fun things i found on io, the first hero in greek mythology
tbh its just a random list of fav more obscurish info passages
in one version hermes is guarding her and she "defeated argos"
"Laphrios"; Laphrios is the hospitable one, he refers to Hermes. They say that in Ethiopia, Hermes was guarding Io by the will of Zeus, so that she would not be harmed by Hera, and being thirsty, he struck the ground and water sprang up, hence it is called the heel of Hermes"
"The city of Joppa, the prison of Andromeda", another again says that "there Io, having defeated Argos, became a human" -Tzetzes, Ad Lycophronem
prometheus tells her where the gorgons and gryphons are to avoid them so she can find black people
"The Gorgonian plain of Cisthene, where
The Phorkides live, those three long-lived
Young women in the shape of swans, who share one eye
And one tooth – the sun never looks at them
With his beams, nor the moon at night.
Near them are their sisters, the three winged
Snaky-haired Gorgons hateful to humans, Whom no mortal can look upon and live.
That’s the kind of thing you should guard against. But let me tell you about another difficult-to-handle sight:
hWatch out for Zeus’s sharp-beaked unbarking
Dogs, the gryphons, and the one-eyed army
Of Arimaspians on horseback -- they live
Around the gold-flowing water of Pluto’s stream.
Keep away from them. Then you’ll come to a far
Country, and a black tribe who live near
The springs of the sun" -Prometheus Bound
hunted by the fury Tisiphone
"And now, her former shape gradually restored by Jove [Zeus], Io is walking the fields victorious over Juno [Hera], when lo! she sees Tisiphone [one of the Erinyes] with brands of fire and coiling snakes and fiendish yells; at the first sight she stops and passes once again into the shape of a hapless heifer, " -Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica
"At once her wrath flared up and soon her anger was fulfilled. Before her rival's eyes and in her mind she set a frightful Erinys (Fury) and deep down plunged blinding goads of fear; and Io fled a cowering fugitive through all the world."-Ovid, Metamorphoses
version where argus is her brother
"But Hera requested the cow from Zeus for herself and set Argus the All-seeing to guard it. Pherecydes says that this Argus was a son of Arestor; but Asclepiades says that he was a son of Inachus" -Apollodoros
married a egyptian after
"(about Io) and having found Epaphus she came to Egypt and was married to Telegonus, who then reigned over the Egyptians. And she set up an image of Demeter, whom the Egyptians called Isis, and Io likewise they called by the name of Isis"-Apollodorus
"430th year of the Covenant; 80th year of Moses; According to some, Io proceeded to Egypt, and there was named Isis, who married Telegonus later, and fathered Epaphus."-St. Jerome, Chronicon
has a demigod horned daughter (horns are genetic??)
"not so did I love Inachos's lo, the wandering heifer, from whom beside the Nile came the line begun by Epaphos and primeval Ceroessa"-Nonnus, Dionysiaca
"But when she (io) reached Thrace, she left the name to the place as "Bosporus"; and coming to that which is called Ceras, to the confluence of the Cydarus and the Barbyssus, where she foretold things to come for the inhabitants, she gave birth to Ceroessa at the altar of Semestra, from whom that place is called Ceras.
Others refer the cause of the name more to the position of the place; others call it the horn of the goat Amalthea because of the abundance of fruits.
This Ceroessa, brought up at the altar of Semestra, when she excelled in beauty and far surpassed the other Thracian maidens, was embraced by the sea-god Neptune and bore Byzas, so named from his nurse Byzia, a nymph who raised him in Thrace; whose waters the citizens still draw even now"
"Not long after, a certain Strombus, himself a son of Ceroessa, led a numerous army and made war on the Byzantines" -FRAGMENTA HISTORICORUM GRAECORUM
"Semystra was a nymph, the nurse of Nais Keroessa. For Io, by the machinations of Zeus and the rage of Hera, wandering loose in the shape of a cow, beset by a winged gadfly, traveled much of the earth and driven to this place went into labor (for she was pregnant with a divine child) and deposited here a female infant. Semystra picked up and fostered the baby who was marked by her maternal transformation. For the implanted print of horns protruded on both sides of her forehead. Whence she was called Keroessa (horned). Her son by Poseidon was Byzas"-Dionysius of Byzantium, Anaplous of the Bosporos
she has a son and hes a elementary school bully ( and... black)
"Huge Earth bare these to Epaphus -- soothsaying people, knowing seercraft by the will of Zeus the lord of oracles, but deceivers, to the end that men whose thought passes their utterance might be subject to the gods and suffer harm -- Aethiopians and Libyans and mare-milking Scythians. For verily Epaphus was the child of the almighty Son of Cronos, and from him sprang the dark Libyans, and high-souled Aethiopians, and the Underground-folk and feeble Pygmies. "-Hesiod, Fragments Catalogues of Women all of them all the woman
"Epaphus; who also dwells in temples with his mother in that land. Now Phaethon, whose father was the Sun, was equal to his rival, Epaphus, in mind and years; and he was glad to boast of wonders, nor would yield to Epaphus for pride of Phoebus, his reputed sire. Unable to endure it, Io's son thus mocked him; 'Poor, demented fellow, what will you not credit if your mother speaks, you are so puffed up with the fond conceit of your imagined sire, the Lord of Day.'
Shame crimsoned in his cheeks, but Phaethon withholding rage, reported all the taunts of Epaphus to Clymene his mother" -ovid
connected two seas by creating a great straight
"to that pasture, from which Io, tormented by the gad-fly's sting, fled in frenzy, traversing many tribes of men, and according to fate, cut in two the surging strait, marking off the land upon the farther shore. " -supplicants
priestess of hera
" Zeus seduced her while she held the priesthood of Hera, but being detected by Hera he by a touch turned Io into a white cow"- apollodoros library
men feared her (HMMMM PRIESTESS BLAMED UNFAIRLY BY GODDESS AND UNFAIRLY FEARED HMMM SOUNDS FAMILIAR)
"And mortals, who in those days dwelled in the land, shook with pallid terror at the terrible sight as they beheld a being fearsome, half-human, part cow and part of woman; and they were astonished at the monstrous thing"-Suppliant Women
"She reached her father's river and the banks where often she had played and, in the water, mirrored she saw her muzzle and her horns, and fled in terror from the self she saw. The Naides did not know--not even her father knew who she was, but she, disconsolate, followed her sisters, followed her father, let them stroke her, offered herself to be admired. Old Inachus picked grass and held it out; she licked her father's hand, cow-kissed his palms; her tears rolled down; if only words would come, she'd speak her name, tell all, implore their aid." -Ovid Metamorphoses
Nile river god alot like her father saves her from Tisiphone
"[River] Nile withstands Tisiphone [i.e. the Erinys tormening Io] and driving her with all his eddying flood plunges her to the depths of his sandy bed, calling for help to Dis [Haides] and all the powers of that cruel realm; here and there are seen her brands and whips far scattered, and the serpents shaken from her dishevelled hair."
"All this from Pharos' height afar Io beholds, now added to the gods, with snake-girt hair and loud triumphant sistrum"-Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica"
