Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/110

 96 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY Cadmus: Ovid, Met. iii. 1 sg., Trist. iv. 3, 67; Hyginus, Fab. vi. ; Pope, Thebais i. 8 : And Cadmus searching round the spacious seas ? How with the serpent's teeth he sow'd the soil. Chaucer, Knight's Tale 688. Agenor : Ovid, Met. iii. 51 ; Hyginus, Fab. clxxviii. Amphion : Vergil, Eel. ii. 24 : Amphion Dircaeus. Ovid, Met. vi. 271 ; Horace, Ars Poet. 394 ; Pope, The Temple of Fame 85 : Amphion there the loud creating lyre Strikes, and beholds a sudden Thebes aspire ! Thebais i. 12. Dirce : Hyginus, Fab. vii. Niobe : Homer, II. xxiv. 602 ; Ovid, Met. vi. 148 sq. ; Hyginus, Fab. ix., x., xi., cxlv. 2. LEGENDS OF ARGOS, MYCENAE, AND TIRYNS 126. As has been learned from excavations, the district of Argos had intimate relations with Egypt and Asia even as early as the flourishing period of the city Mycenae, a period which perhaps extended from 1450 to 1250 B.C. The same relations appear also in the myths of this region; the story of lo and Danatis suggests an alliance with Egypt ; that of Perseus and the Pelopidae, one with Asia. 16, the daughter of the river god Inachus, was beloved by Zeus; therefore the jealous Hera transformed her into a heifer, and caused her to be guarded by the many-eyed, ( all-seeing J (Panoptos) Argus in the vicinity of Mycenae, until, at the command of Zeus, he was put to sleep and killed by Hermes, who perhaps thus won the epithet Argeiphontes ('Argus-slayer'?). Upon this lo was pur- sued over sea and land by a gadfly sent by Hera; but finally in Euboea or Egypt she regained her human form, and bore Epaphus, the father of Danatis and Aegyptus.