Current text

New text

References

To Do

Sources

Ancient

Homer

Odyssey

2.120

Tyro and Alcmene and Mycene of the fair crown

Nostoi

fr. 8* (West, pp. 160, 161) = Scholiast on the Odyssey 2.120

Mycene was the daughter of Inachus and the Oceanid Melia. She and Arestor were the parents of Argos, as it is related in the Cycle.

... Perseus, ashamed because of the gossip about the homicide, on his return to Argos induced Megapenthes, the son of Proetus, to make an exchange of kingdoms; taking over himself that of Megapenthes, he founded Mycenae. For on its site the cap （myces） fell from his scabbard, and he regarded this as a sign to found a city. I have also heard the following account. He was thirsty, and the thought occurred to him to pick up a mushroom （myces） from the ground. Drinking with joy water that flowed from it, he gave to the place the name of Mycenae.

2.16.4 [= Hesiod fr. 185 Most, pp. 262, 263]

Homer in the Odyssey mentions a woman Mycene in the following verse:—“Tyro and Alcmene and the fair-crowned lady Mycene." [Hom. Od., unknown line]. She is said to have been the daughter of Inachus and the wife of Arestor in the poem which the Greeks call the Great Eoeae. So they say that this lady has given her name to the city. But the account which is attributed to Acusilaus, that Myceneus was the son of Sparton, and Sparton of Phoroneus, I cannot accept, because the Lacedaemonians themselves do not accept it either. For the Lacedaemonians have at Amyclae a portrait statue of a woman named Sparte, but they would be amazed at the mere mention of a Sparton, son of Phoroneus.

Modern

Fowler

p. 236 [in folder]

From fr. 27 we learn that Akousilaos and Hesiod (or rather 'Kerkops', in the Aigmio) diasgreed about the watchman Argos [i.e Argus Panoptes], the former making him earthborn (cf.Aisch. PV 567, Supp. 305), the latter making him son of Argos and Ismene. daughter of Asopos. In another work attributed to Hesiod, the Megalai Ehoiai (fr. 246, quoted by Pausanias with fr. 24), Mykene, daughter of Inachos and Melie (therefore sister of Phoroneus), married Arestor; these are the parents of Argos [the watchman] in the Nostoi (fr. 8*) and probably also Hesiod, and Arestor is the name of Argos' father also in Pher. fr. 66 (below p. 240) and in Ov. Met. 1.624. ...

p. 237

[re Sparton]

p. 259 [in folder]

§7.2.6 THE FOUNDING OF MYKENAI (Hek.fr.22)

The A scholia to the Iliad quote Hek. fr. 22 for the declension of the word μύκης thus revealing the story told of how Perseus lost the cap of his scabbard on the site, and so named the place Mykenai.^62, Pausanias (2.16.3) tells the same story, and an alternative, that he pulled an actual mushroom from the earth, upon which water gushed forth and he slaked his thirst. He also reports two eponyms, Mykene daughter of Inachos (Od. 2.120, Hesiod fr. 246), and Akousilaos' Sparton (above, p. 237). ... [plus others]

⁶² The μύκνς, 'mushroom', is the cap on the end of the scabbard. See Hdt. 3.64.3; Nik. Alex. 103 with scholia; Archil. fr. 252 sensu obscoeno. Grammarians (e.g. Etym. Magn. 594.7) also offer the meaning 'handle' which if accurate would have to refer to the pommel on the end. Snodgrass, Early Greek Armour and Weapons index s.v. sword-pommel.

Gantz

p. 198

From the family of Deukalion in the last chapter we proceed, as Apollodoros and probably the Ehoiai did, to the offspring of Inachos, the river god of Argos. Our evidence suggests that the Argive Akousilaos and likely the Argive epic Phoronis tried to establish Phoroneus, son of Inachos, as a local rival to Prometheus and Deukalion, regarding his as the first man or at least first inhabitant of Argos; the Phoronis calls him "father of mortal men" (fr. 1 PEG). ...

For the stages before Io most of our evidence comes from Apollodoros, who seems to have drawn on Akousilaos and other sources as well as the Ehoiai. The opening of the second book of his Bibliotheke offers the following: Inachos and his sister Melia (thus an Okeanid) produce two sons, Aigialeus and Phoroneus (ApB 2.1.1). Aigialeus dies childless, but Phoroneus begets Apis and Niobe. Apis in his turn also dies childless, but Niobe, as the first mortal woman with whom Zeus mates, bears a son Argos and also (this form Akousilaos Pelagos. Argos begets Iaos, and Iaos begets Io. ... But other fragments of Akousilaos do show he mentioned Phoroneus as the son of Inachos and first man/ruler of Argos in the time of the flood, and that Niobe was in some way part of the story (2F23).

Hard

p. 227

The first man of Argos, and perhaps the first man of all, was PHORONEUS, who was fathered by Inachos on an Okeanid nymph called Meila or Argia.¹ He was described as the first of mortal men in the Phoronis,² an archaic epic that would have recorded local traditions about Phoroneus and the ancient history of the Argolid.

Most

p. 262

185 [246 MW]

p. 263

GREAT EHOIAI

Inachus' daughter Mycene

185 Pausanias, Description of Greece

That she (i.e. Mycene) is the daughter of Inachus and the wife of Arestor is said by the epic poem the Greeks call the Great Ehoiai.

Smith

s.v. Arestor

（Ἀρέστωρ), the father of Argus Panoptes, the guardian of lo, who is therefore called Arestorides. (Apollod. 2.1.3; Apollon. 1.112; Ov. Met. 1.624.) According to Pausanias (2.16.3), Arestor was the husband of Mycene, the daughter of Inachus, from whom the town of Mycenae derived its name.

s.v. Mycene

（Μυκήνη), a daughter of Inachus and wife of Arestor, from whom the town of Mycenae or Mycene was believed to have derived its name. (Hom. Od. 2.120; Paus. 2.16.3.)

Tripp

s.v. Mycene, p. 387

Nycene. A daughter of Inachus. All that is known of Mycene is that she married Arestor and that the city of Mycenae may have been named for her, unless Perseus named it. [Pausanias 2.16.4]