MYTH 4
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LEGENDARY KING ?
Midas, or King Midas is the most important king of Phrygia. Two aspects can be distinguished in his personality : the mythical and the historical one. Midas appears in some legends written by Greek and Roman authors. The first one shows that he is not very wise : he rescued Silenus, the favorite companion of Dionysos as he was completely drunk and treated him well. Therefore Dionysos wanted to thank him and granted him one wish. King Midas chose, despite the advises of Dionysos, the capacity of changing everything in gold by a simple touch. He went around his palace and changed everything into gold, including his palace gates. After a while, he started to be hungry and thirsty but alas, three times alas, everything also changed into gold. His servants tried to feed him but it didn’t work. Understanding that his wish wasn’t very wise, he begged Dionysos to relieve him from it. The god gave him the cure : to bathe in the spring of the Pactolus, a river from Lydia. So did Midas, and this is the reason why the Pactolus has always gold dust in it. The second legend related to King Midas presents him as a judge between Apollo, the god of music, and a shepherd, Marsyas. Unwisely, he gives his preference to the shepherd. Apollo, offended, transforms Midas’s ears in donkey’s ears. The poor king manages to hide this deformity from his people but his barber, having to know the secret, is threatened of horrible death if he reveals it. The secret being too heavy, he digs a hole in the meadow and whispers in it. This is why, since then, the wind in the reeds rustles that “Midas has donkey’s ears”. |
KING MIDAS
Anatolia is the cradle of many civilizations. One of them was Phrygia and Midas was a king of Phrygia, a region nowadays part of Turkey and he was the son of Gordios, who was the founder of Gordion ,the capital of of Phrygia. He lived between 696 BC and B.C. 738. After his father, Gordios’ death he has been the king of Phrygia.