Proetus

Proetus was born in Argos, the greatest city of the Argolid, the region of the Peloponnese that jutted into the Aegean Sea. His father was Abas, the king of Argos, and his mother was Ocalea, or Aglaia in some tellings. But Proetus was not born alone. His mother carried twins, and from the moment they stirred in her womb, they were at war. The two brothers fought each other before they ever saw the light, and their hatred continued after birth. When Abas died, the twins could not share the throne. They divided the kingdom by force, and Acrisius, the elder, took Argos itself, while Proetus was driven into exile. He wandered to the court of Iobates, the king of Lycia, a kingdom in the south-west of Asia Minor, and there he found refuge. Iobates gave him his daughter Anteia, or Stheneboea in some tellings, in marriage, and together they had children. But Proetus did not forget his birthright. He returned to the Argolid with an army and laid siege to Tiryns, a fortress city on the coast, and with the help of the Cyclopes, the one-eyed giants who were master builders, he made it his own. The walls they raised were so massive that later Greeks believed only giants could have placed the stones, and to this day they are called Cyclopean walls. Acrisius kept Argos, and Proetus ruled Tiryns, and the two brothers glared at each other across the plain until death.

Proetus's marriage to Anteia was the source of his greatest shame. She was a queen of fierce passions, and when the young prince Bellerophon came to Tiryns, a guest under the sacred protection of xenia, the ancient bond that made every host responsible for the safety of his guest, Anteia desired him. Bellerophon was the son of Glaucus and the grandson of Sisyphus, the cunning king of Corinth who had cheated death twice and was punished in Tartarus, the dark pit beneath the earth, by being forced to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity. He was handsome, skilled, and honourable, and when Anteia tried to seduce him, he refused her out of loyalty to his host. Enraged by his rejection, Anteia went to Proetus and told him that Bellerophon had tried to assault her. Proetus believed his wife, or perhaps he chose to believe her because the alternative was too terrible to face. He could not kill Bellerophon himself, for that would violate the sacred laws of xenia and bring the wrath of Zeus, the king of the gods who protected all guests, upon his head. So he devised a subtler punishment. He gave Bellerophon a sealed tablet and sent him to Lycia, to his father-in-law Iobates, with instructions to deliver it personally. The tablet contained a message written in the old script: kill the man who brings this letter. Iobates, bound by guest-friendship to Proetus, received the letter and set Bellerophon impossible tasks, but the hero survived them all, and in the end Iobates gave him half his kingdom and his own daughter in marriage. Proetus's plan had failed, and Bellerophon had become greater than the king who had tried to destroy him.

But Proetus's troubles were not limited to his wife's treachery. He had daughters, and they were cursed. The Proetides, as they were called, were three in number: Lysippe, Iphinoe, and Iphianassa, though some tellings name them differently. The goddess Hera, the queen of Olympus and wife of Zeus, struck them with madness, either because they had rejected her worship or because they had boasted that their beauty surpassed her own. The girls wandered the hills of Argolis, their hair wild, their clothes torn, believing themselves to be cattle. They lowed like cows and grazed on the grass, and their father could do nothing to cure them. He offered a great reward to any man who could restore their sanity, and the seer Melampus, a prophet who could understand the speech of animals, came forward. Melampus knew that the cure required courage and sacrifice. He took a band of young men and pursued the maddened girls through the mountains, driving them with shouts and whips toward the city of Argos. One of the girls, Iphinoe, died in the chase, but the others were cured by a purifying ritual that Melampus performed. For his service, Melampus demanded a third of Proetus's kingdom, and Proetus, desperate to save his remaining daughters, agreed. The seer became a king, and the Proetides were restored to their father's house, though they never forgot the hills where they had grazed like beasts.

In the later years of his reign, Proetus watched as the world around him changed. His brother Acrisius had a daughter, Danae, whom he locked in a bronze tower to prevent a prophecy that said her son would kill him. But Zeus visited her in a shower of gold, and she bore Perseus, the hero who would one day slay the Gorgon Medusa, the creature whose face turned all who looked upon it to stone, and who would accidentally fulfil the prophecy by killing Acrisius with a discus. Proetus outlived his brother, but his own line was less fortunate. His daughters married and had children, but the curse of Hera lingered over the house. In the end, Proetus died and was buried in Tiryns, and his kingdom passed to his descendants. But his name lived on through Bellerophon, the hero he had tried to kill, and through Glaucus, the Lycian warrior who would fight at Troy, carrying the blood of Proetus into the greatest war of the age.