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INTRODUCTION
AN ANCIENT legend which records at its beginning the wanderings and
sufferings of Io provided Aeschylus with the material out of which he constructed
The Suppliants. In remote prehistoric times, so the legend ran,
Zeus fell in love with Io, priestess of Hera, a daughter of Inachus, the
king of Argos. Io, though endeavouring to avoid the advances of Zeus, was
punished through Hera's jealousy. She was transformed partly into a
heifer and made to wander in a half-crazed state over the world until at
last she came to the land of Egypt. There, through a mysterious and
essentially mystical union with Zeus, the touch of his hand, her transformation
was ended, and she conceived a child, Epaphus. Epaphus became
the father of Libya, who in turn bore two sons, Belus and Agenor.
From Belus sprang two sons, Aegyptus and Danaus. Now Aegyptus had
fifty sons and Danaus fifty daughters. Serious conflict arose between the
two brothers, for the daughters of Danaus rejected the proposals of marriage
proffered by the sons of Aegyptus. In stark terror of the violent lust
of their cousins, the maidens with their father fled for asylum to Argos,
to the home of their cherished ancestress, Io, there to seek the protection
of the gods and of Pelasgus, the king.
Here the action of The Suppliants begins. The maidens gain the protection
of the king who refuses to turn them over to the sons of Aegyptus,
who have followed them in haste to Argos. The emissary of the suitors
withdraws from the scene after having made it clear that war is impending,
for the sons of Aegyptus have determined to take the maidens by
force. The play ends at this point and clearly looks forward to subsequent
events in the action. It seems evident, therefore, that The Suppliants is
the first play of a tragic trilogy, the second and third plays of which are
now lost, but whose titles were probably The Egyptians and The
Daughters of Danaus. So far as we can reconstruct Aeschylus' treatment
of the remainder of the story, we know that the sons of Aegyptus gained
possession of the maidens, and compelled them to marry. Danaus yielded
his consent, though secretly commanding his daughters to kill their husbands
on their wedding night. All obeyed save one, Hypermnestra, whom
the Roman poet, Horace, in the eleventh ode of his third book, described