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In Greek mythology, Inachus (Greek: Ἴναχος) personified the Inachus River, the modern Panitsa that drains the western margin of the Argive plain. He was king of Argos (circa 1856 BC).¹ Inachus was one of the river gods, all sons of Oceanus and Tethys and thus to the Greeks part of the pre-Olympian or "Pelasgian" mythic landscape^{citation needed}. As rivers are generally fertile, Inachus had many children, the chief of whom were his two sons, Phoroneus and Aegialeus or Phegeus, and his two daughters Io and Philodice, wife of Leucippus. The mother of these children was variously described in the sources, either the ash-tree nymph Melia, called the mother of Phoroneus and Aegialeus, or Argia (his sister), called the mother of Phoroneus and Io.

His other children include Mycene, the spirit of Mycenae , the spring nymph Amymone, Messeis, Hyperia, and possibly Teledice.

In one founding myth of Argos, Inachos founded the city after rendering the province of Argolis inhabitable again, following the deluge of Deucalion.

Sophocles wrote an Inachos, probably a satyr play, which survives only in some papyrus fragments found at Oxyrhyncus and Tebtunis, Egypt; in it Inachos is reduced from magnificence to misery through the unrequited love of Zeus² for his daughter Io; Hermes wears the cap of darkness, rendering him invisible, but plays the aulos, to the mystification of the satyrs; Argos and Iris, as a messenger of Hera both appear, a "stranger" turns Io into a heifer at the touch of a hand, and at the end, apparently, the satyrs are freed from their bondage, to become shepherds of Inachos.³

In Virgil's Aeneid, Inachus is represented on Turnus's shield. Compare the Inachos or Brimos of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Notes

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