Note 191 — Chapter IV · HEROIC LEGENDS.—GENEALOGY OF ARGOS.

Herodot. i. 1-6. Pausanias (ii. 15, 1) will not undertake to determine whether the account given by Herodotus, or that of the old legend, respecting the cause which carried Iô from Argos to Egypt, is the true one: Ephorus (ap. Schol. Apoll. Rhod. ii. 168) repeats the abduction of Iô to Egypt, by the Phœnicians, subjoining a strange account of the Etymology of the name Bosporus. The remarks of Plutarch on the narrative of Herodotus are curious: he adduces as one proof of the κακοήθεια (bad feeling) of Herodotus, that the latter inserts so discreditable a narrative respecting Iô, daughter of Inachus, “whom all Greeks believe to have been divinized by foreigners, to have given name to seas and straits, and to be the source of the most illustrious regal families.” He also blames Herodotus for rejecting Epaphus, Iô, Iasus and Argos, as highest members of the Perseid genealogy. He calls Herodotus φιλοβάρβαρος (Plutarch, De Malign. Herodoti, c. xi. xii. xiv. pp. 856, 857).