LP0078 -IV ARGONAUTS- The Argonauts Assembled, from The Fables of Hyginus

Legendary Passages #0078 -IV ARGONAUTS- The Argonauts Assembled, from The Fables of Hyginus. Previously, Phrixus escaped from his mother Ino on a flying golden ram to Cholchis. This time, more details on the families of Ino, Antiopa, and Jason. Antiopa was a daughter of Nycteus, and had by Jupiter twin sons named Amphion and Zetus. She was captured by Lycus and his wife Dirce, but when her sons grew up they avenged her. Amphion became king, married Niobe, and had many children... most of whom died. Anyway, Jason, on his way to a sacrifice, helped an old woman cross a stream and lost one sandal. King Pelias had been warned about a one-sandaled man causing his death, so he gave his nephew Jason the quest to retrieve the golden fleece. Fortunately, dozens of heroes volunteered to join the expedition to Cholchis. http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html#4 The Argonauts Assembled, a Legendary Passage from, GAIUS JULIUS HYGINUS, FABLES IV - XIV, trans. by MARY GRANT. [4] - [14] IV. INO OF EURIPIDES When Athamas, king in Thessaly, thought that his wife Ino, by whom he begat two sons, had perished, he married Themisto, the daughter of a nymph, and had twin sons by her. Later he discovered that Ino was on Parnassus, where she had gone for the Bacchic revels. He sent someone to bring her home, and concealed her when she came. Themisto discovered she had been found, but didn’t know her identity. She conceived the desire of killing Ino’s sons, and made Ino herself, whom she believed to be a captive, a confidant in the plan, telling her to cover her children with white garments, but Ino’s with black. Ino covered her own with white, and Themisto’s with dark; then Themisto mistakenly slew her own sons. When she discovered this, she killed herself. Moreover, Athamas, while hunting, in a fit of madness killed his older son Learchus; but Ino with the younger, Melicertes, cast herself into the sea and was made a goddess. V. ATHAMAS Because Semele had lain with Jove, Juno was hostile to her whole race; and so Athamas, son of Aeolus, through madness killed his son with arrows while hunting. VI. CADMUS Cadmus, son of Agenor and Argiope, along with Harmonia his wife, daughter of Venus and Mars, after their children had been killed, were turned into snakes in the region of Illyria by the wrath of Mars, because Cadmus had slain the dragon, guardian of the fountain of Castalia. VII. ANTIOPA Antiopa, daughter of Nycteus, was by a trick violated by Epaphus, and as a consequence was cast off by her husband Lycus. Thus widowed, Jupiter embraced her. But Lycus married Dirce. She, suspecting that her husband had secretly lain with Antiopa, ordered her servants to keep her bound in darkness. When her time was approaching, by the will of Jove she escaped from her chains to Mount Cithaeron, and when birth was imminent and she sought for a place to bear the child, pain compelled her to give birth at the very crossroads. Shepherds reared her sons as their own, and called one Zetos, from “seeking a place,” and the other Amphion, because “she gave birth at the crossroads, or by the road.” When the sons found out who their mother was, they put Dirce to death by binding her to an untamed bull; by the kindness of Liber, whose votary she was, on Mount Cithaeron a spring was formed from her body, which was called Dirce. VIII. ANTIOPA OF EURIPIDES [WHICH ENNIUS WROTE] Antiopa was the daughter of Nycteus, king in Boeotia; entranced by her great beauty, Jupiter made her pregnant. When her father wished to punish her on account of her disgrace, and threatened harm, Antiopa fled. By chance Epaphus, a Sicyonian, was staying in the place to which she came, and he brought the woman to his house and married her. Nycteus took this hard, and as he was dying, bound by oath his brother Lycus, to whom he left his kingdom, not to leave Antiopa unpunished. After his death, Lycus came to Sicyon, and slaying Epaphus, brought Antiopa bound to Cithaeron. She bore sons, and left them