About him I shall speak again.[*](See below, Apollod. 3.8.1.) But Argus received the kingdom and called the Peloponnese after himself Argos; and having married Evadne, daughter of Strymon and Neaera, he begat Ecbasus, Piras, Epidaurus, and Criasus,[*](Compare Scholiast on Eur. Or. 932; Hyginus, Fab. 145.) who also succeeded to the kingdom. Ecbasus had a son Agenor, and Agenor had a son Argus, the one who is called the All-seeing. He had eyes in the whole of his body,[*](As to Argus and his many eyes, compare Aesch. Supp. 303ff.; Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 1116; Ov. Met. 1.625ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 145; Serv. Verg. A. 7.790; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 5ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 18).) and being exceedingly strong he killed the bull that ravaged Arcadia and clad himself in its hide;[*](Compare Dionysius, quoted by the Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 1116, who says merely that Argus was clad in a hide and had eyes all over his body.) and when a satyr wronged the Arcadians and robbed them of their cattle, Argus withstood and killed him. It is said, too, that Echidna,[*](As to the monster Echidna, half woman, half snake, see Hes. Th. 295ff. ) daughter of Tartarus and Earth, who used to carry off passers-by, was caught asleep and slain by Argus. He also avenged the murder of Apis by putting the guilty to death.
Argus and Ismene, daughter of Asopus, had a son Iasus, who is said to have been the father of Io.[*](Compare Paus. 2.16.1; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 932.) But the annalist Castor and many of the tragedians allege that Io was a daughter of Inachus;[*](Compare Aesch. PB 589ff.; Hdt. 1.1; Plut. De Herodoti malignitate 11; Lucian, Dial. Deorum iii.; Lucian, Dial. Marin. vii.1; Paus. 3.18.13; Ov. Met. 1.583ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 145.) and Hesiod
133
and Acusilaus say that she was a daughter of Piren. Zeus seduced her while she held the priesthood of Hera, but being detected by Hera he by a touch turned Io into a white cow
[*](Compare Aesch. Supp. 291ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. 2.103 (who cites the present passage of Apollodorus); Ov. Met. 1.588ff. ) and swore that he had not known her; wherefore Hesiod remarks that lover's oaths do not draw down the anger of the gods. But Hera requested the cow from Zeus for herself and set Argus the All-seeing to guard it. Pherecydes says that this Argus was a son of Arestor;
[*](The passage of Pherecydes is quoted by the Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 1116.) but Asclepiades says that he was a son of Inachus, and Cercops says that he was a son of Argus and Ismene, daughter of Asopus; but Acusilaus says that he was earth-born.
[*](So Aesch. PB 305.) He tethered her to the olive tree which was in the grove of the Mycenaeans. But Zeus ordered Hermes to steal the cow, and as Hermes could not do it secretly because Hierax had blabbed, he killed Argus by the cast of a stone;
[*](Compare Scholiast on Aesch. Prom. 561; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.103.) whence he was called Argiphontes.
[*](That is, slayer of Argus.) Hera next sent a gadfly to infest the cow,
[*](For the wanderings of Io, goaded by the gadfly, see Aesch. Supp. 540ff., Aesch. PB 786(805)ff.; Ov. Met. 1.724ff. ) and the animal came first to what is called after her the Ionian gulf. Then she journeyed through Illyria and having traversed Mount Haemus she crossed what was then called the Thracian Straits but is now called after her the Bosphorus.
[*](Bosphoros, ”Cow's strait” or ” Oxford.”) And having gone away to Scythia and the Cimmerian land she wandered over great tracts of land and swam wide stretches of sea both in Europe and Asia until at last
135
she came to Egypt, where she recovered her original form and gave birth to a son Epaphus beside the river Nile.
[*](Compare Aesch. PB 846(865)ff.; Hdt. 2.153 Hdt. 3.27; Ov. Met. 1.748ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 145.) Him Hera besought the Curetes to make away with, and make away with him they did. When Zeus learned of it, he slew the Curetes; but Io set out in search of the child. She roamed all over Syria, because there it was revealed to her that the wife of the king of Byblus was nursing her son;
[*](Isis, whom the ancients sometimes identified with Io (see below), is said to have nursed the infant son of the king of Byblus. See Plut. Isis et Osiris 15ff. Both stories probably reflect the search said to have been instituted by Isis for the body of the dead Osiris.) and having found Epaphus she came to Egypt and was married to Telegonus, who then reigned over the Egyptians. And she set up an image of Demeter, whom the Egyptians called Isis,
[*](For the identification of Demeter with Isis, see Hdt. 2.59, Hdt. 2.156; Diod. 1.13.5, Diod. 1.25.1, Diod. 1.96.5.) and Io likewise they called by the name of Isis.
[*](Herodotus remarked (Hdt. 2.41) that in art Isis was represented like Io as a woman with cow's horns. For the identification of Io and Isis, see Diod. 1.24.8; Lucian, Dial. Deorum iii.; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. i.21.106, p. 382, ed. Potter; Prop. iii.20.17ff.; Juvenal vi.526ff.; Statius, Sylv. iii.2.101ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 145.)