Talos

Summoning the keres (female death-spirits), Medea causes Talos to graze his ankle, leading to the ichor draining from his body, and thus killing him.

In describing his death Apollonius employs a metaphor comparing Talos to 'monstrous pine tree' (πελωρίη πεύκη, pelōriē peukē) being felled, which could be taken to imply a larger-than-human size.

The first two are at the hands of Medea: either she drove him mad with drugs, or, promising to making him immortal, she pulled the nail from his ankle, which caused the ichor to flow out.

[7] An unnamed youth kneels to the left, tightly holding an implement of some sort with which he is manipulating a small, circular object — potentially a nail — on Talos's ankle.

[8][11] A small, winged, and bearded figure hovers next to Talos's ankle, gesturing closely to the site with the circular object.

Talos whose head and feet have not been preserved, is depicted in white, and is falling backwards into the arms of two men, most probably the Dioskouroi.

[7] To his left a crouching female figure, mostly lost but labelled by an inscription as Medea, holds a blade in one hand and a box resting on her knee in the other.

[7] The wings have been interpreted by Richard Buxton as a visual representation of the speed which Talos would have to possess in order to rapidly circuit the island of Crete.

[12] Discussing the origin of the phrase sardonios gelos (σαρδόνιος γέλως) – 'sardonic laugh' – both Photius in his Lexicon, and Zenobius in his Proverbs cite Simonides (c. 556-468 BCE) for a story which involves Talos.

[2] Talos is also mentioned in two fragments relating to a lost Sophoclean drama, Daidalos, the plot of which in unknown.

[17] The Suda, a Byzantine encyclopedia from the tenth-century CE, adds to this that Talos and Rhadamanthus introduced homosexuality to Crete.

[18] A euhemeristic interpretation of Talos is provided – along with many others – in the Minos, a dialogue which was attributed to Plato in antiquity, but which is regarded by most scholars today as being written by someone else.