The Myth of Talos: Science Fiction in Ancient Greece
To help King Minos, Hephaestus, the god of technology, built a defense system to deal with intruders who dared to enter the kingdom of the island of Crete. The guards and their traditional weapons were not enough, so the god devised a new untamed defender. His creation was a giant bronze man, endowed with superhuman strength and driven by ichor, the vital fluid of the gods, the mineral found in his own blood, or the blood itself. Thus was born the first robot, which the god named Talos.
His job was to walk around the island of Crete, making three full laps throughout the day, looking for intruders. When he saw ships from outside the kingdom approaching the coast, he threw huge boulders at them to sink them. And if any survivors of the shipwreck made it ashore, Talos would heat his metallic body until the bronze was red hot and, at that moment, take the victims and crush them against his chest.
Talos had to repeat his task day after day without any change. But, despite being a robot, he possessed a consciousness, just like any human.
After a while, on a day like any other, the giant spotted a ship approaching the island on the horizon. Jason’s crew, Medea and the Argonauts were returning from their successful mission after obtaining the Golden Fleece. The sailors had suffered too many misfortunes in their adventure and were looking for a safe port to rest. They had heard the stories of Crete and its bronze colossus, so they looked for a remote bay to anchor in. But before they could even drop the anchor, Talos discovered them.
Although the Argonauts cowered at the automaton’s advance, the sorceress Medea noticed a nail in the robot’s ankle. The body of the colossal bronchus was irrigated by a single vein through which the ichor ran, which ran from the neck to the heel, and there it was topped by that nail, which prevented it from bleeding out. Medea, suspicious of that shiny nail, devised a ploy to get rid of the robotic vigilante.
The sorceress proposed a deal to Talos: she assured him that she could make him immortal in exchange for letting him remove the nail. Medea’s proposal resonated in the depths of the giant, who, ignoring his mechanical nature and letting himself be carried away by his conscience so human that he longed for eternal life, agreed.
While Medea pronounced her spells and incantations, Jason slipped behind the robot and removed the nail. Medea’s suspicions were true: this was the only weak point of Hephaestus’ creation. The ichor spilled down the bronze wound, leaving him without his power source.
Talos collapsed on the sands of the coast with a loud rumble and the Argonauts were able to make the journey back to their home.
The story of Talos was first recorded around 700 BC, and his figure appeared on Greek coins, painted on vases, frescoes, and even in theatrical performances. Its history, like all myths, has digressions, especially in what has to do with its creation. In certain versions he appears as the son of Cres, the personification of the island of Crete, and the father of Hephaestus; although this version contradicts the dominant one. In other versions, it is an automaton forged by Hephaestus with the help of the Cyclops and, in as many others, it is the last of an evil race of bronze giants. Other versions of the myth claim that Talos was forged by Daedalus, the inventor. The latter, if we take into account Daedalus’s relationship with Crete, is not entirely outlandish. Could it have been some other work of the inventor for the king, before his imprisonment? Or a forced job, already imprisoned on the island? However following this version, it would not be very clear how Daedalus would have been able to get the ichor to give life to his creation.
Other digressions are also given regarding how the automaton is defeated. Those involving Medea postulate that, in some versions, he drove Talos crazy with his potions, making him the same promise as in the dominant version. In others, Medea hypnotizes Talos from the Argo, driving him crazy and causing the robot to pull the nail itself. Another alternative version maintains that Peante, father of Philoctetes, who was traveling in the ship as one of the Argonauts, pierced the vein through which the ichor ran with an arrow.
Now, the first question I asked myself when learning this myth was how is it possible? How was it possible that in ancient Greece they had imagined a robot? And even more, that myths and those who recorded them had, without knowing it, sketched the first trace of science fiction in literature.
If we investigate a little, as fantastic as it still seems, it is not difficult to find that the Greeks had a great interest in technical subjects, that there were the prôtoi heuretaí, first discoverers, inventors who enjoyed great esteem and consideration. Although the Greeks invented a large number of machines and techniques that were used both in carpentry and construction and in navigation and warfare, their maximum inventive expression was in gadgets that did not have a specific function, as they were designed to amaze viewers by their ability to move by themselves and imitate the actions of living beings: the automata.
Today we only know the achievements of the Greek inventors through the stories that were told about them. Already Homer in the Iliad spoke of automata created by Hephaestus. There are records of Archytas of Taranto who, between the fourth and third centuries BC, made a wooden dove capable of flying, which was supported by counterweights and moved based on air enclosed inside. Demetrius of Falero organized processions that were preceded by a mechanical snail that moved on its own and spat slime. With this, I want to illustrate the fact that, despite the antiquity to which we go back, the human race always pursued the fantasy of creating mechanical beings that, without any intervention, imitated the creations of nature. This impulse was transferred to the stories that were later transformed into the literature of the time and, since then, persisted in the human ideal.
Talos’ story is as much about his robotic heart as it is about his (almost) human mind. The trace of human essence in creations or the lack of it and the reactions that this provokes is a debate that extends to the present day and that applies to any current discussion of artificial intelligence.
In the portraits of his figure, the ancient painters captured the nature of Talos in the most incredible way: painting a tear falling down his bronze cheek as he fainted, dying, after being deceived by the Argonauts. This display of human character inside that metal body symbolizes repentance after having incurred the hubris, characteristic of humans in Greek representations if any.
Hubris is a Greek concept that can be translated as excess, typical of pride and arrogance. It is not an irrational impulse or an imbalance, but an attempt to transgress the limits imposed by the gods on men. It was a violent feeling inspired by exaggerated passions, considered the main fault since it was contempt for the gods on the part of humans for trying to reach their condition. Whoever committed hubris was guilty of wanting more than the gods had allotted him for his fate. And every such act was severely punished, returning the individual within the bounds he crossed.
Examples of hubris abound in the stories of ancient Greece. One of the most recognized is probably Achilles as a complete representation of hubris in Homer’s Iliad, opposed in said work with Hector’s areté (measure). And, if we speak of Achilles as a prototypical representation of hubris, it is at least striking that the weak point of the bronze titan, also a victim of the impulse, is in an area near the heel. Like these, the parallels, crossovers, and connections of the myths of Greek culture are constant and infinite.
The myth of Talos serves us, in addition to being an example of excess, to see that, even in ancient Greece, they already imagined that a robot could aspire to more than what it was created for and would endanger human beings. Science fiction was always there.
