Talos · Chapter 2 of 6
What He Did to Strangers
Stones · Fire · A phrase with a story
The word survived. Whether the reason did is another question.
The tradition is specific about method. Ships that came close were kept off with boulders, which is the version the Argonautica uses. For anyone who actually landed, Simonides is said to have told a stranger story: Talos would heat himself red-hot and take hold of them. Ancient writers offered the grimace of those deaths as one explanation for the phrase sardonic laughter, tying it to Sardinians who had refused to be handed over to Minos. It is an etymology the ancients proposed rather than one anybody has since demonstrated.
- Boulders offshore
- Bronze heated through
- A word's origin
Unlocks in-game at Mastery 3.
