The Midas touch

A person may be said to have the Midas touch if they have the ability to make money, e.g., if any business they establish flourishes and becomes very profitable or any investment they make can be relied on to yield a substantial return. Conversely, a person whose commercial ventures always fail or whose investments regularly lose money may be said (perhaps sometimes rather ironically) to lack the Midas touch.

The Midas to whom these idiomatic expressions refer was a figure in Greek mythology, a king of Phrygia in Asia Minor. He acquired the ability to turn everything he touched into gold as a reward from the god Dionysus.

According to the myth, Silenus, a satyr, the tutor and close companion of Dionysus, had drunk too much wine, as he often did, and had wandered off and become lost in the Phrygian countryside. He was found by some local inhabitants and brought to the court of their king, Midas, who looked after him for a few days before taking him back to Dionysus. When, out of gratitude for his kindness in looking after Silenus, Dionysus offered to give Midas whatever he would most like, the latter asked for and was given the ability to turn anything he touched into gold – a request he almost immediately came to regret when he found that even the food he needed to stay alive turned to gold the moment he touched it. There is more than one conclusion to the myth: the simplest is that referred to by Aristotle (in Politics I, 1257b14-17), that, unable to eat or drink, Midas died within days, regretting his foolish wish.