Source Verification: Midas and the Golden Touch
Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.
What the Sources Attest
What is the golden touch of Midas?
It is the gift Dionysus grants Midas in Ovid's Metamorphoses: whatever the king touches turns to gold. It works on a twig, a stone, grain and an apple, and then on his bread, meat and wine, so he cannot eat. Dionysus lets him wash the gift away at the source of the river Pactolus.
Source: Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.85-145
Who was Midas in Greek mythology?
A king of Phrygia, known for two stories: the golden touch, and the ass's ears Apollo gave him for judging a music contest against the god. Herodotus also names a Midas son of Gordias as a historical Phrygian king who sent his royal seat to Delphi. The character page covers his sources in full.
Source: Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.85-193; Herodotus, Histories 1.14
What is the story behind the Midas Touch?
Midas is offered any reward for returning the captured Silenus to Dionysus, and asks for the golden touch. The gift turns his food to gold, and he begs to be freed. The ancient story is about a foolish wish, not a lost daughter, which is Hawthorne's 1851 addition.
Source: Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.85-145
Where Accounts Differ
- silenus-capture-versions
- how-midas-died
- daughter-is-hawthorne
- ovid-only-full-telling
- Silenus's capture differs by source. Ovid (Metamorphoses 11.89-99) has Phrygian countryfolk find him drunk and bring him to Midas. Xenophon (Anabasis 1.2.13) places a spring of Midas at Thymbrium where Midas caught the satyr with wine mixed into the water. Herodotus (Histories 8.138) places the capture in a rose garden of Midas son of Gordias in Macedonia and gives no method. Only Ovid, of the sources checked here, goes on to the wish.
- Ovid alone, of the sources checked, describes the touch turning a twig, stone, grain, apple, bread, meat and wine to gold. Aristotle (Politics, around 1257b) gives only the outline: a Midas of legend dies of hunger because all his food turned to gold. Xenophon and Herodotus do not mention the wish.
- Midas's death is disputed. Aristotle says hunger; Strabo (Geography 1.3.21) says he drank bull's blood during the Cimmerian invasion, on report ("they say"); Plutarch (On Superstition) says he killed himself by drinking bull's blood after disturbing dreams. Ovid records no death.
- The daughter who turns to gold is Hawthorne's invention, in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. The book is dated 1851 in most references, and one online text of it is headed 1852. His narrator says nobody but himself ever heard of the girl.
- Ovid writes Roman names, such as Bacchus and Ceres. This page uses Dionysus in its own voice and keeps the Roman names only where it quotes.
Sources
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.85-145
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.89-99
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.100-105
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.106-130
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.131-145
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.146-193
- Herodotus, Histories 1.14
- Strabo, Geography 1.3.21
- Herodotus, Histories 8.138
- Xenophon, Anabasis 1.2.13
- Aristotle, Politics 1.9
- Plutarch, On Superstition
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1851), "The Golden Touch"