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Winged 'ΤΑΛΩΝ' armed with a stone. Silver didrachma from Phaistos, Crete (ca. 300/280-270 BCE), obverse. (Cabinet des Médailles, Paris)

In Greek mythology, Talos, also spelled Talus (/ˈteɪlɒs/;^[1]Greek: Τάλως, Talōs) or Talon (/ˈteɪlɒn, ən/; Greek: Τάλων, Talōn), was a giant automaton made of bronze to protect Europa in Crete from pirates and invaders. He circled the island's shores three times daily.

Biography

The death of Talos depicted on a 4th-century BCE krater now in the Jatta National Archaeological Museum in Ruvo di Puglia.

Talos's bronze nature suggested to the author of Bibliothēkē that he may have been a survivor from the Age of Bronze, a descendant of the brazen race that sprang from meliae "ash-tree nymphs" according to Argonautica 4. The conception that Hesiod's men of the Age of Bronze were actually made of bronze is extended to men of the age of gold by Lucian for humorous effect.

The pseudo-Platonic dialogue Minos rationalized the myth, thrice yearly showing at each village in turn the laws of Minos inscribed on brass tablets.

Talos is said to have been made by Hephaestus at the request of Zeus, to protect Europa from people who would want to kidnap her.

According to Cinaethon in his poem, Talos was the son of Cres (son of Idaea and Zeus) and the father of Hephaestus who also fathered Rhadamanthys.^[2]

Medeia and Talus by Sybil Tawse

History

According to Brian A. Sparkes, "The most detailed treatment in literature is to be found in the Argonautica ... however, we have detailed images of the episode, 150 years earlier, dated to around 400 BCE."^[3]

Narratives and meaning

In the Cretan dialect, talôs was the equivalent of the Greek hêlios,^{[citation needed]} the Sun: the lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria notes simply "Talos is the Sun".^{[citation needed]} In Crete, Zeus was worshipped as Zeus Tallaios,^[4] "Solar Zeus", absorbing the earlier god as an epithet in the familiar sequence.^[5] The god was identified with the Tallaia, a spur of the Ida range in Crete. On the coin from Phaistos (illustration) he is winged; in Greek vase-paintings and Etruscan bronze mirrors he is not. The ideas of Talos vary widely, with one consistent detail: in Greek imagery outside Crete, Talos is always being vanquished:^[6] he seems to have been an enigmatic figure to the Greeks themselves.^[7]

Talos, a sculpture by Michael Ayrton in Cambridge

Talos is described by Greeks in two versions. In one version, Talos is a gift from Hephaestus to Minos, forged with the aid of the Cyclopes in the form of a bull.^[8] In the other version, Talos is a gift from Zeus to Europa.^[9] Or he may have been the son of Kres, the personification of Crete;^[10] in Argonautica Talos threw rocks at any approaching ship to protect his island.^[11] In the Byzantine encyclopedia called the Suda, it is said that when the Sardinians did not wish to release Talos to Minos, he heated himself – by jumping into a fire – and clasped them in his embrace.^[12]

Talos had one vein, which went from his neck to his ankle, bound shut by only one bronze nail. The Argo, transporting Jason and the Argonauts, approached Crete after obtaining the Golden Fleece. As guardian of the island, Talos kept the Argo at bay by hurling great boulders at it. According to pseudo-Apollodorus' Bibliotheke, Talos was slain when Medea the sorceress either drove him mad with drugs, or deceived him into believing that she would make him immortal by removing the nail. In Argonautica, Medea hypnotized him from the Argo, driving him mad with the keres she raised, so that he dislodged the nail, and "the ichor ran out of him like molten lead", exsanguinating and killing him. Peter Green, translator of Argonautica, notes that the story is somewhat reminiscent of the story regarding the heel of Achilles.^[13]

Interpretation

In Argonautica, Apollonius notes that "the ichor... ran out like molten lead". A. B. Cook first suggested that the single vein closed by a nail or plug referred to the lost-wax method of casting.^[14]Robert Graves (whose interpretation of Greek mythology is controversial among many scholars) suggests that this myth is based on a misinterpretation of an image of Athena demonstrating the process of lost-wax casting of steel, which Daedalus would have brought to Sardinia.^[15]

See also

• 
  Talos No. 2, an abstract bronze sculpture in Portland, Oregon
  


• TALOS (uniform)


• 
  The Talos Principle, a narrated-based puzzle videogame.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Talos.

• Talos in the Greek Mythology Link