THE BALKANS AND MACEDONIA
Tyndareus and his wife Leda, daughter of the Aetolian king Thestius, had two sons, the horse-tamer Castor and the famous poet Polydeuces, who were twins and named the Dioscuri after their heavenly father Zeus, and the Tyndareus after their earthly father, the Lacedaemonian Tyndareus. Leda gave birth to her children Castor and Polydeuces, as well as the twins Helen and Clytemnestra, on Taygetus. Polydeuces and Helen were the children of Zeus, who came to Leda in the form of a swan, and they were immortal, while Castor and Clytemnestra, as children of Tyndareus, shared the fate of mortals.
The Dioscuri participated in the Calydonian Boar Hunt and the Argonauts' expedition. Castor died in a fight with the sons of Aphareus over cattle theft, while Polydeuces petitioned his heavenly father Zeus to send him to his death as well, so that he could be with his brother in the underworld. To immortalize their brotherly love, Zeus transferred the figures of the Dioscuri to the constellation Gemini. The cult of the Dioscuri spread very quickly throughout the Aegean world.
When the Pelopidae of Asia Minor, of Lydian-Phrygian origin, established power in Mycenae, Tyndareus was particularly fond of Atreus' sons Agamemnon and Menelaus. He forced his daughter Clytemnestra to marry Agamemnon, who had murdered her first husband Tantalus, while, on the advice of Odysseus, he married his other daughter to Menelaus , to whom he ceded the Spartan throne. Later, during the Trojan War, he married his granddaughter Hermione to Agamemnon's son Orestes, who became king of Sparta after his father's death. Tyndareus is buried in Sparta, near the sanctuary of Zeus. With this, the Pelopidae dynasty came to power in Lacedaemon until Orestes' son Tisamenes , when Sparta was conquered by the Hellenic-Dorians in 1104 BC, led by Aristodemus.
Arcadia – land of the Pelasgians
The mountainous region in the central part of the Peloponnese is called Arcadia, etymologically from the word arktos-arkos-Arcadia, i.e. land of bears.
According to Pausanias, the first inhabitants of Arcadia were the Pelasgians , and their king was Pelasgus , son of Zeus and Phoroneus' daughter Niobe. He taught his subjects to build huts, make clothes from pigskin, and eat oak fruit.
18 Pauzania, Periigissis tis Ellados, II, 21, (trans. Pasini: Vodič po Heladi), Logos, Split, 1989.
His son Liacon had fifty sons and two daughters by several wives. His sons were colonists and founders of numerous cities in the Peloponnese. He was succeeded by his eldest son Nikitimus. According to a later tradition, Liacon and his sons committed a crime that led to the Deucalion flood. The next king of Arcadia was Arcad, who ruled over the Pelasgians of the Peloponnese, who were called Arcadians after him. He directed his people to the cultivation of cereals, bread-making, and the spinning of flax and wool.
He had sons Apheidant, Azan and Elat. Apheidant was given the southeastern part of Arcadia to rule, Azan the northwestern part, and Elat the southwestern part. The center of Apheidant's land was the city of Tegea. Azan was king of the city of Lycosurus, and one of his sons, Clitor, who founded the city of the same name, was the most powerful of the most powerful kings.
Elat had five sons, among whom is Cyllen, founder of the city of the same name and Mount Cyllen (2376 m), while his grandson Stympholus, founder of the city of the same name and a spring, etc. The names of Elat's son Epitus follow, then Lycurgus, Ancaeus who participated in the expedition of the Argonauts and in the hunt for the Caledonian wild boar, etc., up to Echem, son of Aeropus, king of the Tegeans in Arcadia. When the Hellenes set out to conquer the Peloponnese, Echem opposed them and went to a duel with their leader Hyllus. The duel took place between Megara and Corinth and on that occasion Echem killed Hyllus. Echem was later buried with great honors in Tegea.
After the third generation, the Hellenes again attempted to conquer the Peloponnese from the northwest. At that time, the king of the Arcadians was Polymestor , who successfully organized the defense, where, in addition to the Tegeans, their women also took up arms. They defeated the Hellenes in battle and captured their leader and the rest of the army alive.
A few years later, the Arcadians gave great aid to the Messenians when they fought against the Hellenes of Sparta. When the Hellenes captured Argolis, King Orestes, son of Agamemnon, defected to the Arcadians, where he died as an old man and was buried at Tegea.
Pausanias 19 further states that the Arcadians were participants in the Trojan War and that they participated in the fight against the Persians at Plataea, in 479 BC.
19 Pauzania, Periigissis tis Ellados, VIII, 6, (trans. Pasini: Vodič po Heladi), Logos, Split, 1989.
Egyptian colonization of Argolis by the Danaids
Danaus – colonist's guide
During the reign of the Lapith king of Argos, Gelanor, son of the Argive king Sthenelus, there was a colonization of the Egyptians under the leadership of Danaus. In mythology, Danaus is the son of the king of Egypt, Bel, and his twin brother was called Egypt. Bel divided his kingdom so that Arabia was given to Egypt and Libya to Danaus.
Egypt had fifty sons, and Danaus fifty daughters. Apollodorus 20 states that Danaus, fearing his brother and his offspring, fled with his daughters to Argolis. Egypt's sons followed him, wishing to reconcile with their uncle and to propose to his daughters.
Danaus married his daughters to the sons of Egypt, but ordered the daughters to kill their husbands on their wedding night. The Danaids obeyed their father, except for Hypermnestra, who spared the life of her husband Lynceus. Therefore, Egypt with a large and powerful army marched on Argos, and Lynceus became king of Argos.
20 Apollodori, Bibliotheca (1st-2nd century BC), II, 1.4.
Kings of Arg
The king of Argos, Abantes , had sons by Aglaia, Arcisius and Praetus. The shield of Abantes was famous, whose strength was so great that the Argolid rebels were greatly afraid. Praetus became king of Tiryns in Argolis and by Stenbaeus had a son, Megapenth, and daughters, Lysippa and Iphiansa. Lysippa married Melampos, and Iphiansa married his brother Bias, who were Lapiths of Pannonian origin. They ruled Argolis for six successive generations.
After Proetus' death, Megalentus ruled Tiryns.
Acrisius, the son of Abanthus, was the king of Argos. Since it was foretold that he would be killed by his nephew, he locked his beautiful daughter in an underground chamber to which no one had access. However, Zeus, in the form of a raindrop, fell in love with her and she gave birth to a son, Perseus.
.
Perseus, Electryon, Alchemy, Amphitryon
When King Acrisius found out about this, he locked Danae and her grandson in a wooden coffin and threw it into the sea. The waves washed the coffin onto the island of Serif. There, the mother and son were found by Dictys, the brother of King Polydectes, who gave them refuge in his home and raised the boy as his own son. Perseus grew into a handsome boy, with exceptional strength and beauty. Meanwhile, the king fell in love with Danae and, in order to remove Perseus from the island, asked her to bring him the head of Medusa. Medusa was one of the Gorgons, a hideous monster in female form, whose head was covered with snakes entwined in her hair, with teeth like wild boars, with a long tongue and bronze arms, wings, and a gaze that turned everything alive to stone.
THE BALKANS AND MACEDONIA
After a long wandering, torments and heroic deeds with the help of the gods, with the winged garment, the invisibility cap and the sword of Hermes, Perseus killed the monster and cut off his head. With the head of Medusa and the daughter of the king of Ethiopia, Andromeda, who helped him in the endeavor, he reached the island of Serif and freed his mother, because with the head of Medusa he managed to turn everyone present to stone. Perseus made Dictys king of Serif, and then with his mother and Andromeda he went to Argos. At that news, the king of Argos, Acrisius, fled in fear, but Perseus went after him to persuade him to return, but failed. The prophecy was fulfilled. At a competition in Larissa, Perseus inadvertently killed his grandfather with a discus. Perseus and the Thessalians buried Acrisius with great honors and erected a sanctuary for him.
Broken by grief, Perseus returned to Argos and instead of being king of Argos, he asked his relative Megapenthes, son of Prætus, king of Tiryns, to cede Tiryns to him for Argos. Thus Megapenthes ruled Argos while Perseus was king of Tiryns. Perseus then surrounded Tiryns, Midea, and Mycenae with walls.
Perseus and Andromeda had six sons: Perseus, Alcaeus, Sthenelus, Heleus, Mestor, and Electryon, and one daughter, Gorgophon. The arrival of Danaë and Perseus on the island of Serifos is described in one of Aeschylus' satirical plays.
Perseus and Andromeda's son Electryon married his niece, Alcaeus' daughter Anaxa, who bore him a daughter, Alcmene, and many sons (nine in total). He accidentally killed Alcmene's fiancé Amphitryon, son of King Alcaeus of Tyrrhenia, Perseus' grandson. Alcmene spent her wedding night with both Zeus and Amphitryon and gave birth to twins.
Heracles was the son of Zeusophus, and Iphicles of Amphitryon. Amphitryon lived peacefully in Thebes among the Phoenicians, and died in the war that the Thebans waged against the Minyans of Orchomenus in Boeotia, of Pannonian origin. He was buried in Thebes. The myth of Heracles will be presented in the next chapter.
From this it can be deduced that the Egyptian colonizing dynasty of the Danaids, with a large number of descendants, left deep traces on the Peloponnese, especially on the Argolis. Many cultural achievements are attributed to Danaus and his daughters. It is said that Danaus, before his relative Cadmus, introduced literacy to Greece. He was the first to introduce artificial irrigation to the land, and his daughters the Danaids discovered the art of digging wells. 21
21 Strabo, Geographia, I, 23, 8, Meineke, Lipsiae, I, II, III, 1913.
Perseus, through his son Electryon, is the ancestor of the greatest Greek hero Heracles. 22 Heracles' adventures in Hyperborea will be presented in a separate chapter. Whether the Danaans left genetic traces that can be traced to this day, let the data of the researcher A. Donsky serve as a basis. 23 He presents data published in the Danish medical journal "Tisseus Antigenes" 24 that the Greeks have a significant affinity with the sub-Saharan peoples (Ethiopian), which separates them from the other Mediterranean groups.
22 Apllodori, Bibliotheca (I-II century BC)
23 A. Donski, The Language of the Ancient Macedonians, Shtip, 2006, 20-211.
24 Tisseus Antigenes, 2001, 57, 2, 118-127.
To be continued
Written by: ACADEMICIAN A. SHKOKLYEV-DONCHO AND SLAVE KATIN
