Danaus

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Danaus

Danaus, or Danaos ("sleeper" ; Greek ?a?a??), was a Greek mythological character

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, twin brother of Aegyptus

Aegyptus

In Greek mythology, Aegyptus is a descendant of the heifer maiden, Io , and the river-god Nilus , and was a king in Ancient Egypt. Aegyptos was the son of Belus and Achiroe, a naiad daughter of Nile....
and son of Achiroe

Achiroe

Achiroe , or according to Apollodorus Anchino?, which is perhaps a mistake for Anchiro?, was in Greek mythology a naiad, a daughter of the river-god Nilus ....
and Belus

Belus (Egyptian)

In Greek mythology, Belus was the son of Poseidon and Libya . He was a king of Egypt and father of Aegyptus and Danaus and brother to Agenor and Phoenix....
, a mythical king of Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
. The myth of Danaus is a foundation legend (or re-foundation legend) of Argos

Argos

Argos is a city in Greece in the Peloponnese near Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, named for Nauplius ....
, one of the foremost Mycenaean

Mycenaean Greece

Mycenaean Greece is a cultural period of ancient Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece....
cities of the Peloponnesus. In Homer's Iliad
ILiad

The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
, "Danaans" ("tribe of Danaus") and "Argives" commonly designate the Greek forces opposed to the Trojan

Troy

Troy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle, and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer....
s.

Danaus and his wife, Pieria

Pieria (Greek mythology)

In Greek mythology, Pieria was the wife of Danaus. According to the Bibliotheca , Danaus and Pieria had fifty daughters, the Danaides who married the fifty sons of Aegyptus....
, according to the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus

Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)

The Bibliotheca , in three books, provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends, "the most valuable mythographical work that has come down from ancient times," Aubrey Diller observed, whose "stultifying purpose" was neatly expressed in the epigram noted by Patriarch Photius I of Constantinople:...
had fifty daughters, the Danaides, and his twin brother, Aegyptus, had fifty sons.

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Danaus, or Danaos ("sleeper" ; Greek ?a?a??), was a Greek mythological character

Greek mythology

Aegyptus

Achiroe

Achiroe , or according to Apollodorus Anchino?, which is perhaps a mistake for Anchiro?, was in Greek mythology a naiad, a daughter of the river-god Nilus ....
and Belus

Belus (Egyptian)

In Greek mythology, Belus was the son of Poseidon and Libya . He was a king of Egypt and father of Aegyptus and Danaus and brother to Agenor and Phoenix....
, a mythical king of Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Argos

Argos is a city in Greece in the Peloponnese near Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, named for Nauplius ....
, one of the foremost Mycenaean

Mycenaean Greece

Troy

Pieria (Greek mythology)

Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)

Argos

Argos is a city in Greece in the Peloponnese near Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, named for Nauplius ....
, to which he was connected by his descent from Io

Io (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Io was a priestess of Hera in Argos who was seduced by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection. Her mistress 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

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
and turned into a heifer and pursued by Hera

Hera

In the Twelve Olympians of classical Greek Mythology, Hera or Here was the wife and older sister of Zeus. Her chief function was as goddess of women and marriage....
until she found asylum in Egypt. Argos at the time was ruled by King Pelasgus

Pelasgus

In Greek mythology, Pelasgus referred to several different people.#One was the first king of Arcadia, the ancestor of the Pelasgians, whom Herodotus claimed were the oldest inhabitants of Greece....
, the eponym

Eponym

An eponym is a person, whether real or fictitious, after whom a particular toponym, ethnonym, regnal year, 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 ask 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 trilogy which included the lost plays The Egyptians and The Daughters of Danaus....
by Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Roman Greece traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius....
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 constantly. 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: "they 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 Myloi, Argolis 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 when Heracles killed it, as Heracles#Se...
;" but one, Hypermnestra

Hypermnestra

Hypermnestra , in Greek mythology, 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....
(or 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) refused because her husband, Lynceus

Lynceus

In Greek mythology, Lynceus in some myths is named as a descendant of Belus through Aegyptus, twin brother of Danaus. This myth when followed results in an impossible reconciliation loop....
, 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 classical Greek mythology goddess of love, sex, and beauty. According to Greek oral poet Hesiod, she was born when Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus....
intervened and saved her. Lynceus and Hypermnestra then began a dynasty of Argive kings (the Danaan Dynasty).

In some versions, Lynceus later killed Danaus as revenge for the death of his brothers.

In some versions, the Danaides were punished in Tartarus

Tartarus

In classic Roman mythology, below Heaven, Earth, 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 Hades....
by being forced to carry water through a jug to fill a bath and wash off their sins, but the jugs were actually sieves, so the water always leaked out (the Danish government's third world aid agency's name was changed from DANAID to DANIDA

DANIDA

Danish International Development Agency , is a Denmark organisation inside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, set up to provide humanitarian help and assistance in developing countries....
in the last minute when this unfortunate connotation was discovered).

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 from ancient Greek mythology.After being told by an oracle she would be ruined if she were to marry, Atalanta set up a contest to win her hand in marriage....
).

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 is the term used for a confederacy of seafaring raiders of the second millennium BC who sailed into the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, caused political unrest, and attempted to enter or control Egyptian territory during the late Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt, and especially during Year 8 of Ramesses III of the Twentieth dy...
), whose leaders then intermarried with the local dynasty. The descendants of Danaus' "blameless" daughter Hypermnestra, through Danaë

Danaë

File:Danae gold shower Louvre CA925.jpgIn Greek mythology, Dana? was a daughter of King Acrisius of Argos and Eurydice of Argos . She was the mother of Perseus by Zeus....
, led to Perseus, founder of Mycenae

Mycenae

Mycenae , is an archaeology in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 6 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, Ialysa

Ialysa

In Greek mythology, Ialysa was a daughter of Danaus who was worshipped on the island of Rhodes. Principally, she was venerated in Ialyssos, which was named after her....
, Kamira

Kamira

In Greek mythology, Kamira was a daughter of Danaus who was worshipped on the Greece island of Rhodes. Principally, she was venerated in Kamiros, which was named after her....
and Linda

Linda

Linda can refer to:* Linda , a female given name * Linda , a name usually given to a male in IsiZulu . The name in English means the one who is waiting ....
, who were worshipped in the cities that took their names in the island of Rhodes

Rhodes

Rhodes is a Greece List of islands of Greece approximately southwest of Turkey in 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 of which 53,709 resided in the Rhodes capital city of the island....
, Ialysos, Kamiros and Lindos. According to Rhodian mythographers who informed Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus , was a Roman Greece historian who flourished in the 1st century BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agira in Sicily ....
, Danaus would have stopped and founded a sanctuary to Athena

Athena

In Greek mythology, Athena is the shrewd companion of Hero and the goddess of Hero endeavour. She is the virgin patron of Athens, which built the Parthenon to worship her....
on the way from Egypt to Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkans. It has borders with Albania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the north, and Turkey to the east....
. Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
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 (xiv.2.6) reports.

The Danais

The epic

Epic 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....
Danais, 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....
, though the name has not survived and narrating these events, does not survive, but the Danaid tetralogy of Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
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".

U.S. federal judges use the version of the legend in which the Danaides are forced to perform an impossible task as a simile for the judges' task of determining whether a case "arises under" the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.

Film

A film by David Guiraud produce by