Greek mythology bursts with all sorts of amazing beings; gods, sorcerers, gorgons, sirens, sea monsters and so forth. One such being is Talos, often referred to as the bronze giant.
Thanks to Ray Harryhausen, a Hollywood stop-action animator, the usual view of Talos is as an enormous metal statue come to life, often viewed erroneously as a robot.
Talos’s true nature depends on which Greek legends you read. Far from being a nation-state as it is now, Greece was a diverse collection of kingdoms, called poleis, small city-states which shared a common ethnic heritage but were not united, each having its own rulers as well as iteration of gods, spirits and the afterlife.
Talos was often described as a man of bronze set by the gods to guard Crete from invasion or attacks by pirates. Some tales have him as being forged by the smith-god Hephaestus in His divine furnaces as a statue, not a mechanism then brought mystically to life to serve as Crete’s guardian. The living statue would run three times around the island as part of his duties, throwing huge boulders at trouble makers. Popular views show him as a giant, though legends give no clear indication of his actual size.
But other versions of the myth state that Talos was a living being who was a survivor of the Age of Bronze. Ancient Greeks saw history as a cycle of ages, slowing declining with each subsequent age until the cycle bottoms out with the Age of Iron, which is the one we currently live in.
The Age of Gold was the first age, ruled over by Cronus the Titan. It was a time of peace and abundance. The earth provided food without humans having to struggle obtaining it. Hardship of any kind was unknown. Spring was eternal. People lived long healthy lifespans, free of sickness and pain, dying peacefully in their sleep.
Prometheus bringing fire to mortals was alleged to have brought an end to the Age of Gold, leading to the Age of Silver. With the Silver Age, seasons such as summer, winter, and fall came into existence. Humans needed to plant crops and build shelters. Their lifespans, while still long, was shorter than in the Golden Age. Battle among them began appearing. Evidently the god Zeus decided they weren’t honoring Him enough, so He brought an end to them, leading to the Age of Bronze.
In the Age of Bronze, humans were still powerful, but violent and warlike. It was said they were created from ash trees and their appearance was described as brazen, meaning they were metallic or bronze. These beings began building cities, their homes and weapons made of bronze as they themselves were. Talos was said to have a single vein running through his body filled with ichor, a divine form of blood, his only vulnerable point being his ankle which had either a thin membrane of flesh or a bronze nail. The Age of Bronze came to an end when the bronze humans destroyed themselves in a violent cataclysm or, in another version, a vast flood wiped them out. In this latter ending, two humans, Deucalion and his wife Pyrra threw stones over their shoulders, creating a new race of humans.
It’s not clear how Talos himself survived the end of the Age of Bronze into the following Age of Heroes but he was given as a gift either to Europa, a lover of Zeus, or to King Minos the ruler of Crete (again depending on which version of the myth you read). His demise came when Medea, a sorceress, managed to trick him into allowing the nail in his ankle to be removed, causing him to bleed to death.
There’s no account given of what became of his remains. As a living statue, once the life which the god Hephaestus gave him bled out, he would have reverted to mere bronze, presumably getting melted down by locals, a humiliating end for such an awesome creation. On the other hand, if he was a survivor of the Age of Bronze, one wonders if his brazen flesh would have rotted or been palatable for scavengers. A mournful prospect either way.
Now, according to Hesiod, we live in the final age, the Age of Iron, a time of sorrow, cruelty and desolation, where infants are born with gray hair, lies are considered ethical and the gods disrespected, all caused by human venality and corruption. It can certainly seem that way to us, with the endless barrage of evil news from TV newsfeeds, podcasts and YouTube videos hysterically declaring the end is upon us.
But honestly, I find it hard to think that way when I see a beautiful sunset with the setting sun coloring the clouds lavender and gold, a bald eagle flying in the distance, a slender fox galloping through my backyard in search of a meal or those infant spiders that I saw a few months ago congregating on a foxglove plant, preparing to launch themselves into the air, searching for a new life.
Take care, all.
