In Greek mythology, Thoas (Ancient Greek: Θόας, "fleet, swift")^[1] was a son of the god Dionysus and Ariadne, the daughter of the Cretan king Minos. He was the king of Lemnos when the Lemnian women decided to kill all the men on the island. He was the only man to survive the massacre, having been saved by his daughter Hypsipyle.^[2] He is sometimes identified with the Thoas who was the king of the Taurians when Iphigenia was taken to the land of the Taurians and became a priestess of Artemis there.^[3]

Thoas was the son of Dionysus and Ariadne.^[4] According to the mythographer Apollodorus, after the god Dionysus fell in love with Ariadne he carried her to Lemnos where they produced four sons Thoas, Staphylus, Oenopion, and Peparethus.^[5] However, according to Plutarch, by some accounts Oenopion and Staphylus were instead the sons of Theseus and Ariadne.^[6]

Thoas was the father of Hypsipyle,^[7] and according to the Iliad, by her and Jason, the grandfather of Euneus.^[8] Other sources say that Hypsipyle and Jason had, in addition to Euneus, a second son, variously given^[9] as Thoas,^[10] Nebrophonus,^[11] or Deipylus,^[12] After escaping Lemnos Thoas had a son Sicinus, by the water nymph Oenoe, after whom the Greek island of Sikinos was said to have been named.^[13] According to some, Thoas had a wife Myrina, who was the daughter of Cretheus.^[14]

Thoas was a king of Lemnos.^[15] According to the 1st-century BC historian Diodorus Siculus, Thoas had been a general of the wise Cretan king Rhadamanthus (the brother of Minos and Ariadne's uncle) who gave to Thoas the island of Lemnos.^[16]

The first adventure (usually) of Jason and the Argonauts is their visit to the island of Lemnos, where the women have killed all the men except Thoas.^[17] There are hints of the story in the Iliad (c. 8th century), where Lemnos is referred to as the "city of godlike Thoas",^[18] and Euneus, Jason's son by Thoas' daughter Hypsipyle, is mentioned.^[19] The story was probably dealt with in Aeschylus' lost tragedies Hypsipyle and Lemniai (late 6th century-early 5th century BC).^[20] The lyric poet Pindar (late 6th century-early 5th century BC) mentions "the race of the Lemnian women, who killed their husbands."^[21] There was also a reference to the story in Euripides' lost play Hypsipyle (c. 410 BC), where Hypsipyle tells Euneus: "Alas, the flight that I fled, my son—if you only knew it—from sea-girt Lemnos, because I did not cut off my father’s grey head!".^[22] Already, for the mid-5th-century BC historian Herodotus, the story of the women killing their husbands "who were Thoas' companions" had given rise to the proverbial phrase "Lemnian crime" used to mean any cruel deed.^[23]

The earliest extant telling of the story, however, occurs in the 3rd-century BC Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes.^[24] According to this account, all the men on the island had been killed by the women, except for the "aged" Thoas, who was saved by his daughter Hypsipyle. She put Thoas into a "hollow chest" and set him adrift on the open sea. Fishermen pulled him ashore on the island of Sicinus. The island was then called Oenoe and, a water nymph of the same name lived there. Thoas had a son Sicinus, by Oenoe, and the island later took the son's name.

The 1st-century AD Latin poet Valerius Flaccus, in his Argonautica gives a more detailed account of Thoas' rescue and escape.^[25] During the night of the massacre, Hypsipyle woke Thoas, covered his head, and took him to Dionysus' temple, where she hid him.^[26] The next morning, Hypsipyle disguised Thoas as the temples' cult statue of Dionysus, placed him on the ritual chariot (used to parade the statue). She then took Thoas, through the streets of the city, crying aloud that the god's statue had been polluted by the night's bloody murders, and needed to be cleansed in the sea. By this subterfuge, and with the god Dionysus' help, Thoas was safely hid outside the city.^[27] But fearing discovery, Hypsipyle finds an old abandoned boat, in which Thoas put to sea, eventually reaching the land of the Taurians, where "Diana put a sword in his hand, and didst appoint him warden of thy cheerless altar".^[28]

Other accounts tell similar stories, with variations. According to the 1st-century AD Latin poet Statius, Hypsipyle hid Thoas on a ship,^[29] while according to the late 1st-century BC Latin mythographer Hyginus, who identifies Thoas with the Thoas who was the Taurian king, Hypsipyle put Thoas onto a ship which a storm carried to the "island Taurica".^[30]

However, the 1st or 2nd-century AD Greek mythographer Apollodorus gives a different ending to the story. He says that, while Thoas was saved at first, by Hypsipyle hiding him,^[31] sometime later, when the Lemnian women discovered that Thoas had escaped the initial slaughter, they killed Thoas, and sold Hypsipyle into slavery.^[32]

In the Iliad, Achilles offers as prize a silver mixing bowl, which had belonged to Thoas.^[33] He had received it from the Phoenicians, and it ended up in the possession of Thoas' grandson Euneus, who gave it to Patroclus as ransom for Lycaon, a son of Priam.

• Aeschylus, Libation Bearers in Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. in two volumes. Vol 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. 1926. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Apollonius of Rhodes, Apollonius Rhodius: the Argonautica, translated by Robert Cooper Seaton, W. Heinemann, 1912. Internet Archive.
• Collard, Christopher and Martin Cropp (2008b), Euripides Fragments: Oedipus-Chrysippus: Other Fragments, Loeb Classical Library No. 506. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-674-99631-1. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Diodorus Siculus, Diodorus Siculus: The Library of History. Translated by C. H. Oldfather. Twelve volumes. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989. Online version by Bill Thayer.
• Etymologicum Magnum, Friderici Sylburgii (ed.), Leipzig: J.A.G. Weigel, 1816. Internet Archive.
• Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5360-9 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3 (Vol. 2).
• Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996. ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1.
• Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004, ISBN 9780415186360. Google Books.
• Herodotus; Histories, A. D. Godley (translator), Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1920; ISBN 0674991338. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Hyginus, Gaius Julius, Fabulae in Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, Translated, with Introductions by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Hackett Publishing Company, 2007. ISBN 978-0-87220-821-6.
• Käppel, Lutz (Kiel), Külzer, Andreas (Vienna) and Schwertheim, Elmar (Münster), “Myrina”, in: Brill's New Pauly, Antiquity volumes edited by: Hubert Cancik and, Helmuth Schneider, English Edition by: Christine F. Salazar, Classical Tradition volumes edited by: Manfred Landfester, English Edition by: Francis G. Gentry. Consulted online on 24 June 2020.
• Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of. Roderick McKenzie. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1940. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
• Ovid. Heroides. Amores. Translated by Grant Showerman. Revised by G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library No. 41. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1977. ISBN 978-0-674-99045-6. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Parada, Carlos, Genealogical Guide to Greek Mythology, Jonsered, Paul Åströms Förlag, 1993. ISBN 978-91-7081-062-6.
• Pindar, Odes, Diane Arnson Svarlien. 1990. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Plutarch, Theseus in Lives, Volume I: Theseus and Romulus. Lycurgus and Numa. Solon and Publicola. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Loeb Classical Library No. 46. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. ISBN 978-0-674-99052-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Seaford, Richard, Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 9780521539920.
• Smith, William (1854), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, London (1854). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Smith, William (1873), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
• Sommerstein, Alan H., Aeschylus: Fragments. Edited and translated by Alan H. Sommerstein. Loeb Classical Library No. 505. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-674-99629-8. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Statius, Statius with an English Translation by J. H. Mozley, Volume I, Silvae, Thebaid, Books I–IV, Loeb Classical Library No. 206, London: William Heinemann, Ltd., New York: G. P. Putnamm's Sons, 1928. ISBN 978-0674992269. Internet Archive.
• Statius, Statius with an English Translation by J. H. Mozley, Volume II, Thebaid, Books V–XII, Achilleid, Loeb Classical Library No. 207, London: William Heinemann, Ltd., New York: G. P. Putnamm's Sons, 1928. ISBN 978-0674992283. Internet Archive.
• Tripp, Edward, Crowell's Handbook of Classical Mythology, Thomas Y. Crowell Co; First edition (June 1970). ISBN 069022608X.
• Valerius Flaccus, Gaius, Argonautica, translated by J. H. Mozley, Loeb Classical Library No. 286. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1928. Online version at Harvard University Press.

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