until later: see pp. 96 ff. for Agenor and the Cretan/Theban line.
Belos: the name is derived from the Phoenician Baal, strictly a god, but often taken by the Greeks to be an early eastern king.
Melampodes: ‘Blackfeet’, an epithet for the Egyptians found in late authors only.
the first man to do so: but the Argo, p. 49, was more commonly regarded as the first ship (which is why it was turned into a constellation by Athene, Catast. 35). In either case, the ship was built with Athene’s help.
Gelanor. . . surrendered the throne to him: according to P. 2. 16. 1, Gelanor, son of Sthenelas, was a great-grandson of Agenor, Io’s uncle (or on p. 58, her great-grandfather); and Danaos too had a legitimate claim as a descendant of Io. Pausanias gives the local tradition (P. 2. 19. 3 f.). The Argives found their claims so evenly balanced that they deferred the decision until the following day; and early the next morning, a wolf attacked a herd of cattle grazing outside the walls and killed the bull. So the Argives ceded the throne to Danaos, taking this to be a sign from the gods (with the wolf representing Danaos, the outsider). And Danaos, believing that Apollo had sent the wolf, founded the most important cult in the city of Argos, that of Apollo Lycaios (‘Wolfish’ Apollo).
After he . . . Danaans after himself: included with the preceding lines in sc. Il. 1. 42, as part of a citation from the second book of Apollodorus; not accepted by all editors.
Poseidon . . . belonged to Hera: see p. 130 for a similar dispute at Athens; these were in effect contests for special cultic honours from the inhabitants. For further details, see P. 2. 15. 5; this explains why the Argive rivers (including the Inachos) run dry in summer, except at Lerna.
Lerna: there was a stream there called Amymone, p. 74, cf. P. 2. 37. 1. Lerna has more sinister associations as the home of the hydra, p. 74.
Hypermnestra . . . spared Lynceus: they will be the ancestors of the Argive royal line thereafter. See also P. 2. 25. 4 and 2. 19. 6.
they were purified: but in late sources the Danaids are listed amongst those who suffer punishment in Hades (e.g. Ov. Met. 4. 462, Horace Odes3. 11. 28 ff.), where they attempt endlessly to fill perforated vessels with water.
at an athletic contest: see Pind. Pyth. 9. 112 ff.
Amymone bore. . . in that very manner: Nauplios was conceived at Lerna, p. 61. Since Nauplios’ activities as a wrecker took place so much later (after the Trojan War, see p. 159), this would mean that he lived to an improbable age; some resolved the problem by claiming that the wrecker was a descendant of the Nauplios born to Amymone (in AR 1. 134 ff., he is a great-great-great-grandson). Seneca records that he was cast into the deep (Medea658 f.), but nothing is known of the exact circumstances.
Homer calk Anteia: in Il. 6. 160; on Stheneboia see also p. 64, and p. 115 where she is said to have been the daughter of Apheidas, an Arcadian.
fortified. . . by the Cyclopes: imagining that the monumental architecture of the Mycenaeans was beyond the power of man, the Greeks supposed that the fortifications of Tiryns and their like must be the work of giants or ‘Cyclopes’ (cf. P. 2. 25. 7). In view of the popular origin of this tradition, there is little point in asking exactly who these Cyclopes were, but the ancient mythographers (e.g. sc. Theog. 139) thought that they should be distinguished from the primordial Hesiodic Cyclopes on p. 27, and also from the primitive pastoral Cyclopes of Homer, p. 165.
Acousilaos. . . Hera: the anger of Hera was generally regarded as the cause of their madness. According to Bacch. 2. 47 ff., they were sent mad for boasting in the precinct of Hera that their father was wealthier than the goddess; the present story that they mocked her primitive cultic image (xoanon)is probably of somewhat later origin. In Bacch. (2. 95 ff.) they were cured by Artemis after their father prayed to her and vowed twenty oxen, but in Hes. Cat. by Melampous (frs. 131 ff., cf. fr. 37).
the other women: the women of Argos, cf. p. 47, where the madness was attributed to Dionysos; the story was doubtless of separate origin from that of the daughters of Proitos. Herodotus (9. 34) is the only other source for the raising of the fee (but there the daughters of Proitos are not involved). Some date the madness of the Argive women to a later period, when Anaxagoras, a grandson of Proitos, was on the throne (DS 4. 68. 4; P. 2. 18. 4).
agreed to the cure on these terms: this introduces a further complexity into the pattern of rule in the Argolid. There are separate lines within the Inachid royal family, relating to a division of the territory between Tiryns and Argos, pp. 62 f. (and later, Mycenae); and now an additional Deucalionid royal family is inserted (which will be the most important at the time of the Theban Wars, see p. 107 and note). These complexities are the result of the mythographers’ efforts to impose a modicum of order on an inherited mass of largely irreconcilable myth. The threefold division of Argos does not reflect a peculiarity in Argive institutions comparable to the dual monarchy in Sparta; and one soon finds that it is impossible to trace clear lines of descent linking each of the main centres to each family or branch of a family.
killed his brother: or a Corinthian nobleman named Belleros (sc. Lycophr. 17, sc. Il. 6. 155), hence his name Bellerophon (or ‘Belleros-slayer’, cf. Hermes ‘Argeiphontes’ on p. 59).
to be purified: this is a recurring pattern in these myths. A person who spills another’s blood becomes polluted, and thus a danger to his native community (because he is liable to become the cause of barrenness, plague, and the like). He must therefore go into exile and be purified. That he is purified by a king rather than a priest reflects in part the sacral character of early kingship, and in part the social function of purification in enabling the polluted man to be integrated into the community of the king who purifies him.
Stheneboia fell in love with him: the following accords with Il. 6. 154 ff. (except that Homer calls her Anteia, as remarked above).
to Iobates: Proitos’ father-in-law, see above, who lived in Lycia, in the south-western corner of Asia Minor.
a third head in the middle: we are to understand that the dragon’s tail has a head at the end, cf. Theog. 321 ff., and that this middle head is on a neck that grows from the monster’s back.