Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, Thoas () was a king of the Taurians, a barbaric tribe in

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

. He was king when

Agamemnon In Greek mythology, Agamemnon (; ''Agamémnōn'') was a king of Mycenae who commanded the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans during the Trojan War. He was the son (or grandson) of King Atreus and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of C ...

's daughter

Iphigenia In Greek mythology, Iphigenia (; , ) was a daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, and thus a princess of Mycenae. In the story, Agamemnon offends the goddess Artemis on his way to the Trojan War by hunting and killing one of Artem ...

was taken to the land of the Taurians, and became a priestess of

Artemis In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...

there. He was a character in

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

' play ''

Iphigenia among the Taurians ''Iphigenia in Tauris'' (, ''Iphigeneia en Taurois'') is a drama by the playwright Euripides, written between 414 BC and 412 BC. It has much in common with another of Euripides's plays, '' Helen'', as well as the lost play '' Andromeda'', and is ...

''. He is sometimes identified with the Thoas who was the king of

Lemnos Lemnos ( ) or Limnos ( ) is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos (regional unit), Lemnos regional unit, which is part of the North Aegean modern regions of Greece ...

and the son of

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...

and

Ariadne In Greek mythology, Ariadne (; ; ) was a Cretan princess, the daughter of King Minos of Crete. There are variations of Ariadne's myth, but she is known for helping Theseus escape from the Minotaur and being abandoned by him on the island of N ...

, and the father of

Hypsipyle In Greek mythology, Hypsipyle () was a queen of Lemnos, and the daughter of King Thoas of Lemnos, and the granddaughter of Dionysus and Ariadne. When the women of Lemnos killed all the males on the island, Hypsipyle saved her father Thoas. She r ...

. According to the Greek grammarian

Antoninus Liberalis Antoninus Liberalis () was an Ancient Greek grammarian who probably flourished between the second and third centuries AD. He is known as the author of ''The Metamorphoses'', a collection of tales that offers new variants of already familiar myths ...

, the 2nd-century BC poet

Nicander Nicander of Colophon (; fl. 2nd century BC) was a Greece, Greek poet, physician, and grammarian. The scattered biographical details in the ancient sources are so contradictory that it was sometimes assumed that there were two Hellenistic authors ...

said that Thoas was the son of Borysthenes, god of a major river to the far north of Greece (now the

Dnieper The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

Euripides

' play, ''

'',

, after being rescued from her intended sacrifice at Aulis by

, has been brought to the Taurians and their king Thoas, where she is forced to sacrifice any trespassing Greeks to Artemis. As the play begins, Iphigenia's brother

Orestes In Greek mythology, Orestes or Orestis (; ) was the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, and the brother of Electra and Iphigenia. He was also known by the patronymic Agamemnonides (), meaning "son of Agamemnon." He is the subject of several ...

arrives, but he is captured and brought before Iphigenia to be sacrificed. But when the siblings discover each other's identity, they discuss ways to escape. Orestes wants to kill Thoas, but Iphigenia suggests that they trick him. Iphigenia meets with Thoas and claims that because of Orestes' sin of

matricide Matricide (or maternal homicide) is the act of killing one's own mother. Known or suspected matricides * Amastris, queen of Heraclea, was drowned by her two sons in 284 BC. * Cleopatra III of Egypt was assassinated in 101 BC by order of ...

he is polluted and needs to be purified by being washed in the sea. Thoas believes her and allows her to take Orestes to the sea, where they make their escape. A messenger relays this to Thoas and he immediately sends his men to pursue them. Athena intervenes and convinces him to let them go.

Hyginus

Hyginus Hyginus may refer to: People *Hyginus, the author of the '' Fabulae'', an important ancient Latin source for Greek mythology. *Hyginus, the author of the ''Astronomia'', a popular ancient Latin guide on astronomy, probably the same as the author ...

tells much the same story as Euripides, but he identifies the Taurian king Thoas with the Lemnian Thoas who was the father of

. Hyginus provides an ending to Thoas' story, saying that the king pursued Orestes and Iphigenia, to the island home of

Chryses In Greek mythology, Chryses (; Greek, Χρύσης ''Khrýsēs'', meaning "golden") was a Trojan priest of Apollo at Chryse, near the city of Troy. Family According to a tradition mentioned by Eustathius of Thessalonica, Chryses and Brise ...

, the son of

and his

Trojan Trojan or Trojans may refer to: * Of or from the ancient city of Troy * Trojan language, the language of the historical Trojans Arts and entertainment Music * '' Les Troyens'' ('The Trojans'), an opera by Berlioz, premiered part 1863, part 18 ...

war-prize

Chryseis In Greek mythology, Chryseis (, , ) is a Trojan woman, the daughter of Chryses. Chryseis, her apparent name in the ''Iliad'', means simply "Chryses' daughter"; later writers give her real name as Astynome (). The 12th-century poet Tzetzes desc ...

. After Chryses discovered that he was the half brother of Orestes and Iphigenia, he killed Thoas.Gantz, p. 687; Hyginus, ''Fabulae'
120

121
/ref>

Notes

References

Apollodorus Apollodorus ( Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ''Apollodoros'') was a popular name in ancient Greece. It is the masculine gender of a noun compounded from Apollo, the deity, and doron, "gift"; that is, "Gift of Apollo." It may refer to: :''Note: A ...

, ''Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts,

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Celoria, Francis, ''The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis: A Translation with a Commentary'', Routledge 1992. . *

, ''

Iphigenia in Tauris ''Iphigenia in Tauris'' (, ''Iphigeneia en Taurois'') is a drama by the playwright Euripides, written between 414 BC and 412 BC. It has much in common with another of Euripides's plays, ''Helen (play), Helen'', as well as the lost play ''Andromed ...

'', translated by Robert Potter in ''The Complete Greek Drama'', edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O'Neill Jr. Volume 2. New York. Random House. 1938
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Gantz, Timothy, ''Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: (Vol. 1), (Vol. 2). * Grimal, Pierre, ''The Dictionary of Classical Mythology'', Wiley-Blackwell, 1996. . * Hard, Robin, ''The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology"'', Psychology Press, 2004,
Google Books
* Hyginus, Gaius Julius, ''

Fabulae The ''Fabulae'' is a Latin handbook of mythology, attributed to an author named Hyginus, who is generally believed to have been separate from Gaius Julius Hyginus. The work consists of some three hundred very brief and plainly, even crudely, told ...

'' in ''Apollodorus' ''Library'' and Hyginus' ''Fabulae'': Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, Translated, with Introductions by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma'', Hackett Publishing Company, 2007. . * Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott. ''

A Greek-English Lexicon A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is '' a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient ...

''. Revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of. Roderick McKenzie. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1940
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Parada, Carlos, ''Genealogical Guide to Greek Mythology'', Jonsered, Paul Åströms Förlag, 1993. . * Pausanias, ''Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Smith, William; ''

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' is a biographical dictionary of classical antiquity, edited by William Smith (lexicographer), William Smith and originally published in London by John Taylor (English publisher), Tayl ...

'', London (1873)
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Tripp, Edward, ''Crowell's Handbook of Classical Mythology'', Thomas Y. Crowell Co; First edition (June 1970). {{ISBN, 069022608X. * Valerius Flaccus, Gaius, ''Argonautica'', translated by J. H. Mozley,

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...

No. 286. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1928
Online version at Harvard University Press
Kings in Greek mythology Ancient Crimea