Editing Danaus (section)

===Flight from Aegyptus===
[[File:Danaides by John William Waterhouse, 1903.jpg|thumb|200px|''The Danaides'' (1904), a [[Pre-Raphaelite]] interpretation by [[John William Waterhouse]]]]
After Aegyptus commanded that his fifty sons should marry the Danaides, Danaus elected to flee instead. To that purpose, he built a ship on the advice of [[Athena]],<ref name=":0">Apollodorus, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+2.1.4&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022:book=0:chapter=0&highlight=Danaus 2.1.4]</ref> the first ship that ever was.<ref>[[Pliny the Elder]], ''[[Naturalis Historia]]'' 7.191 & 206</ref> In it, he fled to [[Argos, Peloponnese|Argos]], to which he was connected by his descent from [[Io (mythology)|Io]], a priestess of Hera at Argos, who was wooed by [[Zeus]] and turned into a heifer and pursued by [[Hera]] until she found asylum in Egypt. Argos at the time was ruled by King [[Pelasgus]], the [[eponym]] of all autochthonous [indigenous] inhabitants who had lived in Greece since the beginning, also called [[Gelanor]] ("he who laughs"). The Danaides asked Pelasgus for protection when they arrived, the event portrayed in ''[[The Suppliants (Aeschylus)|The Suppliants]]'' by [[Aeschylus]]. Protection was granted after a vote by the Argives.  

When [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] visited Argos in the 2nd century CE, he related the succession of Danaus to the throne, judged by the Argives, who "from the earliest times ... have loved freedom and self-government, and they limited to the utmost the authority of their kings": 

: "On coming to Argos he claimed the kingdom against Gelanor, the son of [[Sthenelus]]. Many plausible arguments were brought forward by both parties, and those of Sthenelas were considered as fair as those of his opponent; so the people, who were sitting in judgment, put off, they say, the decision to the following day. At dawn a wolf fell upon a herd of oxen that was pasturing before the wall, and attacked and fought with the bull that was the leader of the herd. It occurred to the Argives that Gelanor was like the bull and Danaus like the wolf, for as the wolf will not live with men, so Danaus up to that time had not lived with them. It was because the wolf overcame the bull that Danaus won the kingdom. Accordingly, believing that Apollo had brought the wolf on the herd, he founded a sanctuary of Apollo Lycius."<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+2.19.3&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=0:chapter=0&highlight=Danaus 2.19.3]-[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+2.19.4&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=0:chapter=0&highlight=Danaus 4]</ref>

The sanctuary of Apollo Lykeios ("wolf-Apollo", but also Apollo of the twilight) was still the most prominent feature of Argos in Pausanias' time: in the sanctuary, the tourist might see the throne of Danaus himself, an [[eternal flame]], called the fire of [[Phoroneus]].