Danaus 77965 223427626 2008-07-04T00:59:44Z Wetman 21492 /* Danaus in Rhodes */ referenced; Danaian connection betokens a colony {{Argive genealogy in Greek mythology}} {{dablink|For the butterfly genus, see [[Danaus (genus)]].}} '''Danaus''', or '''Danaos''' ("sleeper" ; Greek [[wikt:Δαναός|Δαναός]]), was a [[Greek mythology|Greek mythological character]], twin brother of [[Aegyptus]] and son of [[Achiroe]] and [[Belus (Egyptian)|Belus]], a mythical king of [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]]. The myth of Danaus is a foundation legend (or re-foundation legend) of [[Argos]], one of the foremost [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean]] cities of the [[Peloponnesus]]. In Homer's ''[[Iliad]]'', "[[Danaans]]" ("tribe of Danaus") and "[[Argives]]" commonly designate the Greek forces opposed to the [[Troy|Trojan]]s. Danaus and his wife, [[Pieria (Greek mythology)|Pieria]], according to the [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|''Library'' of Pseudo-Apollodorus]] had fifty daughters, the '''Danaides''', and his twin brother, Aegyptus, had fifty sons. Aegyptus commanded that his sons marry the Danaides. Danaus elected to flee instead, and to that purpose, he built a ship, the first ship that ever was. In it, he fled to [[Argos]], to which he was connected by his descent from [[Io (mythology)|Io]], the maiden wooed by [[Zeus]] and turned into a heifer and pursued by [[Hera]] until she found asylum in Egypt. Argos at the time was ruled by King [[Pelasgus]], the [[eponym]] of all autochthonous inhabitants who had lived in Greece since the beginning, also called [[Gelanor]] (he who laughs). The Danaides ask Pelasgus for protection when they arrive, the event portrayed in ''[[The Suppliants (Aeschylus)|The Suppliants]]'' by [[Aeschylus]]. Protection is granted after a vote by the Argives. When [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] visited Argos in the [[2nd century]] CE, he related the succession of Danaus to the throne, judged by the Argives, who "from the earliest times... have loved freedom and self-government, and they limited to the utmost the authority of their kings:" :"On coming to Argos he claimed the kingdom against Gelanor, the son of Sthenelas. Many plausible arguments were brought forward by both parties, and those of Sthenelas were considered as fair as those of his opponent; so the people, who were sitting in judgment, put off, they say, the decision to the following day. At dawn a wolf fell upon a herd of oxen that was pasturing before the wall, and attacked and fought with the bull that was the leader of the herd. It occurred to the Argives that Gelanor was like the bull and Danaus like the wolf, for as the wolf will not live with men, so Danaus up to that time had not lived with them. It was because the wolf overcame the bull that Danaus won the kingdom. Accordingly, believing that Apollo had brought the wolf on the herd, he founded a sanctuary of Apollo Lycius." <ref>Pausanias, ''Description of Greece,'' 2.19.3 - .4</ref> The sanctuary of Apollo Lykeios ("wolf-Apollo", but also Apollo of the twilight) was still the most prominent feature of Argos in Pausanias' time: in the sanctuary the tourist might see the throne of Danaus himself, an [[eternal flame]], called the fire of Phoronius. When Aegyptus and his fifty sons arrived to take the Danaides, Danaus gave them, to spare the [[Argives]] the pain of a battle. However, he instructed his daughters to kill their husbands on their wedding night. Forty-nine followed through: "they buried the heads of their bridegrooms in [[Lerna]];"<ref>Pseudo-Apollodorus, ''[[Bibliotheke]]'', 2.1.5; the [[Helladic]] site at Lerna is related in myth to the pool of the [[Lernaean hydra]]; compare the heads ritually buried in marshlands in northern Europe: see [[Bog body]].</ref> but one, [[Hypermnestra]] (or [[Amymone]], the "blameless" Danaid) refused because her husband, [[Lynceus]], honored her wish to remain a virgin. Danaus was angry with his disobedient daughter and threw her to the Argive courts. [[Aphrodite]] intervened and saved her (Lynceus later killed Danaus as revenge for the death of his brothers). Lynceus and Hypermnestra then began a dynasty of Argive kings (the Danaan Dynasty). In some versions of the legend, the Danaides were punished in [[Tartarus]] by being forced to carry water through a jug to fill a bath and wash off their sins, but the jugs were actually sieves, so the water always leaked out (the Danish government's third world aid agency's name was changed from DANAID to [[DANIDA]] in the last minute when this unfortunate connotation was discovered). The remaining forty-nine Danaides had their grooms chosen by a common mythic competition: a foot-race was held and the order in which the potential Argive grooms finished decided their brides (compare the myth of [[Atalanta]]). Even a cautious reading of the subtext as a vehicle for [[legend]]ary history suggests that a [[Pelasgian]] kingship in archaic Argos was overcome, not without violence, by seafarers out of Egypt (compare the [[Sea Peoples]]), whose leaders then intermarried with the local dynasty. The descendants of Danaus' "blameless" daughter Hypermnestra, through [[Danaë]], led to Perseus, founder of [[Mycenae]], thus suggesting that Argos had a claim to be the "mother city" of Mycenae. ==Danaus in Rhodes== Another account of the travels of Danaus gave him three daughters, [[Ialysa]], [[Kamira]] and [[Linda]], who were worshipped in the cities that took their names in the island of [[Rhodes]], Ialysos, Kamiros and Lindos. According to Rhodian mythographers who informed [[Diodorus Siculus]],<ref>Diodorus, v.58; [[Strabo]]</ref> Danaus would have stopped and founded a sanctuary to [[Athena]] on the way from Egypt to [[Greece]]. [[Herodotus]] heard that the temple at Lindos was founded by Danaus' daughters.<ref>Herodotus, ii.182.</ref> Ken Dowden observes<ref>Dowden, ''The Uses of Greek Mythology'' 1992:64</ref> that once the idea is dismissed that myth is directly narrating the movements of historical persons, that the loci of Danaian institutions at Lindos in Rhodes as well as at Argos suggests a Mycenaean colony sent to Rhodes from the Argolid, a tradition, in fact, that Strabo (xiv.2.6) reports. ==The ''Danais''== The [[Epic poetry|epic]] '''''Danais''''',<ref>''Danais'' is also a genus of butterfly, lepidopterists being prone to supplying classical names for butterflies.</ref> written by one of the [[cyclic poets]], though the name has not survived and narrating these events, does not survive,<ref>Two lines were quoted by a later poet.</ref> but the Danaid tetralogy of [[Aeschylus]] undoubtedly draws upon its material. It is represented in the table of epics in the received canon on the very fragmentary "Borgia table"<ref>W. McLeod, "The "Epic Canon" of the Borgia Table: Hellenistic Lore or Roman Fraud?" ''Transactions of the American Philological Association'' '''115''' (1985:161f).</ref> as "''Danaides"''. U.S. federal judges use the version of the legend in which the Danaides are forced to perform an impossible task as a simile for the judges' task of determining whether a case "arises under" the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.<ref>For instances, Stone & Webster Engineering Corp. v. Isley, 690 F.2d 323, 328 n. 4 (2d Cir. 1982); NUI Corp. v. Kimmelman, 593 F.Supp. 1457, 1464 (D. N.J. 1984).</ref> ==Notes== {{reflist|2}} {{Commonscat|Danaides}} {{wikt|Δαναός}} [[Category:Greek mythology]] [[Category:Mythological kings]] ===Film=== * [http://www.le-tonneau-des-danaides.com The Danaides' barrel] A film by David Guiraud produce by [http://www.adastra-films.com Ad Astra Films] [[bg:Данай]] [[ca:Dànau]] [[cs:Danaos]] [[de:Danaos]] [[el:Δαναός]] [[es:Dánao]] [[fa:دانائوس]] [[fr:Danaos]] [[it:Danao]] [[lb:Danaos]] [[lt:Danajas]] [[nl:Danaos]] [[pl:Danaos]] [[pt:Danao]] [[ro:Danaus]] [[ru:Данай]] [[fi:Danaos]] [[sv:Danaos]]