Iphis of Argos
Poor Argive youth who died of unrequited love for Anaxarete, who was then turned to stone.
The Legend of Iphis of Argos
Iphis was a young man of humble birth in Salamis or Argos who fell deeply in love with Anaxarete, a noblewoman of royal Cypriot descent. She treated his declarations of love with contempt, and despite his persistent pleas — leaving garlands on her door, sending messengers, weeping at her threshold — she remained cold and dismissive. Iphis finally hanged himself at her gate, leaving a message that she might at least look on him now. When his funeral procession passed, Anaxarete climbed to her window to watch, and at that moment the gods transformed her into a stone statue — still in the posture of watching. The statue remained in a temple of Venus at Salamis called Venus Prospiciens (the Looking Venus). The story is preserved most fully in Ovid's Metamorphoses and serves as a counter-example myth about the dangers of cruelty to lovers, functioning as the inverse of the Pygmalion story on the same island.
Parents
Unnamed humble parents
Symbols
Fun Fact
Iphis and Anaxarete are a deliberate mythological counter-pair to Pygmalion: where Pygmalion's love animated stone to life, Anaxarete's cruelty turned a living person to stone.
Explore Further
Anaxarete
🗡 heroCruelty, petrification
Cypriot noblewoman turned to stone for her cold-hearted rejection of her devoted suitor Iphis
Troilus
🗡 herotragedy
Young Trojan prince killed by Achilles at the temple of Apollo, whose death was prophesied to seal Troy's doom.
Laodamia
🗡 herodevotion
Wife of Protesilaus who embraced a wax image of her dead husband so desperately the gods briefly returned him to life.
Pygmalion
🗡 heroSculptor who fell in love with his statue
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Hippolytus
🗡 heroSon of Theseus destroyed by Aphrodite
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Anchises
🗡 heroLove, royalty, Troy
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Tenes
🗡 heroPurity, Betrayal, Apollo
Prince of Colonae and first ruler of Tenedos, killed by Achilles despite his divine protection by Apollo.
Anaxibia
🗡 heroMarriage, royalty
Mycenaean princess who married Strophius of Phocis and raised the young Orestes in secret
Polyxena
🗡 herosacrifice
Trojan princess sacrificed on Achilles's tomb after the fall of Troy to appease his ghost.
Phaedra
🗡 heroQueen consumed by forbidden love
Phaedra was the wife of Theseus who was cursed by Aphrodite to fall hopelessly in love with her stepson Hippolytus — her suicide and false accusation destroyed him.
Pygmalion
🗡 heroSculptor who fell in love with his own creation
A sculptor who carved an ivory statue so beautiful that he fell in love with it. Aphrodite, moved by his devotion, brought the statue to life.
Tithonus
🗡 herotragedy
Trojan prince beloved by Eos who was granted immortality but not eternal youth, aging endlessly into a withered husk.