[192] It would be an unprofitable fatigue to enumerate the multiplied and irreconcilable discrepancies in regard to every step of this old Argeian genealogy. Whoever desires to see them brought together, may consult Schubart, Quæstiones in Antiquitatem Heroicam, Marburg, 1832, capp. 1 and 2.
The remarks which Schubart makes (p. 35) upon Petit-Radel’s Chronological Tables will be assented to by those who follow the unceasing string of contradictions, without any sufficient reason to believe that any one of them is more worthy of trust than the remainder, which he has cited:—“Videant alii, quomodo genealogias heroicas, et chronologiæ rationes, in concordiam redigant. Ipse abstineo, probe persuasus, stemmata vera, historiæ fide comprobata, in systema chronologiæ redigi posse: at ore per sæcula tradita, a poetis reficta, sæpe mutata, prout fabula postulare videbatur, ab historiarum deinde conditoribus restituta, scilicet, brevi, qualia prostant stemmata—chronologiæ secundum annos distributæ vincula semper recusatura esse.”
[193] Apollod. ii. 1. The Supplices of Æschylus is the commencing drama of a trilogy on this subject of the Danaïdes,—Ἱκετίδες, Αἰγύπτιοι, Δαναΐδες. Welcker, Griechisch. Tragödien, vol. i. p. 48: the two latter are lost. The old epic poem called Danaïs or Danaïdes, which is mentioned in the Tabula Iliaca as containing 5000 verses, has perished, and is unfortunately very little alluded to: see Düntzer, Epic. Græc. Fragm. p. 3; Welcker, Der Episch. Kyklus, p. 35.
From the legend of the Danaïdes we pass to two barren names of kings, Lynkeus and his son Abas. The two sons of Abas were Akrisios and Prœtos, who, after much dissension, divided between them the Argeian territory; Akrisios ruling at Argos, and Prœtos at Tiryns. The families of both formed the theme of romantic stories. To pass over for the present the legend of Bellerophôn, and the unrequited passion which the wife of Prœtos conceived for him, we are told that the daughters of Prœtos, beautiful, and solicited in marriage by suitors from all Greece, were smitten with leprosy and driven mad, wandering in unseemly guise throughout Peloponnêsus. The visitation had overtaken them, according to Hesiod, because they refused to take part in the Bacchic rites; according to Pherekydês and the Argeian Akusilaus,[194] because they had treated scornfully the wooden statue and simple equipments of Hêrê: the religious character of the old legend here displays itself in a remarkable manner. Unable to cure his daughters, Prœtos invoked the aid of the renowned Pylian prophet and leech, Melampus son of Amythaôn, who undertook to remove the malady on condition of being rewarded with the third part of the kingdom. Prœtos indignantly refused these conditions: but the state of his daughters becoming aggravated and intolerable, he was compelled again to apply to Melampus; who, on the second request, raised his demands still higher, and required another third of the kingdom for his brother Bias. These terms being acceded to, he performed his part of the covenant. He appeased the wrath of Hêrê by prayer and sacrifice; or, according to another account, he approached the deranged women at the head of a troop of young men, with shouting and ecstatic dance,—the ceremonies appropriate to the Bacchic worship of Dionysos,—and in this manner effected their cure. Melampus, a name celebrated in many different Grecian mythes, is the legendary founder and progenitor of a great and long-continued family of prophets. He and his brother Bias became kings of separate portions of the Argeian territory: he is recognized as ruler there even in the Odyssey, and the prophet Theoklymenos, his grandson, is protected and carried to Ithaca by Telemachus.[195] Herodotus also alludes to the cure of the women, and to the double kingdom of Melampus and Bias in the Argeian land: he recognizes Melampus as the first person who introduced to the knowledge of the Greeks the name and worship of Dionysos, with its appropriate sacrifices and phallic processions. Here again he historicizes various features of the old legend in a manner not unworthy of notice.[196]