Danaus
Also known as: DANAOS / Danaos · Family: Egyptian · Role: father and ruler · First appears: Aeschylus, The Suppliants — Scene 1
Danaus was one of the two sons of Belos, alongside Aegyptus, and descended through Io and Epaphus. In Argos, Aegyptus sought marriages between his sons and Danaus’s daughters, but they rejected the matches as unholy and fled to Argos, where Pelasgos ruled; as the suppliants said, “took flight and came to Argos, where Pelasgos then ruled as king.”
Danaus led his daughters in their flight from the unwanted marriages. His kinship with Aegyptus later became hostile, and he stood in conflict against Aegyptus’s sons, while a later account says that Danaus gathered the people into a common council after suffering punishment at Aegyptus’s hands.
Relationship record
Life events
- Aegyptos sought marriage with Danaos's daughters for his sons, but they rejected the matches.(Aeschylus, The Suppliants — Scene 1)
- With: Aegyptus
- “Ægyptos sought the daughters of Danaos in marriage for his sons. And they, looking on the marriage as unholy, and hating those who wooed them”
- Danaos's daughters fled to Argos to escape the unwanted marriages.(Aeschylus, The Suppliants — Scene 1 · 📍 Argos)
- “took flight and came to Argos, where Pelasgos then ruled as king”
- Danaos and Aegyptos are identified as Belos's two sons.(Aeschylus, The Suppliants — Scene 3)
- The Danaos-led suppliants flee to Argos to escape forced marriages to Aegyptos's sons.(Aeschylus, The Suppliants — Scene 3 · 📍 Argos)
- With: Aegyptus
- “Who would have said that this unlooked-for flight Would bring to Argos race once native here, Driving them forth in hate of wedlock's couch?”
Aeschylus, The Suppliants — Scene 1
- parent: Belos “there were two brothers, Danaos and Ægyptos, the sons of Belos”
- siblings with Aegyptus “there were two brothers, Danaos and Ægyptos, the sons of Belos”
- elder kin: Io “And they, looking on the marriage as unholy, and hating those who wooed them, took flight and came to Argos, where Pelasgos then ruled as king, as to the land whence Io, from whom they sprang, had come.”
- elder kin: Epaphus “When Io, after many wanderings, had found refuge in Egypt, and having been touched by Zeus, had given birth to Epaphos, it came to pass that he and his descendants ruled over the region of Canôpos, near one of the seven mouths of Neilos. And in the fifth generation there were two brothers, Danaos and Ægyptos, the sons of Belos”
Aeschylus, The Suppliants — Scene 3
- parent: Belos “Sire of my sire here, Belos, with two sons. King. Tell me then now the name of yonder sage. Chor. Danaos, whose brother boasts of fifty sons.”
Aeschylus, The Suppliants — Scene 4
- with Aegyptus (The text states kinship between Danaos and the Aegyptid side but does not specify the exact degree.) “And if for thee against Ægyptos' sons, Thy kindred, I before my city's walls In conflict stand,”
Euripides, Orestes — Scene 6
- enemies with Aegyptus “where they say Danaus first collected the people to a common council, when he suffered punishment at the hands of Ægyptus.”
- with Aegyptus (Aegyptus inflicted punishment on Danaus.) “where they say Danaus first collected the people to a common council, when he suffered punishment at the hands of Ægyptus.”
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Extracted from the original text of Greek Tragedy. Made with Rho MD.