Phoroneus

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Argive genealogy in Greek mythology

Inachus
son of Oceanus and Tethys
Phoroneus and Io
children of Inachus and Melia
Epaphus
son of Io and Zeus
Libya
daughter of Epaphus and Memphis
Belus and Agenor
sons of Lybia and Poseidon
Aegyptus and Danaus
sons of Belus and Achiroe
Hypermnestra
daughter of Danaus, mother of Abas
grandmother of Proetus
Cadmus, Phoenix, Cilix and Europa
children of Agenor and Telephassa
Polydorus, Agave, Autonoë, Ino and Semele
children of Cadmus and Harmonia
Dionysus
son of Semele and Zeus

In Greek mythology, Phoroneus was a culture-hero of the Argolid, son of Inachus and Melia or Argia: "Inachus, son of Oceanus, begat Phoroneus^[1] by his sister Argia," wrote Hyginus, in Fabulae 143, a genealogy that expresses the position of Phoroneus as one of the primordial men, whose local identities differed in the various regions of Greece,^[2] and who had for a mother the essential spirit of the very earth of Argos herself, Argia. He was the primordial king in the Peloponnesus, authorized by Zeus: "Formerly Zeus himself had ruled over men, but Hermes created a confusion of human speech, which spoilt Zeus' pleasure in this Rule".^[3] Phoroneus introduced both the worship of Hera and the use of fire and the forge.^[4] Poseidon and Hera had vied for the land: when the primeval waters had receded, Phoroneus "was the first to gather the people together into a community; for they had up to then been living as scattered and lonesome families". (Pausanias).

In Argive culture, Niobe is associated with Phoroneus, sometimes as his mother, sometimes as his daughter, but likely as his consort (Kerenyi). He was chiefly worshipped in Argos.

According to Hellanicus of Lesbos, Phoroneus' had at three sons: Agenor, Jasus and Pelasgus, and that after the death of Phoroneus, the two elder brothers divided his dominions between themselves in such a manner that Pelasgus received the country about the river Erasmus, and built Larissa, and Jasus the country about Elis. After the death of these two, Agenor, the youngest, invaded their dominions, and thus became king of Argos.^[5]^[6]

[edit] Notes

^ The Argive myth was reported to Pausanias, (Description of Greece, 2.15.5).
^ See Karl Kerenyi (The Gods of the Greeks, 1951 (1980), p. 222) for other primordial men: Prometheus and Epimetheus, and, in Boeotia, Alkomeneus.
^ Karl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks 1951 (1980), p. 222.
^ Hyginus. Fabula, 143. Compare Prometheus.
^ Hellanicus of Lesbos, Fragm. p. 47, ed. Sturz.
^ Schmitz, Leonhard (1867), “Agenor (2)”, in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 1, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, pp. 68