Tithonus was a mortal who pleaded with Zeus for immortality. Zeus made him immortal, but with a catch: he continued to age. He become more and more debilitated, but could never die, and came to realize that he had been cursed rather than blessed.

Sorry about the short post, but I was pressed for time earlier. The full story is as follows: the goddess Dawn (aka Eos) fell in love with the mortal Tithonus, who was the son or brother of Laomedon, king of Troy. Eos pleaded with Zeus for immortality for Tithonus, but forgot to ask for eternal youth as well. For a time things went well, and Eos and Tithonus had a son, Memnon. As the years passed, however, Tithonus aged visibly, and Eos began to be repulsed by him. However, he was still allowed to remain in her palace and eat ambrosia. Eventually he lost the use of his arms and legs, and Eos sealed him up in a small room, from which his faint voice could be heard to cry out from time to time. Eventually Eos turned Tithonus into a grasshopper. Memnon went on to join his paternal relatives in the Trojan War and was killed by the Greek hero Achilles.

The theme of longevity as a curse of sorts has been explored in other areas. In Aldous Huxley's book _After Many a Summer Dies the Swan_, several Renaissance types prolong their lives by hundreds of years by eating the raw intestines and intestinal contents of a species of long-lived moat fish (?carp?). As they age, they become more and more apelike and end up as sort of 'the family secret', kept caged at the back of a cave somewhere.

In Jonathan Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_, there is a section that describes 'immortals', who are born every few generations and who are distinguished by a peculiar birthmark. These creatures are considered cursed, as they become more and more decrepit with age.

Even the X-files has addressed this issue: in the fifth season episode Detour, Spanish explorers who discovered the Fountain of Youth with Ponce de Leon live for hundreds of years, but develop into abominable woodsmen.

Of course, this will probably have nothing to do with the upcoming episode....

A variant version of the myth of Tithonus has him becoming a cicada, not a grasshopper. Also, it's the other way around... it's ambrosia which he did not eat. Ambrosia gives you eternal youth, nectar gives you eternal life.

I was going by the _Bullfinch's Mythology_ website, which uses the term 'ambrosial food'. I should have checked the original reference....

Gee, I hope the X-Files don't do the "Heck, we're rapidly aging and can't figure out
how to stop" thing. Every scifi show in history has done that.

Heck, even the X-Files already did it, with "Dod Kalm." Hopefully we won't get a repeat plot. (Who knows, maybe they just titled the episode "Tithonus" becuase it sounded cool)

Forgot that one, not that I've seen it. Is that the one with the salt or something? I
was so mad that I missed that