Telchines

The Telchines were the original inhabitants of the island of Rhodes in Greek mythology, a people of skilled metalworkers and sorcerers. They made tools for the gods, including the trident of Poseidon and the sickle of Cronus, and they had a reputation for magic and for jealously guarding their crafts. Their sorcery was said to have brought them into conflict with the gods.

Origins

Diodorus Siculus says that Rhodes was first inhabited by the Telchines, who according to the myth were children of Thalatta, the sea (Diodorus Siculus 5.55.1). Rhodes itself was once called Telchinis after them (Strabo 14.2.7). Strabo adds that some writers said they came from Crete to Cyprus and then to Rhodes (Strabo 14.2.7). Other sources identify or relate them to the Curetes, the Corybantes, the Cabeiri and the Idaean Dactyls, which Strabo mentions as a confusion of overlapping groups (Strabo 10.3.7).

Craftsmen and Sorcerers

Strabo says that the Telchines were the first to work iron and bronze, and that they made the sickle for Cronus (Strabo 14.2.7). Callimachus says that they fashioned the three-pronged weapon with which Poseidon struck the mountains and made the islands (Callimachus, Hymn to Delos 31). Diodorus adds that they discovered other arts useful to mankind and were the first to make statues of gods; he mentions an Apollo Telchinius at Lindus, a Hera and Nymphs called Telchinian at Ialysus, and a Hera Telchinia at Cameirus (Diodorus 5.55.2). In Statius, the Cyclopes and the Telchines helped Hephaestus forge the necklace that he gave Harmonia at her wedding to Cadmus (Statius, Thebaid 2.269–275).

They also had a darker name. According to Diodorus, they were wizards who could call up clouds, rain, hail and even snow at will, like the Magi of Persia; they could change their shapes, and they were jealous of teaching their skills to others (Diodorus 5.55.3). Strabo reports two views of the Telchines: some said that they were sorcerers who poured the water of the Styx mixed with sulphur on animals and plants to destroy them, while others said that they were excellent craftsmen who were slandered by rival workmen and so got a bad name (Strabo 14.2.7).

The Telchines and Poseidon

Diodorus tells how Rhea entrusted the baby Poseidon to the Telchines and to Capheira, the daughter of Oceanus, to bring up (Diodorus 5.55.1). When Poseidon grew up he fell in love with Halia, the sister of the Telchines, and she bore him six sons and a daughter, Rhodos, after whom the island was named (Diodorus 5.55.4).

Exile and Destruction

Diodorus gives one ending for the Telchines of Rhodes: they foresaw the flood that was about to come, left the island and were scattered. Of their number Lycus went to Lycia and built a temple of Apollo Lycius beside the river Xanthus (Diodorus 5.56.1). Helios, who fell in love with Rhodos, named the island after her, and the Heliadae, the seven sons of Helios, came after the Telchines on the island (Diodorus 5.56.3–5; Strabo 14.2.8).

A harsher end for the Telchines is told by Ovid, who says that Jupiter hated their evil eye and sank them beneath the waves of his brother Neptune (Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.365–367). A Telchine group also lived on the island of Ceos. Callimachus mentions the Telchines there, with Demonax, as people who disregarded the gods; they were destroyed, but Macelo and her daughter Dexithea, who had entertained gods, were spared (Callimachus, Aetia 3).

Pausanias reports a tradition that part of the Telchines once lived in Cyprus, and that some of them came to Boeotia; he suggests this as the origin of the name of Telchinian Athena at Teumessus (Pausanias 9.19.1).

Telchines Sources

Diodorus Siculus 5.55–56; Strabo 10.3.7, 14.2.7–8; Callimachus, Hymn to Delos 31 and Aetia 3; Statius, Thebaid 2.269–275; Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.365–367; Pausanias 9.19.1.

See Also: Poseidon, Rhea, Cronus, Helios, Harmonia