Midas
The king of Phrygia who wished that everything he touched would turn to gold — a wish granted, to his horror, when even food and his beloved daughter became lifeless metal.
The Legend of Midas
A wealthy king of Phrygia, Midas showed kindness to Silenus, companion of Dionysus, and the grateful god granted him any wish. Midas asked that everything he touched turn to gold. When his food, wine, and even his daughter transformed at his touch, he begged Dionysus to revoke the gift. The god told him to wash in the river Pactolus. Later, Midas judged a music contest between Apollo and Pan, siding with Pan. Apollo gave him donkey ears as punishment. His barber whispered the secret into a hole; reeds grew there and rustled the truth to the wind. The tale parallels the hubris of Tantalus and Croesus.
Parents
Gordias and Cybele
Children
Zoe, Lityerses
Symbols
Fun Fact
The "Midas touch" has come to mean the ability to make money easily — ironically, given that the original Midas found his golden touch to be a curse.
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
Explore Further
Midas Touch
💭 conceptWealth, greed, unintended consequences
The ability to turn everything to profit, from King Midas who wished that all he touched would become gold.
Phineus
🗡 heroNone recorded
Blind Thracian king tormented by Harpies until rescued by the Argonauts
Croesus
🗡 heroRich king warned by Solon
Croesus was the fabulously wealthy king of Lydia whose encounter with the Athenian sage Solon — "count no man happy until he is dead" — became the defining parable of Greek ethical thought.
Pelops
🗡 herokingship
Son of Tantalus, restored to life by the gods with an ivory shoulder, who won his bride by cheating in a chariot race and cursed his line.
Tantalus
🗡 heroKing punished with eternal hunger and thirst
A king who offended the gods by serving them his own son as a meal. His punishment in Tartarus — standing in water that recedes when he tries to drink, beneath fruit that pulls away when he reaches for it — gave us the word "tantalize."
Busiris
🗡 heroNone recorded
Egyptian king who sacrificed strangers to Zeus until Heracles broke free and killed him
Nisus
🗡 heroNone recorded
A king of Megara whose city was invulnerable as long as a magical purple lock of hair remained on his head, betrayed when his daughter Scylla cut it for love of Minos
Phineus
🗡 heroprophecy, punishment
A blind Thracian king and prophet punished by Zeus for revealing divine secrets, tormented by Harpies until rescued by the Argonauts.
Peleus
🗡 heroheroism
King of Phthia, Argonaut, and father of Achilles who wrestled the shape-shifting sea goddess Thetis to win her as his bride.
Aerope
🗡 heroAdultery, royalty
Queen of Mycenae whose adultery with Thyestes caused the devastating curse upon the House of Atreus
Pelops
🗡 heroFounder of the Peloponnese dynasty
Pelops was the prince served as food to the gods by his father Tantalus, restored to life with an ivory shoulder, and founder of the cursed dynasty that ruled Mycenae.
Sisyphus
🗡 heroKing condemned to roll a boulder forever
The cunning king of Corinth who cheated death twice, only to be condemned to an eternity of futile labor in Tartarus — forever rolling a boulder uphill only to watch it roll back down.