MIDAS, king of Phrygia, is one of those half-legendary heroes in whom religious legends have gathered round a real person. The name Midas the king, MIΔAI FANAKTEI, occurs on a very ancient tomb in the valley of the Sangarius, the legendary seat of the Phrygian kingdom {Iliad iii. 189). The Phrygian monarchy was destroyed by the Cimmerians about 670 b.c., and the last king Midas committed suicide by drinking bull’s blood. The name Midas became in Greek tradition the representative of this ancient dynasty, but all that is told of him is religious myth. He is a figure in the cycle of Cybele legends, the son of the goddess and her first priest. He is also closely connected with the cultus of Dionysus, like the two heroic personages Marsyas and Silenus. The Midas legend was known on Mount Bermius in Macedonia, and must at one time have existed in Greece; two cities Midea, in Argolis and in Boeotia, recall the Phrygian city Midaeium.

See Herod, viii. 138; Xen., Anab., i. 2, 13; Paus. i. 45, &c.