Danaus
Encyclopedia
In Greek mythology
Danaus, or Danaos , was the twin brother of Aegyptus
and son of Achiroe
and Belus
, a mythical king of Egypt
. The myth of Danaus is a foundation legend (or re-foundation legend) of Argos
, one of the foremost Mycenaean
cities of the Peloponnesus. In Homer's Iliad
, "Danaans" ("tribe of Danaë
") and "Argives" commonly designate the Greek forces opposed to the Trojan
s.
, twelve of whom were born to Polyxo
and the rest to Pieria
and other women, and his twin brother, Aegyptus, had fifty sons. Aegyptus commanded that his sons marry the Danaides. Danaus elected to flee instead, and to that purpose, he built a ship, the first ship that ever was.
In it, he fled to Argos
, to which he was connected by his descent from Io
, the maiden wooed by Zeus
and turned into a heifer and pursued by Hera
until she found asylum in Egypt. Argos at the time was ruled by King Pelasgus
, the eponym
of all autochthonous inhabitants who had lived in Greece since the beginning, also called Gelanor
("he who laughs"). The Danaides asked Pelasgus for protection when they arrive, the event portrayed in The Suppliants
by Aeschylus
. Protection was granted after a vote by the Argives.
When Pausanias
visited Argos in the 2nd century CE, he related the succession of Danaus to the throne, judged by the Argives, who "from the earliest times... have loved freedom and self-government, and they limited to the utmost the authority of their kings:"
The sanctuary of Apollo Lykeios ("wolf-Apollo", but also Apollo of the twilight) was still the most prominent feature of Argos in Pausanias' time: in the sanctuary the tourist might see the throne of Danaus himself, an eternal flame
, called the fire of Phoronius.
When Aegyptus and his fifty sons arrived to take the Danaides, Danaus gave them, to spare the Argives the pain of a battle. However, he instructed his daughters to kill their husbands on their wedding night. Forty-nine followed through, and subsequently buried the heads of their bridegrooms in Lerna
; but one, Hypermnestra
, refused because her husband, Lynceus
, honored her wish to remain a virgin. Danaus was angry with his disobedient daughter and threw her to the Argive courts. Aphrodite
intervened and saved her. Lynceus and Hypermnestra then began a dynasty of Argive kings (the Danaid Dynasty). Some sources relate that Amymone
, the "blameless" Danaid, and/or Bryce (Bebryce) also spared their husbands.
Aegyptus, after the death of his sons, escaped to Aroe in Greece and died there. His monument was shown in the temple of Serapis
at Patrae.
In some versions, Lynceus later killed Danaus as revenge for the death of his brothers.
The remaining forty-nine Danaides had their grooms chosen by a common mythic competition: a foot-race was held and the order in which the potential Argive grooms finished decided their brides (compare the myth of Atalanta
). Two of the grooms were Archander and Architeles, sons of Achaeus: they married Scaea and Automate respectively.
In later accounts, the Danaides were punished in Tartarus
by being forced to carry water in a jug to fill a bath without bottom (or with a leak) and thereby wash off their sins, but the bath was never filled because the water was always leaking out.
Even a cautious reading of the subtext as a vehicle for legend
ary history suggests that a Pelasgian kingship in archaic Argos was overcome, not without violence, by seafarers out of Egypt (compare the Sea Peoples
), whose leaders then intermarried with the local dynasty. The descendants of Danaus' "blameless" daughter Hypermnestra, through Danaë
, led to Perseus, founder of Mycenae
, thus suggesting that Argos had a claim to be the "mother city" of Mycenae.
, who were worshipped in the cities that took their names in the island of Rhodes
, Ialysos, Kamiros and Lindos (but see also Cercaphus
). According to Rhodian mythographers who informed Diodorus Siculus
, Danaus would have stopped and founded a sanctuary to Athena
Lindia on the way from Egypt to Greece
. Herodotus
heard that the temple at Lindos was founded by Danaus' daughters. Ken Dowden observes that once the idea is dismissed that myth is directly narrating the movements of historical persons, that the loci of Danaian institutions at Lindos in Rhodes as well as at Argos suggests a Mycenaean colony sent to Rhodes from the Argolid, a tradition, in fact, that Strabo
reports.
Danais was written by one of the cyclic poets
; the name of the author and the narration of these events does not survive, but the Danaid tetralogy of Aeschylus
undoubtedly draws upon its material. It is represented in the table of epics in the received canon on the very fragmentary "Borgia table
" as "Danaides".
A U.S. federal judge used the version of the legend in which the Danaides are forced to perform an impossible task as a simile for the judge's task of determining whether a case "arises under" the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States.
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
Danaus, or Danaos , was the twin brother of Aegyptus
Aegyptus
- Aegyptus, King of Egypt and Arabia :In Greek mythology, Aegyptus is a descendant of the heifer maiden, Io, and the river-god Nilus, and was a king in Egypt. Aegyptos was the son of Belus and Achiroe, a naiad daughter of Nile. Aegyptus fathered fifty sons, who were all but one murdered by the...
and son of Achiroe
Achiroe
Achiroë or Anchirrhoë , or according to Apollodorus Anchinoë , which is perhaps a mistake for Anchiroë, was in Greek mythology a naiad, a daughter of the river-god Nilus. She was also the wife of Belus, by whom she became the mother of Aegyptus and Danaus, and, according to some accounts, ...
and Belus
Belus (Egyptian)
Belus was in Greek mythology a king of Egypt and father of Aegyptus and Danaus and brother to Agenor. The wife of Belus has been named as Achiroe, or Side ....
, a mythical king of Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
. The myth of Danaus is a foundation legend (or re-foundation legend) of Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
, one of the foremost Mycenaean
Mycenaean Greece
Mycenaean Greece was a cultural period of Bronze Age Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites...
cities of the Peloponnesus. In Homer's Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
, "Danaans" ("tribe of Danaë
Danaë
In Greek mythology, Danaë was a daughter of King Acrisius of Argos and Eurydice of Argos. She was the mother of Perseus by Zeus. She was sometimes credited with founding the city of Ardea in Latium....
") and "Argives" commonly designate the Greek forces opposed to the Trojan
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
s.
Mythology
Danaus had fifty daughters, the DanaidesDaughters of Danaus
In Greek mythology, the Daughters of Danaus or Danaids were the fifty daughters of Danaus. They were to marry the fifty sons of Danaus's twin brother Aegyptus, a mythical king of Egypt...
, twelve of whom were born to Polyxo
Polyxo
Polyxo is the name of several figures in Greek mythology:*One of the Hyades.*A Naiad of the river Nile, presumably one of the daughters of the river-god Nilus. She was one of the wives of Danaus and bore him twelve daughters: Autonoe, Theano, Electra, Cleopatra, Eurydice, Glaucippe, Anthelea,...
and the rest to Pieria
Pieria (Greek mythology)
In Greek mythology, Pieria was the wife of Danaus. According to the Library of Apollodorus, Danaus and Pieria had fifty daughters, the Danaides who married the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus, however, instructed his daughters to kill their husbands on the first wedding night. All of them obeyed,...
and other women, and his twin brother, Aegyptus, had fifty sons. Aegyptus commanded that his sons marry the Danaides. Danaus elected to flee instead, and to that purpose, he built a ship, the first ship that ever was.
In it, he fled to Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
, to which he was connected by his descent from Io
Io (mythology)
Io was, in Greek mythology, a priestess of Hera in Argos, a nymph who was seduced by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection. His wife Hera set ever-watchful Argus Panoptes to guard her, but Hermes was sent to distract the guardian and slay him...
, the maiden wooed by Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
and turned into a heifer and pursued by Hera
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
until she found asylum in Egypt. Argos at the time was ruled by King Pelasgus
Pelasgus
In Greek mythology, Pelasgus was the eponymous ancestor of the Pelasgians, the mythical inhabitants of Greece who established the worship of the Dodonaean Zeus, Hephaestus, the Cabeiri, and other divinities. In the different parts of the country once occupied by Pelasgians, there existed...
, the eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...
of all autochthonous inhabitants who had lived in Greece since the beginning, also called Gelanor
Gelanor
In Greek mythology, King Gelanor of Argos welcomed Danaus and his daughters. When an oracle told him to give Danaus his kingdom, he did so. He wanted to sell the Danaides into slavery following their murder of their husbands, but Danaus and the gods dissuaded him...
("he who laughs"). The Danaides asked Pelasgus for protection when they arrive, the event portrayed in The Suppliants
The Suppliants (Aeschylus)
The Suppliants is a play by Aeschylus. It was probably first performed sometime after 470 BC as the first play in a tetralogy, sometimes referred to as the Danaid Tetralogy, which probably included the lost plays The Egyptians , and The Daughters of Danaus , and the satyr play Amymone...
by Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
. Protection was granted after a vote by the Argives.
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
visited Argos in the 2nd century CE, he related the succession of Danaus to the throne, judged by the Argives, who "from the earliest times... have loved freedom and self-government, and they limited to the utmost the authority of their kings:"
- "On coming to Argos he claimed the kingdom against Gelanor, the son of Sthenelas. Many plausible arguments were brought forward by both parties, and those of Sthenelas were considered as fair as those of his opponent; so the people, who were sitting in judgment, put off, they say, the decision to the following day. At dawn a wolf fell upon a herd of oxen that was pasturing before the wall, and attacked and fought with the bull that was the leader of the herd. It occurred to the Argives that Gelanor was like the bull and Danaus like the wolf, for as the wolf will not live with men, so Danaus up to that time had not lived with them. It was because the wolf overcame the bull that Danaus won the kingdom. Accordingly, believing that Apollo had brought the wolf on the herd, he founded a sanctuary of Apollo Lycius."
The sanctuary of Apollo Lykeios ("wolf-Apollo", but also Apollo of the twilight) was still the most prominent feature of Argos in Pausanias' time: in the sanctuary the tourist might see the throne of Danaus himself, an eternal flame
Eternal flame
An eternal flame is a flame or torch that burns day and night for an indefinite period. The flame that burned constantly at Delphi was an archaic feature, "alien to the ordinary Greek temple"....
, called the fire of Phoronius.
When Aegyptus and his fifty sons arrived to take the Danaides, Danaus gave them, to spare the Argives the pain of a battle. However, he instructed his daughters to kill their husbands on their wedding night. Forty-nine followed through, and subsequently buried the heads of their bridegrooms in Lerna
Lerna
In classical Greece, Lerna was a region of springs and a former lake near the east coast of the Peloponnesus, south of Argos. Its site near the village Mili at the Argolic Gulf is most famous as the lair of the Lernaean Hydra, the chthonic many-headed water snake, a creature of great antiquity...
; but one, Hypermnestra
Hypermnestra
Hypermnestra , in Greek mythology, is a name that refers to several characters.-The Danaid:Hypermnestra was the daughter of Danaus. Danaus was the twin brother of Aegyptus and son of Belus. He had fifty daughters, the Danaides, and Aegyptus had fifty sons. Aegyptus commanded that his sons marry the...
, refused because her husband, Lynceus
Lynceus
In Greek mythology, Lynceus was a king of Argos, succeeding Danaus. He is named as a descendant of Belus through his father Aegyptus, who was the twin brother of Danaus. Danaus had fifty daughters, the Danaides, while Aegyptus had fifty sons including Lynceus, whose name when translated means "wolf"...
, honored her wish to remain a virgin. Danaus was angry with his disobedient daughter and threw her to the Argive courts. Aphrodite
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
intervened and saved her. Lynceus and Hypermnestra then began a dynasty of Argive kings (the Danaid Dynasty). Some sources relate that Amymone
Amymone
In Greek mythology, Amymone was a daughter of Danaus. As the "blameless" Danaid, her name identifies her as, perhaps, identical to Hypermnestra , also the one Danaid who did not assassinate her Egyptian husband on their wedding night, as her 49 sisters did...
, the "blameless" Danaid, and/or Bryce (Bebryce) also spared their husbands.
Aegyptus, after the death of his sons, escaped to Aroe in Greece and died there. His monument was shown in the temple of Serapis
Serapis
Serapis or Sarapis is a Graeco-Egyptian name of God. Serapis was devised during the 3rd century BC on the orders of Ptolemy I of Egypt as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his realm. The god was depicted as Greek in appearance, but with Egyptian trappings, and combined iconography...
at Patrae.
In some versions, Lynceus later killed Danaus as revenge for the death of his brothers.
The remaining forty-nine Danaides had their grooms chosen by a common mythic competition: a foot-race was held and the order in which the potential Argive grooms finished decided their brides (compare the myth of Atalanta
Atalanta
Atalanta is a character in Greek mythology.-Legend:Atalanta was the daughter of Iasus , a Boeotian or an Arcadian princess . She is often described as a goddess. Apollodorus is the only one who gives an account of Atalanta’s birth and upbringing...
). Two of the grooms were Archander and Architeles, sons of Achaeus: they married Scaea and Automate respectively.
In later accounts, the Danaides were punished in Tartarus
Tartarus
In classic mythology, below Uranus , Gaia , and Pontus is Tartarus, or Tartaros . It is a deep, gloomy place, a pit, or an abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides beneath the underworld. In the Gorgias, Plato In classic mythology, below Uranus (sky), Gaia (earth), and Pontus...
by being forced to carry water in a jug to fill a bath without bottom (or with a leak) and thereby wash off their sins, but the bath was never filled because the water was always leaking out.
Even a cautious reading of the subtext as a vehicle for legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
ary history suggests that a Pelasgian kingship in archaic Argos was overcome, not without violence, by seafarers out of Egypt (compare the Sea Peoples
Sea Peoples
The Sea Peoples were a confederacy of seafaring raiders of the second millennium BC who sailed into the eastern Mediterranean, caused political unrest, and attempted to enter or control Egyptian territory during the late 19th dynasty and especially during year 8 of Ramesses III of the 20th Dynasty...
), whose leaders then intermarried with the local dynasty. The descendants of Danaus' "blameless" daughter Hypermnestra, through Danaë
Danaë
In Greek mythology, Danaë was a daughter of King Acrisius of Argos and Eurydice of Argos. She was the mother of Perseus by Zeus. She was sometimes credited with founding the city of Ardea in Latium....
, led to Perseus, founder of Mycenae
Mycenae
Mycenae is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 11 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north...
, thus suggesting that Argos had a claim to be the "mother city" of Mycenae.
Danaus in Rhodes
Another account of the travels of Danaus gave him three daughters, Ialysos, Kamiros and LindosLindos
Lindos is an archaeological site, a town and a former municipality on the island of Rhodes, in the Dodecanese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Rhodes, of which it is a municipal unit. It lies on the east coast of the island...
, who were worshipped in the cities that took their names in the island of Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
, Ialysos, Kamiros and Lindos (but see also Cercaphus
Cercaphus
In Greek mythology, Cercaphus was one of the Heliadae, sons of Helios and Rhodus. He and his brother Ochimus were the only to stay at the island of Rhodes, after their brother Tenages was killed by the other four and the murderers had to escape....
). According to Rhodian mythographers who informed Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...
, Danaus would have stopped and founded a sanctuary to Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
Lindia on the way from Egypt to Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
heard that the temple at Lindos was founded by Danaus' daughters. Ken Dowden observes that once the idea is dismissed that myth is directly narrating the movements of historical persons, that the loci of Danaian institutions at Lindos in Rhodes as well as at Argos suggests a Mycenaean colony sent to Rhodes from the Argolid, a tradition, in fact, that Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
reports.
The Danais
The epicEpic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
Danais was written by one of the cyclic poets
Cyclic Poets
Cyclic Poets is a shorthand term for the early Greek epic poets, approximate contemporaries of Homer. We know no more about these poets than we know about Homer, but modern scholars regard them as having composed orally, as did Homer. In the classical period, surviving early epic poems were...
; the name of the author and the narration of these events does not survive, but the Danaid tetralogy of Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
undoubtedly draws upon its material. It is represented in the table of epics in the received canon on the very fragmentary "Borgia table
Tabula Iliaca
A Tabula Iliaca is a generic label for a calculation of the days of the Iliad, probably by Zenodotus, of which numerous fragmentary examples are now known...
" as "Danaides".
A U.S. federal judge used the version of the legend in which the Danaides are forced to perform an impossible task as a simile for the judge's task of determining whether a case "arises under" the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States.