We are all accustomed to hearing stories about Greek mythological heroes who died young. Indeed, at times, it seems as though a young death is an essential element of heroism in Greek mythology. According to Book Nine of the Iliad, the young Achilleus was offered a choice: he could either live short, glorious life and live on forever in stories and songs or live a long, peaceful life and never win any glory. Achilleus chose the former option. It may come as a surprise to some people, then, that there are actually quite a few Greek heroes who are said to have lived to old age. Here are a few of the most famous:
Kadmos
Kadmos was the legendary founder of the city of Thebes. According to legend, he was a Phoenician prince who was told by the god Apollon to follow a heifer. Wherever the heifer laid down, he was to sacrifice her to Athena and found a city. The heifer laid down on the future site of the city of Thebes. Kadmos sent his men to find a spring so he could sacrifice the heifer.
Unfortunately, the spring Kadmos’s men found was guarded by a drakon (i.e. a giant serpent) sent by Ares. The serpent slew all of Kadmos’s men. Kadmos slew the serpent in retribution and sowed its teeth in the ground, causing an army of men to arise from the dirt. Kadmos hurled stones into the men’s midst, causing them to fight until there were only five men left. Kadmos and those five men then founded the city of Thebes.
At least according to some myths, Kadmos lived to a remarkably old age. In the tragedy The Bakkhai, which was written by the Athenian tragic playwright Euripides (lived c. 480 – c. 406 BC) and first performed in 405 BC at the City Dionysia at the Theater of Dionysos Eleuthereus in Athens, Kadmos is portrayed as still being alive, even though, in the play, Thebes is ruled by his adult grandson Pentheus.
Judging from this, Kadmos must be at least in his seventies or eighties at the time when the play is set. At the end of the play, Kadmos and his wife Harmonia are transformed into serpents.
ABOVE: Detail of a Paestan red-figure kylix-krater dating to between c. 350 and c. 340 BC depicting Kadmos slaying the drakon of Ares
Laërtes
Another hero who was definitely thought to have lived to a very ripe old age is Laërtes, son of Arkesios. Although Laërtes is most famous as the father of the more famous hero Odysseus, he was also a hero in his own right when he was a young man. He was one of the Argonauts who journeyed with Iason to the land of Kolchis to find the Golden Fleece and he also took part in the hunt of the Kalydonian Boar.
Men in ancient Greece typically married in their early thirties. Let us therefore assume that Laërtes was about thirty years old when Odysseus was born. Odysseus is described as recently married when he set off the Trojan War. Let us therefore assume that Odysseus was about thirty-three when he left to go fight in the Trojan War. This would make Laërtes about sixty-three years old or so when Odysseus left for Troy.
We know that the Trojan War lasted for ten years and that Odysseus spent an additional ten years wandering after that before he finally made it home. Laërtes is still alive when Odysseus returns to Ithaka, as evidenced by the fact that he and Odysseus are reunited in Book Twenty-Four of the Odyssey. Laërtes must be at least eighty-three years old in this scene, which was certainly a very ripe old age indeed in ancient Greece.
ABOVE: Illustration by the Polish painter Jan Styka depicting Odysseus watching his aged father Laërtes at work, based on a scene from Book Twenty-Four of the Odyssey
Nestor
Nestor is the aged hero who frequently gives advice to the Achaians in the Iliad. He is portrayed as extremely wise and excellent at speaking. He frequently retells stories of his own heroic deeds and exploits from when he was a young man. Like Laërtes, Nestor was one of the Argonauts. He also participated in the hunt of the Kalydonian boar. He also fought against the kentauroi (i.e. “centaurs”) in the Kentauromachia.
Unlike many other heroes, Nestor is said to have survived the Trojan War and made it home to Pylos safely without suffering any major hardships. In Book Three of the Odyssey, Odysseus’s son Telemachos visits Nestor at Pylos, seeking information about his father. Nestor hosts Telemachos well, but has no information about Odysseus.
The fact that Nestor was extremely old already at the time of the Trojan War and was still alive ten years after the end of the Trojan War indicates that he is supposed to have been very, very old. He must be at least as old as Laërtes at the time when Telemachos meets him in the Odyssey, perhaps older.
ABOVE: Tondo from an Attic red-figure kylix dating to c. 490 BC or thereabouts, discovered at Vulci in Etruria, depicting Hekamede preparing kykeon for Nestor, who is shown as gray-haired and bearded.
Odysseus
Like his father Laërtes, Odysseus lived to a ripe old age (or, at least, a ripe old age relatively speaking). Odysseus’s death is prophesied by the blind prophet Teiresias in the nekyia scene from Book Eleven of the Odyssey. Teiresias declares, as translated by Robert Fitzgerald:
“Then a seaborne death
soft as this hand of mist will come upon you
when you are wearied out with rich old age,
your country folk in blessed peace around you.
And this shall be just as I foretell.”
This is all we hear about Odysseus’s death in the Odyssey, but we know from surviving summaries of the Telegoneia, a now-lost poem of the Epic Cycle, that Odysseus was eventually killed by his own son Telegonos, with whom he impregnated the sorceress Kirke while he was living with her on her island of Aiaia.
According to the Telegoneia, which I summarize in depth in this article I published in July 2019, when Telegonos came of age, he went to Ithaka to meet his father, but he was caught up in a storm and lost track of where he was going. Long story short, he ended up accidentally killing his father.
We can calculate how old Odysseus must have been by the time Telegonos was a grown man. As I noted above when talking about Laërtes, Odysseus is described as recently married when he set off the Trojan War. Men in ancient Greece typically married in their early thirties. Let us therefore assume that Odysseus was about thirty-three when he left to go fight in the Trojan War.
The Trojan War lasted ten years. Odysseus with Kirke around three years or so after the end of the Trojan War, meaning he must have been about forty-six years old when he sired Telegonos. Men in ancient Greece came of age at around seventeen or eighteen. We can therefore assume Telegonos must have been about this age when he set out to meet his father on Ithaka. Therefore, Odysseus must have been at least sixty-three years old at the time his death, if we accept the story of him being killed by Telegonos as canonical.
ABOVE: Minerva Revealing Ithaca to Ulysses, painted in the eighteenth century by the Italian Baroque painter Giuseppe Bottani, depicting Odysseus’s return to Ithaka from Book Thirteen of the Odyssey
Oidipous
The hero Oidipous is said to have lived to extremely advanced age, although, in his case, he did not do so happily. In the tragedy Oidipous at Kolonos, which was written in around 406 BC by the Athenian tragic playwright Sophokles (lived c. 497 – c. 405 BC) and first performed in 401 BC after Sophokles’s death, Oidipous is portrayed as an extremely aged man.
Oidipous is described as having solved the riddle of the Sphinx not long after he came of age. Men in ancient Greece typically came of age at around seventeen or eighteen. Let us therefore assume that Oidipous was about twenty years old when he solved the riddle of the Sphinx and married his mother Iokaste.
In Oidipous the King, Oidipous and Iokaste have clearly been married for a while. They have four children together: Antigone, Ismene, Eteokles, and Polyneikes. They cannot have been married for too long, though, since all their offspring are still young children in the play. Let us assume then that Oidipous and Iokaste have been married for about ten years. This would make Oidipous about thirty years old at the time of Oidipous the King.
Oidipous at Kolonos seems to be set about twenty years or so after the events of Oidipous the King. By the time of Oidipous at Kolonos, Oidipous’s sons and daughters, who were all small children in Oidipous the King, are fully grown. If we assume twenty years have passed in the universe of the play, this would make Oidipous about fifty, but, in the play, he acts as though he is much older than that, probably because Sophokles was about ninety years old when he wrote this play and he portrays Oidipous as being close to the same age as him.
ABOVE: Oedipus at Colonus, painted in 1788 by the French Neoclassical painter Jean-Antoine-Théodore Giroust
Teiresias
This one may technically be cheating, but the Theban prophet Teiresias is said to have lived for seven lifetimes. He was originally an advisor to Kadmos, but outlived Kadmos and went on to advise many future rulers of Thebes. He appears in The Bacchae as an advisor to Pentheus, in Oidipous the King as an advisor to Oidipous, and in Antigone as an advisor to Kreon.
If we assume a “lifetime” lasts about eighty years, this would mean Teiresias lived to be about 560 years old. Teiresias definitely takes the prize as the longest-living mortal from Greek mythology. Even in death, Teiresias keeps coming back; Odysseus summons up his ghost in the Underworld in Book Thirteen of the Odyssey.
ABOVE: Watercolor illustration by the Swiss-English painter Henry Fuseli from the early 1780s depicting Teiresias appearing to Odysseus in the Underworld
