Inachus. For modern scholars, Inachus is the most ancient god or hero of Argos. According to Robert Graves, he was a descendant of Iapetus while most modern mythologists understand Inachus as one of the river gods, all sons of Titans Oceanus and Tethys and thus to the Greeks, part of the pre-Olympian or Pelasgian mythic landscape. In Greek iconography, Walter Burkert notes, the rivers are represented in the form of a bull with a human head or face. As rivers are generally fertile, Inachus had many children, the chief of whom were his two sons, Phoroneus and Aegialeus or Phegeus, and his two daughters, Io and Philodice, wife of Leucippus. The mother of these children was variously described in the sources, either an Oceanid named Melia, called the mother of Phoroneus and Aegialeus, or another Oceanid named Argia, called the mother of Phoroneus and Io. Io is sometimes confused as the daughter of Inachus and Melia but she is the daughter of Inachus alone. Io was born from Inachus' mouth technically making her Inachus and Melia's daughter because she was born while Inachus was married to Melia. Aside from the Inachians of whom he was simply the back-formed eponym, his other children include Mycene, the eponym of Mycenae, the spring nymph Amymone, Messeis, Hyperia, Themisto and possibly Teledice. Argus Panoptes was also called the son of Inachus as what Asclepiades also asserted. The historian Pausanias describes him as the eldest king of Argos who named the river after himself and sacrificed to Hera. He also notes that some said he was not a mortal, but a river. Inachus was also said to be first priest at Argos, the country was frequently called the land of Inachus. Jerome and Eusebius, and as even late as 1812, John Lempriere euhemeristically asserted that he was the first king of Argos reigning for 50 years. Inachus divided the territories between his sons, Phegeus and Phoroneus who succeeded him as the second king of Argos. Inachus contemporary was Leucippus, the eight king of Sicyon. The ancients themselves made several attempts to explain the stories about Inachus: sometimes they looked upon him as a native of Argos, who after the deluge of Deucalion led the Argives from the mountains into the plains, and confined the waters within their proper channels. After rendering the province of Argolis inhabitable again, he then founded the city of Argos. Other times, the ancients regarded Inachus as an immigrant who had come across the sea as the leader of an Egyptian or Libyan colony, and had united the Pelasgians, whom he found scattered on the banks of the Inachus. In Virgil's Aeneid, Inachus is represented on Turnus's shield. Compare the Inachos or Brimos of the Eleusinian Mysteries.