of Hêrê, at the ancient and renowned Hêræon between Mykênæ and Argos,
Zeus became amorous. When Hêrê discovered the intrigue and taxed him
with it, he denied the charge, and metamorphosed Iô into a white cow.
Hêrê, requiring that the cow should be surrendered to her, placed her
under the keeping of Argos Panoptês; but this guardian was slain by
Hermês, at the command of Zeus: and Hêrê then drove the cow Iô away
from her native land by means of the incessant stinging of a gad-fly,
which compelled her to wander without repose or sustenance over an
immeasurable extent of foreign regions. The wandering Iô gave her name
to the Ionian Gulf, traversed Epirus and Illyria, passed the chain
of Mount Hæmus and the lofty summits of Caucasus, and swam across
the Thracian or Cimmerian Bosporus (which also from her derived its
appellation) into Asia. She then went through Scythia, Cimmeria, and
many Asiatic regions, until she arrived in Egypt, where Zeus at length
bestowed upon her rest, restored her to her original form, and enabled
her to give birth to his black son Epaphos.[189]
[182] Pausan. ii. 5, 4.
[183] See Düntzer, Fragm. Epic. Græc. p. 57. The Argeian author
Akusilaus treated Phorôneus as the first of men, Fragm. 14.
Didot ap. Clem. Alex. Stromat i. p. 321. Φορωνῆες, a synonym for
Argeians; Theocrit. Idyll. xxv. 200.
[184] Apollodôr. ii. 1, 1; Pausan. ii. 15, 5; 19, 5; 20, 3.
[185] Apis in Æschylus is totally different: ἰατρόμαντις or
medical charmer, son of Apollo, who comes across the gulf from
Naupactus, purifies the territory of Argos from noxious monsters,
and gives to it the name of _Apia_ (Æschyl. Suppl. 265). Compare
Steph. Byz. v. Ἀπίη; Soph. Œdip. Colon. 1303. The name Ἀπία for
Peloponnêsus remains still a mystery, even after the attempt of
Buttmann (Lexilogus, s. 19) to throw light upon it.
Eusebius asserts that Niobê was the wife of Inachus and mother of
Phorôneus, and pointedly contradicts those who call her daughter
of Phorôneus—φασὶ δέ τινες Νιόβην Φορωνέως εἶναι θυγατέρα, ὅπερ
οὐκ ἀληθές (Chronic. p. 23, ed. Scalig.): his positive tone is
curious, upon such a matter.
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