famy of patricide in Argos, changed kingdoms with his uncle Prætus, and built Mycena. This imprisonment of Danae Sophocles reporteth otherwise; and that she was enclosed in a brasen vault, under the king's hall, with her nurse and keepers. Upon this close custody Horace hath this witty observation : Inclusam Danaen turris ahenea, Si non Acrisium virginis abditæ Risissent, fore enim tutum iter et patens Aurum per medios ire satellites, Et perrumpere amat saxa, potentius Ictu fulmineo. The brasen tower with doors close barr'd, And watchful bandogs frightful guard, Kept safe the maidenhead Of Danae from secret love : Till smiling Venus and wise Jove Beguil'd her father's dread. For, changed into a golden shower, The god into her lap did pour Himself, and took his pleasure. Through guards and stony walls to break, The thunderbolt is far more weak, Than is a golden treasure. The first kings of the Argives were these: Inachus the first king, who began to reign in the first year of Jacob, and the sixty-first of Isaac; from which time, to the end of Sthenelus, Castor misreckoneth 400 years. This kingdom before the translation Eusebius accounteth to have stood 544 years, others but at 417. Io was the daughter of this Inachus, whom the Egyptians called Isis. After the translation to Mycena, Mar. Scotus finds these kings: STHENELUS, EURYSTHEUS. The sons of Pelops by Hippodamia: Atreus by Europe had Agamemnon and Menelaus. PERSEUS, ATREUS and THYESTES, AGAMEMNON, EGYSTHUS, ORESTES, TISAMENUS, Of these kings, Mercator and Bunting leave out the two first and the last; beginning with Eurystheus, and ending with Penthilus. In Tisamenus's time the Heraclidæ returned into Peloponnesus, of which hereafter. The contemporaries of Barac and Debora were, Midas, who reigned in Phrygia, and Ilus, who built Ilium; with others mentioned in our chronological table, as contemporaries with Debora. |
