, and is kept in its museum. It keeps the gap between the two figures in view: one strides forward, and one is carried away.