Damon and Pythias

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For the 4th century BC Greek sailor and explorer, who first described Britain, see Pytheas.

In Greek mythology, the legend of Damon and Pythias (or Phintias) symbolizes trust and loyalty in a true friendship.

The truth

As told by Aristoxenus, and after him Cicero and others, around the 4th century BCE, Pythias and his friend Damon, both followers of the philosopher Pythagoras, traveled to Syracuse. Pythias was accused of plotting against the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius I. As punishment for this crime, Pythias was sentenced to death.

Accepting his sentence, Pythias asked to be allowed to return home one last time, to settle his affairs and bid his family farewell. Not wanting to be taken for a fool, Dionysius refused, believing that once released, Pythias would flee and never return.

Risking his own freedom for his best friend, Damon proposed that Dionysius hold him hostage until Pythias returned. Dionysius agreed, on the condition that, should Pythias not return when promised, Damon would be put to death in his place. Damon agreed, and Pythias was released.

Dionysius was convinced that Pythias would never return, and as the day Pythias promised to return came and went, Dionysius prepared to execute Damon. But just as the executioner was about to kill Damon, Pythias returned.

Apologizing to his friend for his delay, Pythias told of how pirates had captured his ship on the passage back to Syracuse and thrown him overboard. Dionysius listened to Pythias as he described how he swam to shore and made his way back to Syracuse as quickly as possible, arriving just in the nick of time to save his friend.

Dionysius was so taken with the friends' trust and loyalty, that he freed both Damon and Pythias, and kept them on as counsel to his court.

Another way that this story has been told is Damon had been comdemed to death because he had become angry with Dionysius. Damon pleaded to Dionysius to let him visit his family one more time, but Dionysius didn't trust him to come back. So Pythias, Damon's best friend, requested that he would die at the arranged 6 o' clock if Damon didn't return in time.

So Damon went along to see his family, and Pythias stood, ready to be executed. 5 o' clock passed, and just before 6 o' clock, when Pythias was about to be executed, Damon returned, out of breath. He explained that robbers had shot and stolen his horse on his way back, and so he had to run the rest of the way.

As Damon was about to step up to the place he was to be executed, Pythias begged Damon to let him die, as Damon meant so much to him. But Damon insisted that he take his own punishment, as he deserved.

Dionysis was so amazed at Damon and Pythias's friendship, that he set them both free and asked to be a part of their great friendship. He then kept them on as counsel to his court.

Both stories are legitimate, and both portray the same message - that nothing can get in the way of a true friendship.

Works based on the legend

In 1564, the material was made into a tragic-comic play by the English poet Richard Edwards (Damon and Pythias).

The best-known modern treatment of the legend is the German ballad Die Bürgschaft, written in 1799 by Friedrich Schiller, based on the Gesta Romanorum version. (In this work, Damon is sentenced to death, not Pythias.)

In Japan, the short story Hashire Meros by Osamu Dazai and a nursery tale by Miekichi Suzuki were based on the legend.

In 1821, the Irish poet John Banim wrote a play based on the legend (Damon and Pythias). Familiarity with this play led Justus H. Rathbone to found the fraternal order Knights of Pythias.

A chapter in Little Men, a novel by Louisa May Alcott published in 1871, also bears the title "Damon and Pythias".

The 1962 MGM film version of the same name, Damon and Pythias, remained true to the ancient story, and starred Guy Williams as Damon, and Don Burnett as Pythias.

In 1992 Toei Company, Ltd., Made the Anime version of Hashire Meros.

Part of the plot of the 2003 animated film Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is based on Damon and Pythius.

Idiomatic use

"Damon and Pythias" came to be an idiomatic expression for "true friendship". Thus, Denis Diderot's short story, "The Two Friends from Bourbonne," (1770) begins "There used to be two men here who might be called the Damon and Pythias of Bourbonne". Bummer and Lazarus at Bummer's death (1865) were eulogized as "the Damon and Pythias of San Francisco".

In Robert Louis Stevenson's novella "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Henry Jekyll's two oldest friends, Dr. Lanyon and Mr. Utterson (a lawyer), have the following exchange while discussing Dr. Jekyll's apparent self-imposed isolation:

...said Utterson. “I thought you had a common bond of interest.”

   
“We had,” was the reply. “But it is more than ten years since Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me.  He began to go wrong, wrong in the mind… Such unscientific balderdash,” said the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, “would have estranged Damon and Pythias.”

  
This little spirit of temper was somewhat of a relief to Mr. Utterson.  “They have only differed on some point of science,” he thought…

The use of the Damon-and-Pythias idiom would seem to indicate that, whether the difference was on a point of science or something else, it was not "only" some trivial difference.

Reference to this myth is also seen within Shakespeare's Hamlet, where the eponymous character addresses his close friend Horatio as "O Damon dear".

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Last updated on Tuesday February 19, 2008 at 21:15:22 PST (GMT -0800)
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