30 King Midas Facts: Learn About The Emperor With The Golden Touch

When we talk about myth and mythologies, we should learn about the etymology.

A myth is basically something that belongs to a particular reign and people cherish it for generations. Finding the details, the representation of real life, and how they incorporate socio-cultural elements, is called mythology.

King Midas and his mythological ability made him the protagonist among Phrygian kings in this discussion despite having no real-life evidence. Every kingdom have their own version of this.

Here the story is about greed, which eventually made it's way into misery and a portrayal of how much family along with other relations matter. Gold here symbolizes the greed of wealth, protagonist King Midas personifies the common people and the daughter, rose garden, exemplifies the earthy emotions.

Here we may be introduced to different Greek god rages and mercy.

Greek King Midas had close attachment to three things in life: his daughter, rose garden and gold. One day a person found his way to the palace called Silenus who served as half man and half god who followed the king of wine Dionysus.

The Phrygian king welcomed him into his palace and took care of him as a guest at least for eleven days.

King including princess Joe and queen treated him quite well, though he was looking disgusting who did not have any aristocracy and etiquette to cope with the culture but that did not make them show any disrespect towards him.

At the last day before his leaving, he asked the king to make a wish as he was satiated with his hospitality. The king blurted out that he wanted to become rich and needed a humongous amount of gold.

Silenus made that possible with his affiliation to Dionysus, but later the golden touch ability cost him a lot and became a curse.

He was privileged and the unprecedented power he got, made the rich king invincible. It was weird during his meal, as you can guess, as everything King Midas touched was turning into gold, which led him to come across a scarcity of food and made him pray to remove the curse.

When he touched the rose garden it turned to gold and lost it's livelihood and fragrances; this made King Midas and his daughter melancholic.

In the event of consoling her, and accidentally, Midas touched her, and consequently was turned to gold. This led the king to lose his sanity and he had an epiphany after losing his loved one.

Later Dionysus instructed him to go to the river which flows by the grand city called Cirdes and wash himself. He immediately did that to renounce the curse and normalize things.

This comic situation is quite related to this world where people become fanatic in the fake charade of wealth. There are certain myths where King Midas has ears of Donkey, cursed by the God Apollo.

King Midas Facts

When we are evaluating the legends in Greek mythology, the very first name that occurs in our mind is King Midas and his golden touch. It is one of the most renowned classical mythology stories where we can notice a combination of historical and geographical representation, gods and Greek myths as well.

There are some facts related to the story we want to discuss regarding the legendary king Midas.

King Midas was the adopted son of King Gordius and Cybele. Her mother Cybele was recognized as the deity or the goddess mother of him (Midas).

Midas was known to be belonged from the royal house Phrygia and he was recognized as one of the least members of this family.

The city Midaeiumwhich was established in the north east side of ancient Phrygia and denominated after his name which represented his king ship.

Ancyra which is now days known as Ankara was founded by king Midas according to famous Greek geographer and traveler Pausanias.

The special supernatural surreal power of this ability to turn everything into gold led King Midas to a special honor. A wide range of historians use to address him with the 'Midas golden touch'.

Midas also symbolizes gold which was influenced by the legends that are famous all over the world.

Some historians and mythological experts have stated that Midas, along with his father, Gordius, founded the capital Gordium and tied up the Gordian knot. This also indicates that they might belong between millennium BC and the long time period prior to the Trojan war.

Famous historian Herodotus in his Thracian Mygdonia referred a wild magical Rose garden at the foot of the mount Bermion where the roses were blooming by themselves and put together 60 blossoms with mind blowing sweet fragrances.

Some people said that Midas had one son named Gordious and a daughter named Zoe.

Some other documents that were referred to by Herodotus stated that Midas, the king of ancient Greece, was offered a magical throne which was famous in the name of well, worth seeing by the Oracle of Delphi. He took his judgements with the help of this throne.

Later the great grandfather of Alyattes of Lydia also referred as Midas after he got the source of taxable coinage using electrum related to Midas.

Midas also had a pair of magical ears or the ear of an ass which he got from the god Apollo as a reward where he helped god Apollo in a musical contest between Apollo vs Pan.

Midas had a fear of donkeys because many stories narrate that his ears were like a donkey and he felt ashamed of it, and did not want to reveal the truth in front of anybody.

He was not that famous as an administrator in the reign, but his legends and myths still outlive him in the pages of history and the story books for children.

We can get some references of King Midas from the eleventh books of Ovid's metamorphoses and the Herodotus's histories.

King Midas's Daughter

If you are discussing King Midas and his preposterous abilities where he could literally turn everything into gold, the very first thing is occurring to our mind is his daughter. There are some facts about her which portray the significance of her in the story of this mystical phenomenon.

The name of King Midas's daughter was marigold or Zoe which means life. Marigold is basically the daughter of King Midas, and symbolizes positive emotions and energy in the story.

Marigold is one of the very first people in the life of the king whom he loved and cares for so much. Three things were very much essential in King Midas's life, first was his daughter second was his rose garden and the third one was solid gold.

Marigold turned to a gold idol due to her father's supernatural powers and this played a very significant role in King Midas's legend where Midas found the real value of family and that the priority should be a human beings life over great wealth.

The historian and archaeologists stated that they did not find any trace of the daughter of King Midas, even in Ovid's metamorphosis and Herodotus's documents.

Many of the writers claimed that the story of king Midas remain incomplete without her daughter's appearance.

Marigold is not only the part of the story which helped it to come to a conclusion but her innocence and compassion represents one side of our society and her life turned a wealth loving king into a sensible person .

King Midas's Curse

There is an ancient proverb in the kingdom that is quite applicable in this matter where the forefathers had told us that the earth provides us enough to satisfy everyone's need but not everyone's greed. This same thing happened with king Midas and his excessive greed, what became the most painful part of his life.

His greed for wealth and gold, which he thought of as a blessing, turned to a curse.

King Midas, with his unearthly capability, made him famous all over the world where it portrayed that he wished for a boon that whatever he would touch should turn to gold and this miraculous power at first seemed a blessing for him, but a little time later when he realized the reality of it, he became miserable.

His greed of gold destroyed the flower garden that he loved the most. He lost all the scenic beauty, vibrant colors and fresh fragrances of the roses. All of it turned into a yellowish metal without beauty and delicacy.

King Midas, with his atrocious capability of turning everything into gold, caused his own suffering, with a great thrust out of scarcity of food; he prayed to the gods for help.

He even turned his own daughter Zoe into a gold idle whom he loved more than his life and lamented later very much. Midas asked God Dionysus to reverse the curse.

When Dionysus realized how much he suffered for his own greed he decided to help him and told him to take bath in to the river of Pactolus. After the bath, everything became normal and he got his daughter back and not only his daughter, he turned everything into their real appearance again.

This curse played a significant role in king Midas's life where he realized the value of humanity, nature and it's beauty. This episode turned him into a real man with heart who would therefore use his special powers for helping the people rather accommodating his own greed.

This story is a lesson for many people who are fanatics of greed and the consequences of Midas's choices became an instance. Some historians and narrators claimed that he had an another curse from God Apollo where he got the ears like donkey.

Moral of King Midas's Story

The story has a great significance in todays society. This Greek mythological legend comes with a great moral which makes us learn the reality of life and provides a mantra to be happy.

This legend teaches us in treacherous situations how to evade greed and surreal ambition.

It also tells us the self-contentment and how should you be happy with what you have. It also shows the value of family and humanity.