Tiresias

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Origins: The Blind Prophet

There are different versions of how Tiresias became the famous blind prophet of Thebes, at least two of which were well known in antiquity.^[5] 

The Bath of Athena

In one myth, Tiresias happened upon Athena one day while she was bathing. When Athena realized that Tiresias had seen her naked, she immediately struck him blind. 

Chariclo, Tiresias’ mother and one of Athena’s attendants, begged the goddess to restore the boy’s sight. Athena explained that she could not do so; however, she did give Tiresias several valuable gifts as compensation for his lost eyesight. Callimachus imagines Athena’s words to Chariclo in his fifth Hymn:

I will make him a seer to be sung of men hereafter, yea, more excellent than any other. He shall know the birds – which is of good omen among all the countless birds that fly and what birds are of ill-omened flight. Many oracles shall he utter to the Boeotians and many unto Cadmus, and to the mighty sons of Labdacus in later days. Also will I give him a great staff which shall guide his feet as he hath need, and I will give him a long term of life. And he only, when he dies, shall walk among the dead having understanding, honoured of the great Leader of Peoples.^[6]

Thus, Tiresias’ powers of divination, magical staff, longevity, and even his ability to continue prophesying after death were all gifts from Athena. Between these, Tiresias was able to navigate life just as well as, if not better than, an ordinary sighted mortal.^[7]

Snakes, Spontaneous Sex Changes, and the Wrath of Hera

The alternative myth of how Tiresias gained his powers is much stranger. This version also begins with Tiresias coming across an unusual sight in the woods: two copulating snakes. Tiresias killed the female snake (or, in some versions, both snakes); as a consequence, he was instantly transformed into a woman.

Tiresias went on to live as a woman for some time (seven or eight years in most sources). One day, however, he again happened upon two copulating snakes. According to some sources, Tiresias was able to cancel out his earlier misstep by killing the male snake; in others, he simply killed both. Either way, Tiresias was transformed back into a man.

This remarkable experience left Tiresias uniquely well placed to resolve a dispute between Zeus and Hera. The king and queen of the gods apparently could not agree on whether the male or the female derived more pleasure from sex. So they asked Tiresias—who had lived as both a man and a woman—to resolve the matter once and for all. Tiresias’ response was widely circulated in the ancient world:

Of ten parts [of sex] a man enjoys one only;

But a woman enjoys the full ten parts in her heart.^[8]

Hera, apparently, found this response humiliating and punished Tiresias by striking him blind. But Zeus pitied Tiresias and compensated him by granting him the gift of divination—and, according to some sources, a life that spanned seven generations.^[9]

Tiresias and the Theban Myths

As a prophet, Tiresias was an ever-present (if often reluctant) figure in the mythology of Thebes, one of the most famous and storied cities of Greek mythology.

Cadmus

Tiresias’ association with Thebes can be traced back to the very origins of the city. In several sources, Tiresias gives prophecies to Cadmus, the founder of Thebes.^[10] In Euripides’ Bacchae, Tiresias joins the aged Cadmus in unsuccessfully urging Pentheus, the young king of Thebes, to acknowledge the divinity of Dionysus.^[11]

Oedipus

Tiresias’ presence in Theban myths continued unabated for several generations. He was thus alive and well to advise the Labdacid kings of Thebes, named after Cadmus’ grandson Labdacus.

In one myth, for example, Tiresias was summoned to help Oedipus solve the murder of Labdacus’ son Laius, the previous king of Thebes. In literary representations of this exchange—most famously, in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King—Tiresias is initially reluctant to speak; but when Oedipus presses him, Tiresias becomes angry and insinuates that Oedipus himself unknowingly murdered Laius:

I tell you: the man whom you have been seeking this long while, uttering threats and proclaiming a search into the murder of Laius, is here, ostensibly an alien sojourner, but soon to be found a native of Thebes; nor will he enjoy his fortune. A blind man, though now he sees, a beggar, though now rich, he will make his way to a foreign land, feeling the ground before him with his staff. And he will be discovered to be at once brother and father of the children with whom he consorts; son and husband of the woman who bore him; heir to his father's bed, shedder of his father’s blood.^[12]

Soon after, Oedipus realizes that not only did he kill Laius, but Laius was his father. Since he had married Laius’ wife Jocasta after the murder, Oedipus is left to conclude—to his horror—that he had killed his father and married his mother.^[13]

The Seven against Thebes

Years later, Oedipus’ sons Polyneices and Eteocles quarreled about which of them should rule Thebes. They eventually decided to take turns, ruling on alternate years. At the end of his year, however, Eteocles refused to turn power over to Polyneices. The enraged Polyneices assembled an army led by seven commanders, including himself, and attacked Thebes—an assault known as the war of the Seven against Thebes.

During this war, Tiresias used his prophetic abilities to give aid to the Thebans. He revealed that Thebes would only be saved if Menoeceus, the son of the Theban nobleman Creon and a descendant of Cadmus’ Spartoi, sacrificed himself. Menoeceus thus threw himself to his death from the walls of the city. Polyneices and Eteocles then tried to settle the war in single combat, but they both ended up dead. A battle broke out, and in the end the Thebans managed to kill most of the so-called Seven against Thebes and rout their army.^[14]

After the war was over, Creon decreed that the body of the traitor Polyneices was to be left in the open, for vultures and dogs to devour. But Polyneices’ sister Antigone defied the order and buried her brother. She was caught, and as punishment for her defiance, Creon ordered that she be buried alive. Once again, Tiresias appeared at the palace: he warned Creon that if he did not revoke the order, the gods would punish him for his impiety.^[15] Sure enough, Creon’s son Haemon killed himself when Antigone (to whom he was betrothed) was executed.^[16]

The War of the Epigoni and the Death of Tiresias

A generation after the Seven against Thebes, the sons of the original seven commanders—collectively known as the Epigoni (literally “offspring”)—sought to avenge their fathers by conquering Thebes. This time, the Theban army was roundly defeated.

When the battle was over, Tiresias advised the Thebans on the best way to save themselves. He suggested that they send a herald to the Epigoni under the pretense of negotiating the city’s surrender. This would buy the Thebans time to make their escape.

The Thebans did as Tiresias advised. Tiresias then joined the rest of the Thebans in fleeing the city. While passing by the Spring of Tilphossa, Tiresias stopped to drink. He died then and there, having lived through the entire mythical history of Thebes, from the foundation of the city to its destruction.^[17]

Other Theban Myths

As the ubiquitous prophet of Thebes, Tiresias made brief appearances in several other Theban myths.

According to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for example, the nymph Liriope (who lived near Thebes) consulted Tiresias to learn whether her son Narcissus would have a long life. Tiresias’ response was cryptic:

If he but fail to recognize himself,

a long life he may have, beneath the sun.^[18]

Only later did Tiresias’ meaning become clear: one day, the handsome Narcissus happened to see his reflection in the water. Stunned by his good looks, he could not tear himself away and remained rooted to the spot until he died and was transformed into the Narcissus flower.

Tiresias was also sometimes said to have been present at the birth of Heracles, the great strongman, who had Theban roots. Tiresias predicted Heracles’ deeds, from his labors to his ultimate deification.^[19]

Odysseus

It is unusual for a Greek mortal’s mythology to continue after their death, but Tiresias was nothing if not unusual. While Odysseus was trying to find his way back home to Ithaca after fighting in the Trojan War, the witch Circe advised him to go to the Underworld to seek instructions from Tiresias:

To him even in death Persephone has granted reason, that he alone should have understanding; but the others flit about as shadows.^[20]

Odysseus followed Circe’s advice. He found Tiresias in the Underworld among the shades of the dead and asked him what he needed to do to get back home. Tiresias warned Odysseus that he and his men would soon put in at the island of Thrinacia, and that they must avoid harming the cattle of the sun god Helios while they were there. 

Tiresias also told Odysseus that Poseidon was angry at him for blinding his son Polyphemus, and that after returning to Ithaca he would need to set out on another journey to atone for this sin: Odysseus would travel by land with an oar on his shoulder until he reached a place where nobody knew of the sea or seafaring. He would know he had gone far enough when a passerby mistook his oar for a winnowing fan. There, he would plant the oar in the earth and sacrifice to Poseidon. Only then could he finally return home.^[21]