Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

Mortals

Io

The humans of the Mediterranean world at this time were mostly ruled over by kings. How these autocrats established dominion over their peoples varied. Some were descended from immortals, gods even. Others, as is the human way, seized power through force of arms or political intrigue.

INACHUS was one of the very earliest rulers in Greece. He was the first King of Argos in the Peloponnese peninsula, then a bustling new town and now one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Inachus was later semi-deified and turned into a river, but during his life as a human his consort MELIA bore him two daughters, IO and MYCENE.fn1

Mycene was satisfactorily married off to a nobleman called ARESTOR, but Io’s fate was to be the first mortal girl to attract the predatory attentions of Zeus. Inachus had chosen Hera, the Queen of Heaven, as the patron deity of Argos and his daughter Io had been brought up as a priestess in the most important shrine to Hera in the Grecian world. For Zeus to dally with any female would be enough to cause his wife indignation, but any attempt to defile one of her own priestesses would stretch her anger to its limits. Yet he desired the lovely Io very much. How to have her without Hera finding out.

Zeus stroked his beard, thought hard and came up with what he believed was a masterstroke. He transformed Io into a cow, a beautiful plump young heifer with shivering flanks and large, gentle eyes.fn2 If he hid her in a field Hera would never spot her and he could visit her whenever he liked. Or so he imagined. When lust descends, discretion, common sense and wisdom fly off and what may seem cunning concealment to one in the grip of passion looks like transparently clumsy idiocy to everyone else.

It is easier to hide a hundred mountains from a jealous wife than one mistress. Hera, to whom cows were sacred, and who possessed therefore a keen, expert eye for the species, noticed the animal and suspected its true identity straight away.

‘What a delightful heifer,’ Hera remarked casually to Zeus at breakfast on Olympus one morning. ‘Such a perfect shape. Such long lashes and appealing eyes.’

‘What, that old thing?’ said Zeus, looking down with a feigned air of boredom to where Hera was pointing.

‘That’s one of your fields, darling, so she must be one of yours.’

‘Possibly,’ said Zeus, ‘very possibly. One has thousands of cows browsing around. Can’t be expected to keep tabs on all of them.’

‘I should very much like that particular heifer,’ said Hera, ‘as a birthday present.’

‘Er … really? That one? I’m sure I could find you a much fatter and fitter animal.’

‘No,’ said Hera – and those who knew her would have recognized the glint in her eye and the steel in her voice. ‘That is the one I should like.’

‘Certainly, certainly,’ said Zeus affecting a yawn. ‘She’s yours. There’s a jar of ambrosia at your elbow … chuck it down my end, would you?’

Hera knew her husband all too well. Once his libidinous propensities were aroused there would be no taming them. She had Io moved to a small gated paddock and sent her servant ARGUS, Inachus’s grandson, to watch over her.

Argus, son of Mycene and Arestor, was a loyal follower of Hera’s like all the Argives at that time,fn3 but he also possessed a very special gift which made him a perfect guardian of his aunt Io. He had a hundred eyes. His nickname was PANOPTES, the ‘all-seeing’.fn4 Obedient as ever to Hera’s will, he stationed himself in the field, fixed fifty eyes on Io and let the other fifty range independently around and up and down, on the lookout for marauders.

Zeus saw this and paced about in a fury. His blood was up. He crashed his fist into his palm. He would have Io. It had become a matter of principle to defeat Hera in this silent and unacknowledged war. He knew the limits of his own cunning, however, so he called upon the wiliest and most amoral rogue on Olympus to aid him.

Hermes understood right away what needed to be done. Ever happy to oblige Zeus and sow mischief he hurried to Io’s paddock.

‘Hello, Argus. Let me keep you company for a while,’ he said, unlatching the gate and slipping in. ‘Nice heifer you’ve got there.’

Argus swivelled a dozen eyes towards Hermes, who sat down on the grass, took out a set of pipes and started to play. For two hours he played and he sang. The music, the afternoon heat, the scent of poppies, lavender and wild thyme, the soft lapping and purling of a nearby stream – slowly Argus’s eyes started to close, one by one.

As the very hundredth eye at last winked shut Hermes lowered his pipes, stole forward and stabbed Argus in the heart. All the gods were capable of great cruelty – Hermes could be as vicious as any of them.

With Argus dead, Zeus opened the gate into the field and set Io free. But before he had a chance to change her back into human form Hera, who had seen what had happened, sent down a gadfly which stung Io so painfully and persistently that she bucked and screamed and galloped away, far from Zeus’s reach.

Sorrowing at the death of her beloved servant, Hera took Argus’s hundred bright eyes and fixed them onto the tail of a very dull, dowdy old fowl, transforming it into what we know today as the peacock – which is how the now proud, colourful and haughty bird came for ever to be associated with the goddess.fn5

Io, meanwhile, charged on along the northern shore of the Aegean Sea, swimming over at the place where Europe becomes Asia, the spot we still call in her honour the cow-crossing, or in Greek, the Bosporus.fn6 On and on she careered, thrashing, tossing and squealing in her agony until she reached the Caucasus. There the gadfly seemed to relent for a while, enough for her to see the figure of Prometheus, racked in pain upon the mountainside.

‘Sit down and catch your breath awhile, Io,’ said the Titan. ‘Be of good cheer. Things will get better.’

‘They could hardly be worse,’ wailed Io. ‘I’m a cow. I’m being attacked by the largest and most spiteful gadfly the world has ever seen. And Hera will destroy me. It’s only a question of whether I am stung to death or go mad and drown myself in the sea.’

‘I know it seems dark for you now,’ said Prometheus, ‘but I see into the future sometimes and I do know this. You will return to human shape. You will found a great dynasty in the land where Nilus crawls. And from your line will spring the greatest of all the heroes.fn7 So chin up and be cheerful, eh?’

It was hard for Io, in all her tribulation, to ignore these words from one who – even as she looked on in horror – was being ripped open and gorged upon by a pair of evil-looking vultures. What were her minor inconveniences when set against his perpetual agony?

As things turned out, Io did return to human shape. She met up with Zeus in Egypt and bore him a son EPAPHUS, who will play an important party of the story of Phaeton, which is just coming up. Supposedly Zeus impregnated Io just by gently laying a hand on her – Epaphus means ‘touch’. Io also had a daughter by Zeus, called KEROESSA, whose son BYZAS went on to found the great city of Byzantium. Whether Keroessa was conceived by touch or the more traditional method of generation we do not know.

Io may have been a cow, but she was a very influential and important one.

The Semen-Soaked Scarf

A rather touching story tells of how Athena, without sacrificing her chastity, had a role in the conception and birth of one of the founders of the city state of Athens.

Lame Hephaestus, ever since splitting Zeus’s head and thereby helping bring Athena into the world, had developed a strong passion for the goddess. One day, unable to control his lust, he tracked her down to some corner of high Olympus and tried to force himself on her. Alas, in his excitement he succeeded only in spilling his seed on her thigh. Athena, in silent disgust, removed her headband and used it to wipe up the mess before throwing it down the mountain.

The sodden fillet landed on the ground far below. Hephaestus’s divine semen seeped into the earth and Gaia was made pregnant. From her was born a boy, ERECHTHEUS. Looking down from heaven Athena saw this and determined that this child should be immortal. She descended from Olympus, put the baby in a wicker basket, closed it up and placed it in the care of three mortal sisters, HERSE, AGLAUROS and PANDROSOS. On no account, Athena told them, must the basket ever be opened. But Aglauros and Herse could not resist peeping inside. They saw a wriggling baby boy bound up in the coils of a writhing snake. All snakes were sacred to Athena and this one was a part of the enchantment which the goddess was using to endow the infant Erechtheus with immortality. The shocking sight sent the two women instantly insane and they threw themselves off the topmost point of the hill now called the Acropolis, or ‘high citadel’. Erechtheus grew up to be (or to father, the stories disagree) ERECHTHONIUS, the legendary founder of Athens.fn8

If you visit the Acropolis in Athens today you can still see, just to the north of the Parthenon, the beautiful temple called the Erechtheum. Its famous porch of caryatid columns in the form of draped maidens is one of the great architectural treasures of the world. Shrines were erected not far away to poor Aglauros and Herse too, which is only fitting.fn9