Editing Ino (mythology) (section)

== Mythology ==
[[File:(Toulouse) Nymphe appelée Ino ou Dotô Saint-Rustice - Musée Saint-Raymond Ra 20b.jpg|left|thumb|Mosaic fragment: ''Ino'' ({{math|Δωτω}}, ''Dotô''), discovered 1833 in a Roman villa in [[Saint-Rustice]], 4th or 5th&nbsp;century, [[Saint-Raymon Museum]] ]]
In the [[back-story]] to the heroic tale of [[Argonautica|Jason and the Golden Fleece]], [[Phrixus]] and [[Helle (mythology)|Helle]], twin children of Athamas and [[Nephele]], were hated by their stepmother, Ino. Ino hatched a devious plot to get rid of the twins, roasting all the crop seeds of [[Boeotia]] so they would not grow.<ref>{{harvp|pseudo-Apollodorus|1921|at=1.9.1}}</ref>{{efn|
However {{harvtxt|Kerenyi|1951|p=264}} suggests "...&nbsp;it is possible that originally she did not cause the seed-corn to be roasted, but introduced the practice of roasting corn in general."
}} The local farmers, frightened of famine, asked a nearby oracle for assistance. Ino bribed the men sent to the [[oracle]] to lie and tell the others that the oracle required the sacrifice of Phrixus. Athamas reluctantly agreed.

Before he was killed though, [[Phrixus]] and [[Helle (mythology)|Helle]] were rescued by a flying golden ram sent by their natural mother, [[Nephele]]. Helle fell off the ram into the [[Hellespont]] (which was named after her, meaning ''Sea of Helle'') and drowned, but Phrixus survived all the way to [[Colchis]], where King [[Aeetes]] took him in and treated him kindly, and gave Phrixus his daughter, [[Chalciope]], in marriage. In gratitude, Phrixus gave the king the [[golden fleece]] of the ram, which Aeetes hung in a tree in his kingdom.

Later, Ino raised [[Dionysus]], her nephew, son of her sister [[Semele]] by Zeus,{{efn|
Local tradition sited the suckling of Dionysus at [[Brasiai]] in [[Laconia]]. ({{harvnb|Kerenyi|1951|p=264}})
}} causing [[Hera]]'s intense jealousy. In vengeance, Hera struck [[Athamas]] with insanity. Athamas went mad, slew one of his sons, [[Learchus]], hunting him down like a stag, and set out in frenzied pursuit of Ino. To escape him, Ino threw herself into the sea with her son [[Melicertes]]. Both were afterwards worshipped as marine divinities, Ino as [[Leucothea]] ("the white goddess"), Melicertes as [[Palaemon (Greek myth)|Palaemon]].

Alternatively, Ino was also stricken with insanity and killed Melicertes by boiling him in a cauldron, then jumped into the sea with her dead son. A sympathetic [[Zeus]] did not want Ino to die, and transfigured her and Melicertes as Leucothea and Palaemon.
[[File:Athamas tue le fils d'Ino - Gaetano Gandolfi (1801).jpg|thumb|347x347px|''Athamas tue le fils d'Ino'' by [[Gaetano Gandolfi]] (1801)]]

The story of Ino, [[Athamas]] and [[Melicertes]] is relevant also in the context of two larger themes.<!-- are these themes identified? --> Ino, daughter of [[Cadmus]] and [[Harmonia (Greek goddess)|Harmonia]], had an end just as tragic as her siblings: [[Semele]] died while pregnant with [[Zeus]]' child, killed by her own pride and lack of trust in her divine lover; [[Agave (mythology)|Agave]] killed her own son, King [[Pentheus]], while struck with Dionysian madness, and [[Actaeon]], son of [[Autonoe]], the third sibling, was torn apart by his own hunting dogs. Also, the insanity of Ino and Athamas, who hunted his own son [[Learchus]] as a stag and slew him, can be explained as a result of their contact with Dionysus, whose presence can cause insanity. None can escape the powers of Dionysus, the god of wine. [[Euripides]] took up the tale in ''[[The Bacchae]]'', explaining their madness in Dionysiac terms, as a result of their having initially resisted belief in the god's divinity.

After Ino's disappearance, some of her companions began to revile [[Hera]], so the goddess turned them into birds according to [[Ovid]],<ref>{{cite book | first = Micaela | last = Janan | date = 22 October 2009 | title = Reflections in a Serpent's Eye: Thebes in Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' | publisher = [[Oxford University Press]] | location = Oxford New York | isbn = 978-0-19-955692-2  | page = [https://books.google.com/books?id=Gf5QEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA93 93]  | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Gf5QEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA93 }}</ref> perhaps ''aithuia'' birds (shearwaters?).<ref>{{cite book | author = Aratus | author-link = Aratus | date = 10 June 2004 | translator-first= Douglas |translator-last=Kidd | title = Aratus: Phaenomena | series = Classical Texts and Commentaries |volume = 34 | publisher = [[Cambridge University Press]] | page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=FwAN_Z5iwaAC&pg=PA293 293] | isbn = 0-521-58230-X | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=FwAN_Z5iwaAC&pg=PA293 }}</ref>

When Athamas returned to his second wife, Ino, [[Themisto]] (his third wife) sought revenge by dressing her children in white clothing and Ino's in black and directing the murder of the children in black. Ino switched their clothes without Themisto knowing, and so Themisto instigated the murder her own children. The story of Ino and Themisto was the subject of ''Ino'', a lost play of [[Euripides]]. Previously unknown fragments of Euripedes' ''Ino'' were found in 2022 and publicized in 2024.<ref name="m362">{{cite web | title=Uncovered Euripides fragments are 'kind of a big deal' | website=Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine | date=1 August 2024 | url=https://www.colorado.edu/asmagazine/2024/08/01/uncovered-euripides-fragments-are-kind-big-deal | access-date=10 August 2024}}</ref>

Transformed into the goddess ''Leucothea'', Ino also represents one of the many sources of divine aid to [[Odysseus]] in the ''[[Odyssey]]'' (5:333&nbsp;ff), her earliest appearance in literature. Homer calls her
: "Ino-Leocothea of the beautiful ankles [{{math|καλλίσφυρος}}], daughter of [[Cadmus]], who was once a mortal speaking with the tongue of men, but now in the salt sea-waters has received honor at the hands of the gods".
She provides Odysseus with a veil and tells him to discard his cloak and raft, then instructs him how he can entrust himself to the waves and succeed in reaching land, and eventually the island of Scheria ([[Corcyra]]), home of the Phaeaceans.

In historical times, a sisterhood of [[maenad]]s of [[Thebes, Greece|Thebes]] in the service of [[Dionysus]], traced their descent in the female line from Ino. We know this because an inscription at [[Magnesia on the Maeander]] summoned three maenads from Thebes, from the house of Ino, to direct the new mysteries of Dionysus at Magnesia.<ref>{{harvp|Burkert|1992|p=44}}</ref>