[188] Apollod. ii. 1, 1; Pausan. ii. 16, 1; Æsch. Prom. v. 590-663.
[189] Æschyl. Prom. v. 790-850; Apollod. ii. 1. Æschylus in the Supplices gives a different version of the wanderings of Iô from that which appears in the Promêtheus: in the former drama he carries her through Phrygia, Mysia, Lydia, Pamphylia and Cilicia into Egypt (Supplic. 544-566): nothing is there said about Promêtheus, or Caucasus or Scythia, etc.
The track set forth in the Supplices is thus geographically intelligible, that in the Promêtheus (though the most noticed of the two) defies all comprehension, even as a consistent fiction; nor has the erudition of the commentators been successful in clearing it up. See Schutz, Excurs. iv. ad Prometh. Vinct. pp. 144-149; Welcker, Æschylische Trilogie, pp. 127-146, and especially Völcker, Mythische Geographie der Griech. und Römer, part i. pp. 3-13.
The Greek inhabitants at Tarsus in Cilicia traced their origin to Argos: their story was, that Triptolemus had been sent forth from that town in quest of the wandering Iô, that he had followed her to Tyre, and then renounced the search in despair. He and his companions then settled partly at Tarsus, partly at Antioch (Strabo, xiv. 673; xv. 750). This is the story of Kadmos and Eurôpê inverted, as happens so often with the Grecian mythes.
Homer calls Hermês Ἀργειφόντης; but this epithet hardly affords sufficient proof that he was acquainted with the mythe of Iô, as Völcker supposes: it cannot be traced higher than Hesiod. According to some authors, whom Cicero copies, it was on account of the murder of Argos that Hermês was obliged to leave Greece and go into Egypt: then it was that he taught the Egyptians laws and letters (De Natur. Deor. iii. 22).
Such is a general sketch of the adventures which the ancient poets, epic, lyric, and tragic, and the logographers after them, connect with the name of the Argeian Iô,—one of the numerous tales which the fancy of the Greeks deduced from the amorous dispositions of Zeus and the jealousy of Hêrê. That the scene should be laid in the Argeian territory appears natural, when we recollect that both Argos and Mykênæ were under the special guardianship of Hêrê, and that the Hêræon between the two was one of the oldest and most celebrated temples in which she was worshipped. It is useful to compare this amusing fiction with the representation reported to us by Herodotus, and derived by him as well from Phœnician as from Persian antiquarians, of the circumstances which occasioned the transit of Iô from Argos to Egypt,—an event recognized by all of them as historical matter of fact. According to the Persians, a Phœnician vessel had arrived at the port near Argos, freighted with goods intended for sale to the inhabitants of the country. After the vessel had remained a few days, and disposed of most of her cargo, several Argeian women, and among them Iô the king’s daughter, coming on board to purchase, were seized and carried off by the crew, who sold Iô in Egypt.[190] The Phœnician antiquarians, however, while they admitted the circumstance that Iô had left her own country in one of their vessels, gave a different color to the whole by affirming that she emigrated voluntarily, having been engaged in an amour with the captain of the vessel, and fearing that her parents might come to the knowledge of her pregnancy. Both Persians and Phœnicians described the abduction of Iô as the first of a series of similar acts between Greeks and Asiatics, committed each in revenge for the preceding. First came the rape of Eurôpê from Phœnicia by Grecian adventurers,—perhaps, as Herodotus supposed, by Krêtans: next, the abduction of Mêdeia from Kolchis by Jasôn, which occasioned the retaliatory act of Paris, when he stole away Helena from Menelaos. Up to this point the seizures of women by Greeks from Asiatics, and by Asiatics from Greeks, had been equivalents both in number and in wrong. But the Greeks now thought fit to equip a vast conjoint expedition to recover Helen, in the course of which they took and sacked Troy. The invasions of Greece by Darius and Xerxes were intended, according to the Persian antiquarians, as a long-delayed retribution for the injury inflicted on the Asiatics by Agamemnôn and his followers.[191]