ABSTRACT

The great city of Thebes in southern Boeotia, which ranked with Argos as themost important centre in mythical Greece, was ruled by the second main branch of the Inachid family. As was explained above (see p. 231), an early Argive princess, Io, a descendant (or even daughter) of the Argive river-god Inachos, wandered far away from her native Argos to settle in Egypt; and in that land, her granddaughter Libye subsequently bore twin sons to Poseidon called Belos and Agenor, who were the founders of the two principal branches of the family. Danaos, a son of Belos, returned to his ancestral homeland of Argos to found its Belid ruling line (see p. 233), while Kadmos and Europa, two children of Agenor who were born in Phoenicia where their father had settled, were destined to found the Agenorid ruling lines at Thebes and Crete respectively. We will follow the history of Kadmos’ Theban line in the present chapter before returning to Europa and her descendants on Crete in the next.