Acousilaos. . . Hera: the anger of Hera was generally regarded as the cause of their madness. According to Bacch. 2. 47 ff., they were sent mad for boasting in the precinct of Hera that their father was wealthier than the goddess; the present story that they mocked her primitive cultic image (xoanon)is probably of somewhat later origin. In Bacch. (2. 95 ff.) they were cured by Artemis after their father prayed to her and vowed twenty oxen, but in Hes. Cat. by Melampous (frs. 131 ff., cf. fr. 37).
the other women: the women of Argos, cf. p. 47, where the madness was attributed to Dionysos; the story was doubtless of separate origin from that of the daughters of Proitos. Herodotus (9. 34) is the only other source for the raising of the fee (but there the daughters of Proitos are not involved). Some date the madness of the Argive women to a later period, when Anaxagoras, a grandson of Proitos, was on the throne (DS 4. 68. 4; P. 2. 18. 4).
agreed to the cure on these terms: this introduces a further complexity into the pattern of rule in the Argolid. There are separate lines within the Inachid royal family, relating to a division of the territory between Tiryns and Argos, pp. 62 f. (and later, Mycenae); and now an additional Deucalionid royal family is inserted (which will be the most important at the time of the Theban Wars, see p. 107 and note). These complexities are the result of the mythographers’ efforts to impose a modicum of order on an inherited mass of largely irreconcilable myth. The threefold division of Argos does not reflect a peculiarity in Argive institutions comparable to the dual monarchy in Sparta; and one soon finds that it is impossible to trace clear lines of descent linking each of the main centres to each family or branch of a family.
killed his brother: or a Corinthian nobleman named Belleros (sc. Lycophr. 17, sc. Il. 6. 155), hence his name Bellerophon (or ‘Belleros-slayer’, cf. Hermes ‘Argeiphontes’ on p. 59).
to be purified: this is a recurring pattern in these myths. A person who spills another’s blood becomes polluted, and thus a danger to his native community (because he is liable to become the cause of barrenness, plague, and the like). He must therefore go into exile and be purified. That he is purified by a king rather than a priest reflects in part the sacral character of early kingship, and in part the social function of purification in enabling the polluted man to be integrated into the community of the king who purifies him.
Stheneboia fell in love with him: the following accords with Il. 6. 154 ff. (except that Homer calls her Anteia, as remarked above).
to Iobates: Proitos’ father-in-law, see above, who lived in Lycia, in the south-western corner of Asia Minor.
a third head in the middle: we are to understand that the dragon’s tail has a head at the end, cf. Theog. 321 ff., and that this middle head is on a neck that grows from the monster’s back.
Amisodaros: see Il. 16.328 ff. A Lycian like Iobates (who is not named by Homer), and the father of two sons in Sarpedon’s company.
as Hesiod records: Theog. 319 f. (but Hesiod’s text is ambiguous and he may have meant that the Lernaean hydra was its mother).
climbed on to . . . Pegasos: as in Theog. 325 and Hes. Cat. fr. 43a, 84 ff.; there is no mention of him in Homer’s account, Il. 6. 179 ff. For the story of his birth, see p. 66 and Theog. 278 ff. He was given to Bellerophon by Poseidon (sc. Il. 6. 155), or by Athene, who had tamed and bridled him with her own hands (P. 2. 4. 1); or according to Pind. ol. 13. 63 ff, Bellerophon bridled Pegasos himself after obtaining advice from a seer on how to obtain divine favour for the enterprise. It was said that Bellerophon was killed when he tried to fly to Olympos on Pegasos, Pind. Isth. 7. 44 ff.
the Solymoi: they lived in southern Asia Minor to the west of Lycia (see Strabo 14. 3. 9).
in youthful vigour: following Zenobius 2. 87; the text is problematic.
some say by Proitos: although this variant (apparently derived from Pindar, sc. Il. 14. 319) is cited first, it was generally accepted that Perseus was a son of Zeus; for the quarrel between the twins, see pp. 62 f.
when Acrisios learned: according to Pherecydes (sc. AR 4. 1091) he heard the voice of the child while he was at play at three or four years of age, and had Danae brought up from the chamber with the child’s nurse, whom he killed.
Polydectes. . . Dictys: for their birth and origin, see p. 44.
a marriage-offering: as in Homer, the bride would be purchased from her father with a bride-gift, hedna, which was often substantial (e.g. Il. 11. 243 ff). For Hippodameia, see p. 144.
did not take the horses of Perseus: this seems to be Ap.’s meaning (rather than that he failed to receive any horses from him, as in Frazer’s translation), as in the clearer account reported from Pherecydes (in sc. AR. 4. 1515a; when Dictys asks him for a horse, Perseus replies hyperbolically that he would give him the Gorgon’s head, and the following day, he refuses to accept Perseus’ horse alone, holding him instead to his ‘promise’).
the daughters of Phonos: the Graiai (Old Women). In Theog. 270 ff., there are only two, and although they were grey-haired from birth, they are said to be fair-cheeked and beautifully robed. The shared eye and tooth first appear in Pherecydes sc. AR 4. 1515a and[Aesch.] PV795f.
winged sandals: belonging to Hermes, which Perseus needs to reach the Gorgons, and then escape from them (the tradition that he escaped on Pegasos, e.g. Ov. Amatoria3. 12. 24, found little favour in antiquity). On the kibisis, see Appendix, 1 and note.
of Hades: inserted by Heyne, but not necessarily in the original, as the reader could be expected to know (as in P. 3. 17. 3). The leather helmet or cap belongs to Hades because his name suggests invisibility (a-ides). The notion that he was ‘armed’ with it by the Cyclopes, p. 28, is a fancy from a relatively late period.
conceived them previously by Poseidon: she had slept with him in a spring meadow, see Theog. 278 ff.
Cassiepeia: the form Cassiopeia, familiar from the constellation, never appears in ancient writings; it seems to have originated as a hybrid between this and the ancient variant Cassiope (Ov. Met. 4. 738 etc.).