Autolycus: The King of Hearts

Written: 1998
© Julie Ruffell 1998
Description: This article was published in Warrior Princess Press.

"Autolycus: The King of Hearts"

He struts onto the scene, head held high and full of pride. He steps up to the woman and kisses her hand. "I am Autolycus." Then, he brushes his finger over his short cut mustache once before ending with, "The King of Thieves."

Okay, so at first look Autolycus does sound like nothing more than a thief with a big ego ("Nothing is as big as mine."); it takes a second look, however, and you will notice much more.

Autolycus made his first appearance on Hercules in "The King of Thieves," but I found that Autolycus and Hercules didn't play off each other well. It wasn't until the Xena episode "The Royal Couple of Thieves" that Autolycus caught my eye.

Autolycus' ego leads him to be an easily manipulated man, Xena and Gabrielle using his ego to get his help in stealing a treasure from Malthus the warlord. Once joining the Warrior Princess, Autolycus tried every moment to get Xena to do something to 'please' him. He made her wear a skimpy outfit, made her do 'the Dance of the Three Veils' and even went so far as to make an attempt to get him and Xena to share the same bed. Whoa! "Don't even think about it." Luckily, Xena handled him with ease. "Heads it is."

However, although this all made me laugh, I still didn't understand the use of this character with no depth. Even the comic characters on Xena have hearts and sad tales to make you love them. Salmoneus saved Xena from evil, but he suffered from cowardice at one point. Joxer may be an idiot, but he's in love with a woman he can never have; Gabrielle. Meg's father died before she was born, and she was forced to live on her own since she was ten because one of her mother's boyfriends like her "too much." So, what was Autolycus' story?

Then we learned it after Xena shared her reasons for needing to get the chest back to her friends. Xena made a comment on how she thought that Autolycus' father had taught him what he knew. Autolycus replied by telling Xena how he came to be what he was. His father had been killed before he was born, and his mother died when he was eight. This left only his older brother to take care of him, but Autolycus lost him as well. "You do what you can to survive." That's how he became what he was.

Now the Autolycus character was coming into his own. The best part, however, came in the end when Autolycus secretly returned the reward money to the villagers after he had returned the treasure.

In "The Quest," Autolycus showed his heart again when he risked his life to his attempt to return Xena to the living. He could have refused to help her, and although she'd have control for a time, his fighting would have eventually killed her. Instead, Autolycus risked stealing the Dagger of Helios, fought the Amazons and Velasca and refused to tell Velasca how to get the ambrosia. He got a broken arm for his trouble.

The end once more held the most touching moment, when Autolycus joined the now alive Xena. He wanted her to thank him for being him. Xena looked at him funny, but thanked him anyway. She then informed him that she knew that inside he was a good person.

Keep that in mind the next time Autolycus pops up on Xena (which I'm sure he will). He's not the King the Jerks, and although he is the King of Thieves, he is also the King of Hearts.