Ichor :: The Golden Blood That Flowed in the Veins of Gods

Ichor in Greek mythology is the blood of the gods. Homer describes it as the “immortal blood” that flows in the veins of the blessed gods, different from the blood of mortals because the gods eat no bread and drink no wine. In the Iliad the word is used when the goddess Aphrodite is wounded on the battlefield at Troy.

Ichor in the Iliad

In Book 5 of the Iliad, Diomedes attacks Aphrodite, who is carrying her son Aeneas from the fighting, and wounds her on the hand with his spear, which pierces the robe the Graces made for her. Homer says that the immortal blood of the goddess flowed, “ichor, such as flows in the blessed gods; for they eat no bread, and they drink no gleaming wine, and therefore they are bloodless and are called immortal” (Homer, Iliad 5.336–342). Later, her mother Dione wipes the ichor from her arm with both hands, and the arm is healed and the pain eases (Iliad 5.416–417).

The same Book shows Ares, wounded by Diomedes with Athena’s help, showing Zeus the “immortal blood” running from his wound (Iliad 5.870). Paieon, the healer of the gods, spreads pain-killing drugs on the wound (Iliad 5.899–901). Homer does not say what color ichor is, and does not say that it is harmful to mortals.

Why the Gods Have Ichor

In the Iliad, ichor is the result of the gods’ diet: they take neither the bread nor the wine of mortals, so they are “bloodless” (anaimones) in the human sense and are called immortal (Iliad 5.341–342). What the gods do eat and drink is covered on the page for Ambrosia. Their wounds heal quickly: Aphrodite’s hand is healed as soon as Dione wipes away the ichor, and Paieon cures Ares as fast as fig juice curdles milk, for, Homer says, he was not of mortal make (Iliad 5.416–417, 5.899–904).

Ichor in the Story of Talos

Ichor also fills the body of Talos, the bronze guardian of Crete. In Apollonius’ Argonautica, Talos is a survivor of the bronze race of men, left among the half-divine heroes, and Zeus gave him to Europa to guard the island by running around Crete three times on his bronze feet. His body was bronze and could not be broken, except for a blood-filled vein at the ankle, which was held in by a thin skin (Apollonius, Argonautica 4.1638–1648). When the Argonauts arrived, Medea cast spells on Talos, and as he was heaving rocks at the ship, he grazed his ankle on a sharp crag, and the ichor poured out of him like molten lead; he soon fell like a huge pine half-cut on a mountain (Argonautica 4.1665–1688).

Apollodorus gives a different account. Talos, he says, was a bronze man (some say a member of the bronze race, others a gift from Hephaestus to Minos) who had one vein running from his neck to his ankles, with a bronze nail driven into the end of the vein. He guarded the island by running around it three times a day, and he pelted the Argo with stones. In one version, Medea drove him mad with drugs; in another, she promised to make him immortal and pulled out the nail, so that all the ichor gushed out and he died. Others said that Poeas shot him dead in the ankle (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.26). Neither source gives Talos wings.

Other Uses

Apollonius also uses the word for the blood-like ichor that dripped to the earth from the tortured Titan Prometheus when the eagle tore at him on the Caucasus; from it grew the plant used in Medea’s charm to help Jason (Argonautica 3.851–854).