In Greek mythology

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...

 Stheneboea or Stheneboia was the daughter of Iobates

Iobates

In Greek mythology, Iobates , a.k.a. Jobates, was a Lycian king, the father of Antea and Philonoe. Bellerophon was sent into exile to the land of King Iobates. Proetus, King of Tiryns, wanted Iobates to kill Bellerophon, but Iobates feared the wrath of the gods if he murdered a guest...

, king in Lycia

Lycia

Lycia Lycian: Trm̃mis; ) was a region in Anatolia in what are now the provinces of Antalya and Muğla on the southern coast of Turkey. It was a federation of ancient cities in the region and later a province of the Roman Empire...

, and consort of Proetus

Proetus

Proetus was a mythical king of Argos and Tiryns. His father Abas, son of the last surviving and died Danaid Hypermnestra, had ruled over Argos and married Ocalea. However, Proetus quarreled continually with his twin brother Acrisius, inventing shields or bucklers in the process...

, joint-king in the Argolid with Acrisius

Acrisius

Acrisius was a mythical king of Argos, and a son of Abas and Aglaea , grandson of Lynceus, great-grandson of Danaus. His twin brother was Proetus, with whom he is said to have quarreled even in the womb of his mother...

, having his seat at Tiryns

Tiryns

Tiryns is a Mycenaean archaeological site in the prefecture of Argolis in the Peloponnese, some kilometres north of Nauplion.-General information:...

; she took a fancy to Bellerophon

Bellerophon

Bellerophon or Bellerophontes is a hero of Greek mythology. He was "the greatest hero and slayer of monsters, alongside of Cadmus and Perseus, before the days of Heracles", and his greatest feat was killing the Chimera, a monster that Homer depicted with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a...

 but was repulsed. As in the myth of Potiphar's wife

Potiphar's Wife

Potiphar's Wife is a 1931 British romance film directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Nora Swinburne, Laurence Olivier and Guy Newall. It is also known as Her Strange Desire. It was based on a play by Edgar C...

, she testified falsely against Bellerophon, accusing him of advances and even attempted rape to her husband, who sent him on a deadly mission to Iobates. Bellerophon later returned to Tiryns and punished Stheneboea.

Her three daughters were afflicted with madness, whether 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...

 or by Dionysus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

, and ranged the mountains as maenad

Maenad

In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of Dionysus , the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones"...

s, assaulting travellers.

Stheneboea and Potiphar's wife

An alternative name for the consort of Proetus is Antea or Anteia. Robert Graves

Robert Graves

Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...

 observes that Anteia's attempted seduction of Bellerophon has several Greek parallels and draws attention to Biadice's love for Phrixus

Phrixus

In Greek mythology, Phrixus or Frixos or Phryxus was the son of Athamas, king of Boiotia, and Nephele . His twin sister Helle and he were hated by their stepmother, Ino. Ino hatched a devious plot to get rid of the twins, roasting all of Boeotia's crop seeds so they would not grow. The local...

, which "recalls Potiphar's wife's love for Joseph, a companion myth from Canaan

Canaan

Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...

" as well as Cretheis and Peleus

Peleus

In Greek mythology, Pēleus was a hero whose myth was already known to the hearers of Homer in the late 8th century BCE. Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Endeïs, the oread of Mount Pelion in Thessaly; he was the father of Achilles...

, Phaedra

Phaedra (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Phaedra is the daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, wife of Theseus and the mother of Demophon of Athens and Acamas. Phaedra's name derives from the Greek word φαιδρός , which meant "bright"....

 and Hippolytus

Hippolytus (mythology)

thumb|260px|The Death of Hippolytus, by [[Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema]] .In Greek mythology, Hippolytus was a son of Theseus and either Antiope or Hippolyte...

 or Philonome and Tenes

Tenes

In Greek mythology, Tenes was the eponymous hero of the island of Tenedos. He was the son either of Apollo or of King Cycnus of Colonae by Proclia, daughter or granddaughter of Laomedon. Cycnus' second wife Philonome, daughter of Tragasus or Cragasus, falsely accused Tenes of rape, bringing in a...

. Graves also notes the parallel in the Egyptian Tale of the Two Brothers, from about the end of the second millennium. "Such poisonous triangular relationships

Love triangle

A love triangle is usually a romantic relationship involving three people. While it can refer to two people independently romantically linked with a third, it usually implies that each of the three people has some kind of relationship to the other two...

," Jeffrey A White has observed in this context, "with negligible variations of detail and conclusion (the common ingredients being a failed seductress, an innocent youth and a deceived father-figure), can be multiplied easily from Greek myth, as from Hebrew. That the Bellerophon-Proetus-Anteia relationship recalls quite vividly the Joseph-Potiphar-Potiphar's wife episode in Gen. 39, is well known."

Stheneboea, "cattle queen"

Stheneboea is one of a number of female figures named for their role as "cattle queens"; they include Phereboia ("bringing in cattle"), and Polyboia

Polyboea

In Greek mythology, Polyboea is a name that refers to:*A sister of Hyacinthus who died a virgin and was believed to have been taken to heaven by Aphrodite, Athena and Artemis, together with her brother.*The first wife of Actor....

 ("worth much cattle"). In archaic Greece cattle were a source of wealth and a demonstration of social pre-eminence; they also signified the numinous presence of 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...

. Cattle-queens, betokening the command of a large bride-price, are as familiar in Gaelic mythology as they are in Greek myth.