Episode Details

The story of Midas, and how everything he touched turned to gold, is perhaps the most famous golden myth of all. His touch led to one of the most successful, long-lasting and under-rated technologies in history: coinage.

Midas was King of Phrygia (now part of Turkey) and Dionysus - more commonly known as Bacchus - the god of wine, parties and pleasure - was passing through with his entourage, revelling as they went. 

Waking up one morning after a heavy night, Dionysus discovered that his tutor, Silenus, was missing. Silenus was a satyr, half man half goat. He had been drinking and he’d wandered off and fallen asleep in a rose garden, a garden that belonged to King Midas. Midas enjoyed spending time there with his daughter, who he loved more than anyone else in the world.

Midas found Silenus lying on the ground and took him in, no doubt nursing a hangover. Silenus stayed with Midas for over a week, delighting him with songs and stories, enjoying his wine, food and hospitality. On the eleventh day, Midas took Silenus back to Dionysus, who was so delighted to see his old mentor safe and well, he offered Midas whatever reward he wished for. Midas thought hard and then asked that everything he touched should turn to gold. Dionysus urged the king to reconsider, but Midas was sure and so Dionysus granted his wish.

Initially, Midas was delighted. He turned a twig, then a stone to gold. When he got home, he touched every rose in his garden, and they all turned to gold. Delighted, he ordered his servants to make him a feast, but, when his food and drink turned to gold, it dawned on him that perhaps his gift was a bane.

His daughter came to him, crying that their roses had lost their smell. Midas hugged her and she too turned to gold. What had been his beloved daughter was now a statue, albeit a golden one. Despairing, he prayed to Dionysus to deliver him from his curse. “Go and wash your hands in the River Pactolus,” Dionysus told him.

Midas did so. Dionysus’s cure worked. Midas’ power flowed into the water and the sands of the river turned to gold. Whatever he put in the water, his daughter included, was turned back into what it had been before Midas touched it. 

So does that part of Midas’ story end.

The obvious moral to the tale is of the tendency of lust for wealth to overpower good sense, to make us lose sight of what we love. 

But there is another tale that Midas left there in the sands of the River Pactolus.  

The Western World’s First Coins

At its height, the Lydian empire stretched across all western Asia Minor, and the Pactolus flowed right through the middle. The Lydians were, around 700BC, says the Greek historian Herodotus, “the first of all those we know to introduce the use of gold and silver coins and the first to deal in retail trade."

The Chinese might have something to say about that. Their bronze spade money and knife money dates back to the 16th century BC and the late Shang Dynasty. The money gets its name from its shape, which resembles a spade or hoe, with a pointed end, a flat or round base, and a central hole for stringing them together. But it wasn’t round, so technically I suppose it isn’t coinage as we know it.

Given that we still use coins today, coinage has proved a remarkably successful technology. Indeed the Chinese ‘yuan’ and Japanese ‘yen’ both me