1981 Midas, an Apollo-type asteroid, was discovered on March 6, 1973, by Charles T. Kowal(the same man who discovered Chiron), at Palomar Observatory near Pauma Valley, California. Midas has a period of 2 years, 134 days. It was named for a mythical king of Phrygia, an ancient country in what is now western Turkey. King Midas, the son of Gordius and the goddess Cybele, was renowned for his lack of taste, judgement and wisdom. The story of King Midas is one of the best-known Hellenic legends and is told by the first-century Roman poet Ovid in Book Eleven of his classic epic poem The Metamorphoses.
King Midas
King Midas did a favor for Dionysus when his peasants found the god's old drunken uncle Silenus, getting high with him for ten days before taking him back to Dionysus, who granted him his wish that anything he touched would turn to gold.
Soon, Midas discovered that his ability was more a curse than a blessing when whatever he tried to eat and drink turned to gold; he begged the god to take back his gift, and Dionysus told him that he could remove it by bathing in the Pactolus River, whose sands were thereby turned to gold forever after, according to the legend.
Later, Midas served as a judge in a musical contest between Pan and Apollo; when he imprudently spoke up to award the prize to Pan, Apollo turned his ears into donkey's ears, which he concealed beneath a hat; he swore his barber to secrecy, but the man had to say something about it. He dug a hole in the ground and whispered into it, "King Midas has ass's ears." But reeds sprouting from the hole whispered the secret to everyone within earshot.
Astrologically, asteroid Midas signifies money-making ability by sign, house and aspects in the chart,, and also lapses of judgment, serious oversights, no-win situations, and events that fall into the category of "be careful what you wish for, you may get it."
Bill Gates, one of the world's richest people, has a reputation as a robber baron(I won't comment on whether or not it's deserved). Lately he has been forced to defend his company, Microsoft, against federal antitrust action. He was instrumental in launching the Internet revolution; the software made by Microsoft is extremely popular worldwide, and Gates(and his wife, Melinda) have turned philanthropists. Bill Gates has Midas in the first house, making the following aspects: conjunct Uranus(computers, technology), Flora(in full bloom, climactic manifestation), Vicia(nastiness) and Proserpina(transitions); trinovem(27-degree aspect) Jupiter(prosperity, expansion) and Pluto(to transform, large corporations, other people's money, hegemony); squile Marathon(long-running); square Neptune(dreams, charity); trine Juno(marriage), the Vertex(significant relationships), Hidalgo(to push one's own agenda forward), Abanderada(to raise a banner), Bologna(lies), Christabel(letting in something evil), Nietzsche(lawless behavior), and Pavlov(knee-jerk responses); sesquiquadrate the North Node(to overcome past habit patterns or develop potential); biquintile the Black Moon(wildness); quincunx Casanova(selfish pleasure, wanting a quiet end to an adventurous phase); and opposite Chiron(to teach or learn), Damocles(crisis, danger, experience of conformity, drastic change, the beginning of a new era), and Pholus(insinuating oneself in, initiation, to require honor).
Lee Iacocca, former president of Ford and head of Chrysler, became a celebrity after he was fired from Ford by Henry Ford II and then accomplished the Augean task of rescuing Chrysler from ruin in the late 1970s by securing a controversial government loan, only to end up in the doghouse there following his retirement for allegedly masterminding a takeover bid. Raised during the Great Depression in an Italian immigrant family in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Iacocca says he acquired many of his values from his childhood. He was instrumental in developing the Mustang, whose "classic" 1960s models have been linked to numerous fatalities and burn cases as a result of accidents, and says he promoted safety as much as he could in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies, only to find people weren't interested or were actually hostile to the idea of safety. Iacocca has Midas in the fourth house, out of bounds, conjunct Pluto and Marathon; semioctile(22 1/2 degrees) the Black Moon; undecimal Chariklo(glamor) and Pavlov; decile/tredecile the Nodes; sesquidecile(54-degree aspect) Venus(money, values); sextile Heracles(to strive with, overcome) and Whiterabbit; square the Ascendant(personal interests), Mercury(thoughts, writings, the media), Nessus(the predator, to covet), Nietzsche(lawless behavior), Bologna(lies), Glo(celebrity), Terpsichore(agile maneuvering), Veteraniya(to have been through a lot or "seen it all"), and Wurm(contempt); tredecile Saturn(hard work, career, rewards, consequences); trine Uranus, Hidalgo, Hylonome(popular appeal), Partizanske(partisanship), and Rhiannon(accusations, exiles, firings); sesquiquadrate Mars(cars); biquintile Vesta(dedication); quincunx Cosicosi(not giving a damn); and opposite Aquilegia(victimized) and Flood(being overwhelmed, having a lot to deal with).
So-called "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss has Midas in the eighth house(sex), conjunct Descamisada(losing one's shirt, stripping), Cheshirecat(big grin) and Taguacipa(finding out that someone wasn't what [s]he seemed to be); semioctile Pluto; undecimal Aquilegia; nonile Neptune(scandal); sesquidecile the South Node(running on old habit patterns); sextile Don Quixote, Torricelli(a flap, in a lot of trouble) and Veteraniya(jaded);squile Ceres(to nurture); square the Sun(to shine); trine the Ascendant, Venus(money, values, young women, sex), Mars(men, sex), Damocles(pushing the envelope, drastic change), Hylonome(something that resonates with the public), Hebe(catering to others, immaturity), Cuitlahuac(coming to the end of the line), and Walpurga(the bogeyman); quadraundecimal Pallas; sesquiquadrate the East Point(how the world sees you); quincunx Jabberwock(slain monsters), Terpsichore(nimbleness) and Christabel; parallel Bologna; and contraparallel Wurm.
Jane Fonda, who is as well known for her controversial visit to Hanoi in 1970 as her highly lucrative and successful acting career, has Midas on the Ascendant in the first house, out of bounds. Besides the conjunction to the Ascendant, she has Midas conjunct Jupiter(philosophy, religion, foreign people and places, long-distance travel, prosperity, expansion), Antigone(to follow one's beliefs wholeheartedly), Cosicosi(callousness), SURF(shallowness), Torricelli(raising a big stink), and Madhatter(crazy); vigintile(18-degree aspect) the East Point; semisextile the Sun and Ceres; undecimal Nabokov(guilty pleasures); nonile Venus; sextile Saturn(taking the rap) and Hammurabi(harsh treatment); square Nessus(predatory), Abanderada(waving the flag), Pavlov(predictable, automatic, instinctive, or visceral response), Sassi(giving the finger to something) and Marathon(something that goes on forever); trine Athanasia(immortal name), Jabberwock and Nietzsche; quincunx Chiron and Taguacipa(people turning on you); and opposite Pluto and Terpsichore.
Ed Gein never had much money but whose judgment was spectacularly impaired and whose murderous psychotic acts launched two well-known horror novels that were made into movies plus a raft of sequels and knock-offs; to this day, the people of his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin don't want to talk about him. Gein had Midas out of bounds, in the third house of the media, forming the following aspects: conjunct Mercury, Mars(violence, murder, weapons, sharp metal objects, sex), Yeti(strange ideas) and Tezcatlipoca(criminal behavior); semiundecimal(16 degrees, 22 minutes) the Sun; semisextile Descamisada; undecimal Hebe; decile Neptune(mental illness, institutionalization) and Juno(the rage of the oppressed or repressed); semisquare the Part of Fortune(development of the life, success); sesquidecile Pluto; sextile Venus and Veteraniya; square Aquilegia, Tortali(turning over rocks, dragged out into the sunlight, postmortems) and Casanova; quintile the Black Moon; trine the Moon, Pallas, Madhatter and Partizanske; biquintile Vesta; quincunx Abanderada and NOT(emphatic rejection); and triseptile Saturn.
The glyph for Midas, a dollar sign, is the conception of Marianne Alexander, who has done some work on this asteroid.