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 histori
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 histori
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