Danaus

Danaus handed daggers to his daughters after the marriage feast. They killed their bridegrooms as they slept. Hypermnestra alone spared Lynceus because he had allowed her to preserve her virginity. Danaus imprisoned her and kept her under guard. The other Danaids buried their husbands’ heads at Lerna and gave their bodies full funeral honours below the walls of Argos. Athene and Hermes purified the Danaids in the Lernaean Lake with Zeus’s permission.

Lynceus escaped to Lyncea, sixty furlongs from Argos. Hypermnestra asked him to light a beacon when he reached safety. She promised to answer it with another beacon from the citadel. The Argives continued to light beacon fires each year in memory of this pact. At dawn, Danaus learned of Hypermnestra’s disobedience. She was tried for her life, but the Argive judges acquitted her.

Hypermnestra then raised an image to Victorious Aphrodite in the shrine of Wolfish Apollo. She also dedicated a sanctuary to Persuasive Artemis. Danaus later reunited her with Lynceus. He decided to marry off his remaining daughters as quickly as possible before noon on the same day. The new husbands were chosen from the victors in an athletic contest. Danaus gave his surviving daughters to them. The Judges of the Dead condemned the Danaids to carry water endlessly in jars pierced like sieves.

Danaus and Gelanor contested the throne of Argos. Their claims appeared evenly balanced, so the Argives postponed their decision until the following day. Danaus had a legitimate claim through Io. Gelanor, son of Sthenelas, was also descended from Io, though the sources differ on the exact degree of his descent.

At dawn, a wolf came down from the hills and attacked cattle grazing outside the city walls. It killed the leading bull. The Argives treated this as an omen and gave the throne to Danaus. One tradition understood the wolf as Danaus, an outsider who had come against the established ruler. Another read the killing as a sign that Danaus would take the throne by violence if Gelanor opposed him. Gelanor therefore surrendered the kingship peacefully.

Danaus believed that Apollo had sent the wolf. He founded the cult of Apollo Lycaios, the Wolfish Apollo, at Argos. The shrine became the city’s most important cult. The omen thus settled the dispute between the two claimants, and Danaus became king of Argos. Some accounts also say that Danaus declared Athene to be supporting his claim before the decision was made. They differ from the account in which the Argives simply deferred judgement and accepted the wolf as a divine sign.