AbodeArgosEgyptPersonal informationParentsInachus
MeliaConsortZeus
TelegonusChildrenKeroessa
Epaphus
Io (/ˈaɪ.oʊ/; Ancient Greek: Ἰώ [iːɔ̌ː]) was, in Greek mythology, one of the mortal lovers of Zeus. An Argive princess, she was an ancestor of many kings and heroes, such as Perseus, Cadmus, Heracles, Minos, Lynceus, Cepheus, and Danaus. The astronomer Simon Marius named a moon of Jupiter after Io in 1614.
Because her brother was Phoroneus, Io is also known as Phoronis (an adjective form of Phoroneus: "Phoronean").[1] She was sometimes compared to the egyptian goddess Isis, whereas her Egyptian husband Telegonus was "Osiris".[2][3]
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Family
In most versions of the legend, Io was the daughter of Inachus,[4][5] though various other purported genealogies are also known. If her father was Inachus, then her mother would presumably have been Inachus' wife (and sister), the Oceanid nymph Melia, daughter of Oceanus.[6] The 2nd century AD geographer Pausanias also suggests that she is the daughter of Inachus and retells the story of Zeus falling in love with Io, the legendary wrath of Hera, and the metamorphosis by which Io becomes a beautiful white heifer.[7] At another instant several generations later, Pausanias recounts another Io, descendant of Phoroneus, daughter of Iasus,[8] who himself was the son of Argus and Ismene, the daughter of Asopus,[9] or of Triopas and Sosis; Io's mother in the latter case was Leucane.[10] Io's father was called Peiren in the Catalogue of Women,[11] and by Acusilaus,[12] possibly a son of the elder Argus, also known as Peiras, Peiranthus or Peirasus.[13][14] Io may therefore be identical to Callithyia, daughter of Peiranthus, as is suggested by Hesychius of Alexandria.[15]
Mythology
Io and Zeus
Io was a priestess of the Goddess Hera in Argos,[5][9] whose cult her father Inachus was supposed to have introduced to Argos.[5] Zeus noticed Io, a mortal woman, and lusted after her. In the version of the myth told in Prometheus Bound she initially rejected Zeus' advances, until her father threw her out of his house on the advice of oracles.[16] According to some stories, Zeus then turned Io into a heifer (a young female bovine who has not yet given birth) in order to hide her from his wife;[5] others maintain that Hera herself transformed Io.[16][17]
In the version of the story in which Zeus transformed Io, the deception failed, and Hera begged Zeus to give her the heifer as a present, which, having no reason to refuse, he did. Pitying the unfortunate girl, Gaia, the goddess of the earth, created the violet (Ancient Greek: ἴον, romanized: ion), so the cow could eat, thus growing "from her from whom it has its name", based on incorrect folk etymology. The various colours of the violet (red, purple, white) changed on account of Io's life, red for the blushing maiden, purple for the cow, white for the stars.[18][19][20] Hera then sent Argus Panoptes, a giant who had 100 eyes, to watch Io and prevent Zeus from visiting her, and so Zeus sent Hermes to distract and eventually slay Argus. According to Ovid, he did so by first lulling him to sleep by playing the panpipes and telling stories.[21] Zeus freed Io, still in the form of a heifer. In some myths, Hera uses Argus' eyes to decorate her peacock's feathers to thank the giant for his help.
In order to exact her revenge, Hera sent a gadfly to sting Io continuously, driving her to wander the world without rest. Io eventually crossed the path between the Propontis and the Black Sea, which thus acquired the name Bosporus (meaning ox passage), where she met Prometheus, who had been chained on Mt. Caucasus by Zeus. Prometheus comforted Io with the information that she would be restored to human form and become the ancestress of the greatest of all heroes, Heracles (Hercules). Io escaped across the Ionian Sea to Egypt, where she was restored to human form by Zeus. There, she gave birth to Zeus's son Epaphus, and a daughter as well, Keroessa. She later married Egyptian king Telegonus. Their grandson, Danaus, eventually returned to Greece with his fifty daughters (the Danaids), as recalled in Aeschylus' play The Suppliants.
The myth of Io must have been well known to Homer, who often calls Hermes Argeiphontes, which is often translated as "Argus-slayer", though this interpretation is disputed by Robert Beekes. Walter Burkert[22] notes that the story of Io was told in the ancient epic tradition at least four times of which we have traces: in the Danais, in the Phoronis—Phoroneus founded the cult of Hera, according to Hyginus' Fabulae 274 and 143—in a fragment of the Hesiodic Aigimios, as well as in similarly fragmentary Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. A mourning commemoration of Io was observed at the Heraion of Argos into classical times.
The ancients connected Io with the Moon,[23] and in Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, where Io encounters Prometheus, she refers to herself as "the horned virgin". From her relationship with Phoroneus, as sister (or descendant), Io is sometimes called Phoronis.[24]
Io at some point landed at Damalis, and the Chalcedonians erected a bronze cow on the spot.[25]
Io as Isis
Lygdus and his wife, Telethusa, were a poor couple living in Crete.[26] When Telethusa became pregnant, her husband told her that they can't afford having a daughter, and that they have no other option than to kill the child if it would be a daughter. 8 months later Io, later in the story mentioned as Isis, came in a vision to Telethusa telling her that she should keep her daughter when it's born and must tell her husband that it's a boy named Iphis.
Later in the story, Isis (Io) changes Iphis' sex when she is supposed to marry her fiancée, Ianthe.
Argus or Argos Panoptes (Ancient Greek: Ἄργος Πανόπτης, All-seeing Argos) is a many-eyed giant in Greek mythology.
Mythology
Argus Panoptes (Ἄργος Πανόπτης), guardian of the heifer-nymph Io and son of Arestor[1] and probably Mycene[2] (in other version son of Gaia[3]), was a primordial giant whose epithet Panoptes, "all-seeing", led to his being described with multiple, often one hundred, eyes. The epithet Panoptes was applied to the god of the Sun, Helios, and was taken up as an epithet by Zeus, Zeus Panoptes. "In a way," Walter Burkert observes, "the power and order of Argos the city are embodied in Argos the neatherd, lord of the herd and lord of the land, whose name itself is the name of the land."[4]
The epithet Panoptes, reflecting his mythic role, set by Hera as a very effective watchman of Io, was described in a fragment of a lost poem Aigimios, attributed to Hesiod:[5]
And set a watcher upon her, great and strong Argus, who with four eyes looks every way. And the goddess stirred in him unwearying strength: sleep never fell upon his eyes; but he kept sure watch always.
In the 5th century and later, Argus' wakeful alertness was explained for an increasingly literal culture as his having so many eyes that only a few of the eyes would sleep at a time: there were always eyes still awake. In the 2nd century AD Pausanias noted at Argos, in the temple of Zeus Larissaios, an archaic image of Zeus with a third eye in the center of his forehead, allegedly Priam's Zeus Herkeios purloined from Troy.[6]
Argus was Hera's servant. His great service to the Olympian pantheon was to slay the chthonic serpent-legged monster Echidna as she slept in her cave.[7] Hera's defining task for Argus was to guard the white heifer Io from Zeus, who was attracted to her, keeping her chained to the sacred olive tree at the Argive Heraion.[8] She required someone who had at least a hundred eyes spread out, always watching in all directions, someone who would stay awake despite being asleep. Argos was meant to be the perfect guardian.[9] She charged him to "Tether this cow safely to an olive-tree at Nemea". Hera knew that the heifer was in reality Io, one of the many nymphs Zeus was coupling with to establish a new order. To free Io, Zeus had Argus slain by Hermes. The messenger of the Olympian gods, disguised as a shepherd, first put all of Argus' eyes asleep with spoken charms, then slew him by hitting him with a stone, the first stain of bloodshed among the new generation of gods.[10] After beheading Argus, Hermes acquired the epithet Argeiphontes or “Argus-slayer”.[3]
The sacrifice of Argus liberated Io and allowed her to wander the earth, although tormented by a gadfly sent by Hera, until she reached the Ionian Sea, named after her, from where she swam to Egypt and gave birth to a love child of Zeus, according to some versions of the myth.
According to Ovid, Argus had a hundred eyes.[11] Hera had Argus' hundred eyes preserved forever in a peacock's tail so as to immortalise her faithful watchman.[12] In another version, Hera transformed the whole of Argus into a peacock.[13][14]
The myth makes the closest connection of Argus, the neatherd, with the bull. According to the mythographer Apollodorus, Argus, "being exceedingly strong ... killed the bull that ravaged Arcadia and clad himself in its hide