Chapter Thirteen, Lecture One Perseus and Myths of the Argive Plain

Argolid

Myths of the Argive Plain Rich Bronze Age area –Mycenae –Lion’s gate –Beehive tombs Tiryns

Io and Her Descendants The Wanderings of Io

The river god Inachus and Melia –Io Zeus’s passion and Hera’s jealousy –Lerna –the “cow” –Argus –Hermes (Argeïphontes)

The Wanderings of Io Ionian Sea, Byzantium, the “Bosporus,” the Caucus Mountains, Egypt Epaphus “he who has been touched” –= Isis –boôpis

Crimes of the Danaïds

Epaphus + Memphis –Libya + Poseidon Agenor Belus Belus has two sons –Aegyptus, who rules in Arabia, –Danaüs, who rules in Libya

Crimes of the Danaïds Aegyptus has fifty sons Danaüs has fifty daughters –the Danaïds They flee to Argos to prevent the proposed marriages –Danaüs now king in Argos The sons of Aegyptus in Argos

Crimes of the Danaïds “All but one” –Hypermnestra spares Lynceus –Their heads buried in the Lernean swamp

Springs and the Dangers of Woman

Etiological to explain the swamps? –Also from another, related story Amymonê and Poseidon Theme of female resentment against fixed marriages –Also saved Argos from foreign rule

Springs and the Dangers of Woman Historical connection between Argos and Egypt –The historical Danuna (Sea Peoples?) or 1200 BC, and the tribe of Dan “Danaän used by Homer to refer to the Argives and Achaeans (words for the Greeks at Troy). –Hellenes only from Thessaly

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