Theias

Theias (also written Thias) was a king of Assyria in the account of the poet Panyassis, as Apollodorus reports it. He was the father of Smyrna, who is also called Myrrha, and through her the father of Adonis. The story explains how the beautiful Adonis came to be born from a myrrh tree.

Theias and Smyrna

Apollodorus gives the genealogy of Adonis in three versions. In one, Adonis was the son of Cinyras, king of Cyprus, and Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion (Apollodorus, Library 3.14.3). Hesiod, according to Apollodorus, said that he was a son of Phoenix and Alphesiboea. Panyassis, the third authority, said that Adonis was the son of Thias, king of Assyria, who had a daughter named Smyrna (Apollodorus, Library 3.14.4). In this version Theias is both the father of Smyrna and, through her, the father of Adonis, so that Adonis is also his grandson.

The Story of Myrrha

According to Apollodorus, Smyrna did not honor Aphrodite, and the goddess in her anger made her fall in love with her own father. With the help of her nurse she shared his bed without his knowledge for twelve nights. When Theias discovered who she was, he drew his sword and chased her. As he was about to catch her, she prayed to the gods to become invisible, and they took pity on her and changed her into the tree called smyrna, the myrrh tree (Apollodorus, Library 3.14.4).

Ten months later the tree split open, and Adonis was born. Aphrodite, struck by the beauty of the infant, hid him in a chest without telling the other gods and gave him to Persephone to look after; when Persephone saw him, she refused to give him back. Zeus settled their dispute by dividing the year into three parts: Adonis would spend one part by himself, one with Persephone and one with Aphrodite. Adonis later gave his own share to Aphrodite, and was killed by a boar while hunting (Apollodorus, Library 3.14.4).

Ovid’s Version

Ovid tells the story of Myrrha at length in the Metamorphoses, but names her father Cinyras and sets it in Cyprus: Cinyras would have been counted happy among men if he had had no children (Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.298–299). After her transformation into a myrrh tree, the tree gave birth with the help of Lucina, and the Naiads laid the baby on soft grass and anointed him with his mother’s tears (Metamorphoses 10.503–514). In Ovid it is Cinyras, not Theias, who learns the truth and chases his daughter with a sword, and the poet says that Cupid is innocent of her passion and blames a Fury instead (Metamorphoses 10.311–314, 10.472–476).

Theias Sources

Apollodorus, Library 3.14.3–4 (reporting Panyassis and Hesiod); Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.298–518 (especially 10.311–314, 10.472–476 and 10.503–514).

See Also: Myrrha, Adonis, Aphrodite, Adonis and Aphrodite, Cinyras, Persephone