Midas Touch
The ability to turn everything to profit, from King Midas who wished that all he touched would become gold.
The Meaning of Midas Touch
King Midas of Phrygia found the satyr Silenus, Dionysus's old tutor, wandering drunk in his rose garden. Midas treated the satyr kindly for ten days, then returned him to Dionysus. The grateful god offered Midas any wish. Midas asked that everything he touched turn to gold. At first he was ecstatic — roses, stones, and pillars transformed into gleaming metal at his fingertips. Then he sat down to eat, and his bread hardened into gold; his wine became liquid metal. When his beloved daughter ran to embrace him, she froze into a golden statue. Horrified, Midas begged Dionysus to take back the gift. The god told him to wash in the river Pactolus, which carried away the golden power and, the Greeks said, explained why that river's sands contained gold. Today "the Midas touch" means a talent for making money, though the myth warns that unlimited wealth brings misery.
Parents
Gordias and Cybele
Children
Zoe, Lityerses
Symbols
Fun Fact
The river Pactolus in modern Turkey actually contained alluvial gold — Lydian kings used it to mint the world's first coins around 600 BCE.
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
Golden Bough
💭 conceptArtefact
A magical branch of gold that granted the living safe passage into and out of the underworld
Midas
🗡 heroKing with the golden touch
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.
Goddess of Love
💭 conceptLove, beauty, desire, fertility
Aphrodite governs romantic love and physical beauty, wielding an influence that even Zeus cannot resist.
Fleece of Chrysomallus
💭 conceptArtefact
The golden fleece of the divine winged ram, the object of Jason's legendary quest to Colchis
Prometheus
💭 conceptThe gift of fire to mankind
The fire stolen from the gods by Prometheus and given to humanity, enabling civilization. Fire symbolized technology, knowledge, and the cost of progress.
Eros
💭 conceptPrimordial god of love and desire
In the oldest myths, Eros was a primordial force — one of the first beings to emerge from Chaos, the power that draws all things together. Later reimagined as Aphrodite's mischievous son.
God of the Sun
💭 conceptSun, light, truth, cattle of the sun
Helios drives the sun chariot across the sky each day, and Apollo later inherited many solar associations.
Golden Fleece
💭 conceptquest
The fleece of the golden ram Chrysomallus that carried Phrixus to Colchis, becoming the object of Jason's quest.
Phaethon's Ride
💭 concepthubris, catastrophe
The myth of Helios's son who drove the sun chariot across the sky, lost control, and was struck down by Zeus to prevent the earth from burning.
Golden Fleece
💭 conceptThe prize sought by Jason and the Argonauts
The fleece of a golden-wooled ram, hung in a sacred grove in Colchis and guarded by a sleepless dragon. Its recovery was the object of Jason's legendary voyage.
Eros and Psyche
💭 conceptNarrative
The love story between the god of desire and a mortal princess that became an allegory of the soul's journey
God of Love
💭 conceptLove, desire, attraction, passion
Eros wields a bow whose golden arrows ignite irresistible love and whose lead arrows cause revulsion.