Midas- Greek FigureMortal"King of Phrygia"

The Golden Touch

Silenus, the aged satyr and companion of Dionysus, wandered drunkenly into Midas's rose gardens in Phrygia. The peasants captured him and brought him to the king, who recognized the old satyr and entertained him for ten days with feasting and stories. Midas then escorted Silenus back to Dionysus. Grateful for the return of his foster-father, Dionysus offered Midas any wish.

Midas asked that everything he touched turn to gold. Dionysus granted it, though he called the wish a poor one. At first Midas delighted in the power, turning twigs and stones to gleaming metal. But his food turned to gold when he tried to eat, and his wine hardened at his lips. Starving and desperate, Midas begged Dionysus to take back the gift. The god told him to bathe in the source of the river Pactolus near Mount Tmolus. When Midas immersed himself, the golden power flowed from his body into the water, and the Pactolus carried flecks of gold in its sands ever after.

The Judgment of Apollo and Pan

After his ordeal with the golden touch, Midas retreated to the countryside. When Apollo and Pan held a musical contest on Mount Tmolus — the god on his lyre against the satyr on his syrinx — Midas was among those who judged. The mountain god Tmolus presided and declared Apollo the winner. All agreed except Midas, who insisted Pan's rustic music was superior. Outraged, Apollo transformed Midas's ears into those of a donkey: ears so deaf to true music deserved an animal's shape.

Midas hid his shameful ears beneath a Phrygian cap. No one saw them except his barber, who was sworn to silence but could not bear the weight of the secret. He dug a hole in the ground and whispered into it: "King Midas has donkey ears." Reeds grew from the spot and, swaying in the wind, repeated the secret to the world.

The Son of Gordias

Midas came from a line already touched by prophecy. His father Gordias was a peasant who arrived at the Phrygian capital in an ox-cart, fulfilling an oracle that said the next king would come just so. Gordias tied his cart to a post at the temple of Zeus with a knot so intricate that another prophecy grew around it: whoever untied it would rule all of Asia. Midas inherited this kingdom and became, according to Herodotus, the first non-Greek king to send offerings to Delphi.