THESEUS - PERSEUS

Like all the greatest heroes of Greek myths, Perseus could trace his ancestry back to the very beginnings of time. In fact, his line first sprang from Chaos and Mother Earth, whose best-known children were the Titans. The most renowned of these, Oceanus, was the father of all the rivers of the world and his son, the river-god Inachus, became the first to rule in Argos and the founder of a line that numbered not only Perseus but even Heracles among its ranks. While Inachus built Argos, and Perseus became that city's mightiest hero, many of the generations that were born between these two lived far away from Greece. How that came about is recounted in the myth of lo, Inachus' unlucky daughter, who was loved by Zeus but hounded from her home by the jealous fury of his wife Hera. Mercilessly hunted down, lo finally reached the banks of the Nile and there gave birth to Epaphus, who was destined to become the first of all the kings of Egypt. How the descendants of the unhappy lo eventually re-established themselves in the city of their forebears is the subject of this tragic story. (...) (from the publisher) Perseus and his forebears bellerophon and Pegasus Theseus, the hero of Athens Aeacus and Peleus Atalanta and Meleager Index of names (for all volumes)