Pygmalion of Tyre Pygmalion of Tyre Pygmalion (also known as Pu'mayyaton) was king of Tyre from 831 to 785 BC and a son of King Mattan I (840-832 BC). During Pygmalion's reign, Tyre seems to have shifted the heart of its trading empire from the Middle East to the Mediterranean, as can be judged from the building of new colonies including Kition on Cyprus, Sardinia (see Nora Stone discussion below), and, according to tradition, Carthage. For the story surrounding the founding of Carthage, see Dido. A possible reference to Pygmalion is an interpretation of the Nora Stone, found on Sardinia in 1773 and,
Pygmalion (Rousseau) of the libretto for Gluck's opera "Orfeo ed Euridice", premiered later that year, in which Orpheus gives his dead wife Eurydice life through song, instead of losing faith in the gods. Unlike "Pygmalion", the opera still insists on divine intervention to give life, again via Eros, who intervenes to rescue her and bring her back to life after Orpheus turns around and condemns her back to death. Even so, "Orfeo" and "Pygmalion" both demonstrate the 1760s theme of an apparent failure by overturning an artist's success, which arose again around the time of Beethoven and then held sway until the