Damon and Pythias

Greek legend

As told by Aristoxenus, and after him Cicero (De Offic. 3.45), Diodorus Siculus (10.4), and others, Pythias and his friend Damon, both followers of the philosopher Pythagoras, traveled to Syracuse during the reign of the tyrant Dionysius I (r. 405–367 BC). Pythias was accused of plotting against the tyrant and 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, the king refused, believing that, once released, Pythias would flee and never return. Damon offered himself as a hostage in Pythias' absence, and when the king insisted that, should Pythias not return by an appointed time, Damon would be executed in his stead, 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, he called for Damon's execution—but just as the executioner was about to kill Damon, Pythias returned.

Apologizing to his friend for the delay, Pythias explained that on the passage back to Syracuse, pirates had captured his ship and had thrown him overboard, but that he had swum to shore and made his way back to Syracuse as quickly as possible, arriving just in time to save his friend.

So astonished by and pleased with their friendship, Dionysius pardoned both men. It was also said that the tyrant then sought to become their third friend, but was denied.

Another version says that it was a test planned by the king and his courtiers. The Pythagoreans were renowned for their moral strength and superiority, but some Syracusan courtiers argued the claim was false, and others disagreed, so with their king they devised a test—a crisis that would show whether two Pythagoreans lived up to that reputation.

Works based on the legend

In 1564, the material was made into a tragicomic play by the English poet Richard Edwardes (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 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.

There is a chapter in Little Men by Louisa May Alcott called "Damon and Pythias" in which Nat is suspected of stealing money from Tommy and is shunned by the other boys, until Dan takes the blame for the crime. In the end, both are absolved from the crime when it is discovered that Jack was the actual thief and Dan only confessed because he knew could withstand the disgrace of ostracism better than sensitive Nat.

In 1914 in the United States, Universal Pictures produced and released the film Damon and Pythias starring William Worthington and Herbert Rawlinson in the title roles.

In 1915, the book The Story of Damon and Pythias by Albert Payson Terhune was published. It was "adapted and illustrated from the photo-play conceived and produced by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company", referring to the 1914 film starring William Worthington and Herbert Rawlinson. This book, like the German ballad, casts Damon as the condemned and the one who must return in time to save Pythias.

In 1925, William Faulkner published Damon and Pythias Unlimited in the New Orleans Double Dealer, one of several "sketches" he wrote for the paper when he moved there.

In Japan, the 1940 short story "Run, Melos!" by Osamu Dazai and an earlier nursery tale by Miekichi Suzuki are based on the legend, as is a 1992 anime produced by Toei Company, Ltd.

Idiomatic use

"Damon and Pythias" came to be an idiomatic expression for "true friendship."

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."

In The Small House at Allington (1864) by Anthony Trollope, the Countess De Courcy teases the young Adolphus Crosbie for a long stay in the country with his friend Bernard Dale by remarking, "Quite a case of Damon and Pythias."

The canines Bummer and Lazarus were eulogized as "the Damon and Pythias of San Francisco" upon Bummer's death in 1865.

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

...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...

Chapter Two (titled "Damon and Pythias") of Gustave Flaubert's 1869 novel Sentimental Education tells of the friendship of Frederick Moreau and Charles Deslauriers.