ABSTRACT
Magicians who lived at lalysus, in the island of Rhodes. The historian Diodorus makes them the children of Thalassa (the sea) and says they were Rhodes’ original inhabitants. They helped Capheira to nurse Poseidon in his childhood, perhaps when Cronos wished to devour him. They were able to alter the weather, cure diseases, and make wonderful objects out of metal. For example, they were believed to have made Poseidon’s trident (more usually, however, attributed to the Cyclopes, with whom they were sometimes confused) and Cronos’ sickle, and the first images of the gods. Their ability as smiths is attested by the names of three of them, Chryson (‘gold-worker’), Argyron (‘silverworker’), and Chalcon (‘bronze-worker’). But at the same time they were considered to be malevolent. For they were adept at putting the evil eye on the works of men: for example, they destroyed crops by mixing sulphur with the waters of the Styx and sprinkling the poisonous mixture on the island. Zeus therefore grew to hate them, and drowned them in a great flood-even though they had foreseen it, and had fled to Asia Minor to escape the engulfing waters. According to a variant account, however, they were driven from Rhodes by the sons of Helios, the god of the island.
