Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

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Zeus and Argos

that he interprets the title of Zeus Panoptes in a solar sense.
Again, according to Pherekydes, Hera gave Argos an extra eye
in the back of his head1. And the ancient statue of Zeus on the
Argive Larisa was likewise three-eyed, having the third eye on its
forehead2. Argos Panoptes and the Argive Zeus were on this
account compared by M. Mayer3 with the three-eyed Kyklops,
whose abnormal eye not improbably denoted the sun4. In this
connexion, however, it must be borne in mind that Empedokles
speaks of Zeus urges, 'the brilliant5'; that Hesiod names one of
the Kyklopes Arges6; and that the same Kyklops is sometimes
called, not Arges, but Argos7. These titles, no doubt, ultimately
refer to the brilliant sky-god, but as manifested in the burning
aitJier or the blazing thunderbolt rather than in the shining sun.

The author of the Hesiodic poem Aigimios associated the story
of Argos and Io with Euboia, and derived the name of the island
from the cow into which the latter was transformed8. He repre-
sented Argos as four-eyed in a line borrowed by an Orphic writer
to describe Phanes9. Strabon too mentions a cavern called The
Cow's Crib on the east shore of Euboia, adding that Io was said to
have given birth to Epaphos there and that the island drew its
name from the fact10. The Etymologicum Magnum states that
Euboia was so called ' because, when Isis was turned into a cow,
Earth sent up much grass thitherwards...or because Io became a
right beautiful cow and lived there11.' If Zeus changed Io into a
white cow12, it was perhaps because ' in Euboia almost all the cattle
are born white, so much so indeed that the poets used to call
Euboia argiboios™', " the land of white cattle." Argonra in Euboia,
where Hermes was believed to have killed Panoptes14-, was doubtless
connected by the populace with A rgos the ' watcher' (ouros).
These witnesses suffice to prove that Euboia had an Io-myth
analogous to that of the Argolid15.

aocpoi Xeyovat yevvr}T7]v de&v | <Kai> irarepa ivavTWv). Kai iwoiav rrjs do^rjs ra^r^s <paaii>
exeLV tov itOLrjTrjv, orav \eyrj' H%7j 5' afxtporepcov L'/cer' aiOepa, Kai Aids avyds' Kai to,
HeXios 9\ 6s Travr' ecpopas, Kai iravr eiraKoveis.

1 Pherekyd. frag. 22 (Frag. hist. Gr. i. 74 Mailer) ap. schol. Eur. Phoen. 1 r23.

2 Paus. 2. 24. 3.

3 M. Mayer Die Giganten und Titanen Berlin 1887 p. no ff. Stipra p. 320.

4 Supra pp. 313, 323. 5 Supra p. 31 f. 6 Supra p. 317.

7 Schol. Aisch. P.v. 351, schol. Eur. Ale. 5. Supra p. 32 n. 4.

8 Aigim. frag. 3 Kinkel ap. Steph. Byz. s.v. 'AfiavrLs, cp. Herodian. i. 104 Lentz.

9 Supra p. 311 n. 6. 10 Strab. 445 Boos au\rj. 11 Et. mag. p. 389, 2 ff.

12 Apollod. 2. 1. 3. Supra p. 440 n. 2.

13 Ail. de nat. an. 12. 36. 14 Steph. Byz. s.v. "Apyoupa.

15 On the relation of the Euboean to the Argive myth see Gruppe Gr, Myth. Rel.
p. 1130 n. 9, cp. 968 n. 2.