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[4]

Reigning over the Egyptians Epaphus married Memphis, daughter of Nile, founded and named the city of Memphis after her, and begat a daughter Libya, after whom the region of Libya was called.1 Libya had by Poseidon twin sons, Agenor and Belus.2 Agenor departed to Phoenicia and reigned there, and there he became the ancestor of the great stock; hence we shall defer our account of him.3 But Belus remained in Egypt, reigned over the country, and married Anchinoe, daughter of Nile, by whom he had twin sons, Egyptus and Danaus,4 but according to Euripides, he had also Cepheus and Phineus. Danaus was settled by Belus in Libya, and Egyptus in Arabia; but Egyptus subjugated the country of the Melampods and named it Egypt < after himself>. Both had children by many wives; Egyptus had fifty sons, and Danaus fifty daughters. As they afterwards quarrelled concerning the kingdom, Danaus feared the sons of Egyptus, and by the advice of Athena he built a ship, being the first to do so, and having put his daughters on board he fled. And touching at Rhodes he set up the image of Lindian Athena.5 Thence he came to Argos and the reigning king Gelanor surrendered the kingdom to him;6 < and having made himself master of the country he named the inhabitants Danai after himself>. But the country being waterless, because Poseidon had dried up even the springs out of anger at Inachus for testifying that the land belonged to Hera,7 Danaus sent his daughters to draw water. One of them, Amymone, in her search for water threw a dart at a deer and hit a sleeping satyr, and he, starting up, desired to force her; but Poseidon appearing on the scene, the satyr fled, and Amymone lay with Poseidon, and he revealed to her the springs at Lerna.8


1 Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 894.

2 Compare Tzetzes, Chiliades vii.349ff.

3 See below, Apollod. 3.1.

4 The following account of Egyptus and Danaus, including the settlement of Danaus and his daughters at Argos, is quoted verbally, with a few omissions and changes, by the Scholiast on Hom. Il. i.42, who mentions the second book of Apollodorus as his authority. Compare Aesch. Supp. 318ff.; Scholiast on Eur. Hec. 886, and Scholiast on Eur. Or. 872; Hyginus, Fab. 168; Serv. Verg. A. 10.497.

5 Compare Hdt. 2.182; Marmor Parium 15-17, pp. 544, 546, ed. C. Müller (Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, vol. i); Diod. 5.58.1; Strab. 14.2.11; Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelii iii.8. As to the worship of the goddess, see Cecil Torr, Rhodes in Ancient Times (Cambridge, 1885), pp. 74ff., 94 sq. In recent years a chronicle of the temple of Lindian Athena has been discovered in Rhodes: it is inscribed on a marble slab. See Chr. Blinkenberg, La Chronique du temple Lindien (Copenhagen, 1912).

6 Compare Paus. 2.16.1, Paus. 2.19.3.

7 Compare Paus. 2.15.5.

8 Compare Eur. Ph. 187ff.; Lucian, Dial. Marin. vi.; Philostratus, Imagines, i.8; Scholiast on Hom. Il. iv.171; Prop. iii.18.47ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 169. There was a stream called Amymone at Lerna. See Strab. 8.6.8; Paus. 2.37.1, Paus. 2.37.4; Hyginus, Fab. 169.

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