Argus or Argos Panoptes (, "All-seeing Argos") is a many-eyed giant in Greek mythology. Known for his perpetual vigilance, he served the goddess Hera as a watchman. His most famous task was guarding Io, a priestess of Hera, whom Zeus had transformed into a heifer. Argus's constant watch, with some of his eyes always open, made him a formidable guardian. His eventual slaying by Hermes, on Zeus's orders, is a prominent episode in the myths surrounding him, and his eyes were then incorporated into the peacock's tail by Hera in his honor.
Mythology
Argus Panoptes (Ἄργος Πανόπτης) was the guardian of the
heifer-
nymph Io and the son of
Arestor. According to Asclepiades, Argus Panoptes was a son of Inachus, and according to
Cercops he was a son of Argus and Ismene, daughter of Asopus.
Acusilaus says that he was earth-born (autochthon), born from Gaia.
[Apollodorus, 2.1.3; Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 1.112; Ovid Metamorphoses 1.623.] Probably Mycene
[According to Pausanias, 2.16.3, Arestor was the consort of Mycene, the eponymous nymph of nearby Mycenae, while according to a scholiast on Homer's Odyssey, citing the Epic Cycle, Mycene and Arestor were the parents of Argus Panoptes, see Fowler, p. 236; Nostoi fr. 8* (West, pp. 160, 161) = Scholiast on the Odyssey 2.120.] (in another version the son of
Gaia) was a primordial
giant whose
epithet Panoptes, "all-seeing", led to his being described with multiple, often one hundred eyes. The epithet
Panoptes was applied to the god of the
Sun,
Helios, and was taken up as an epithet by
Zeus,
Zeus Panoptes. "In a way,"
Walter Burkert observes, "the power and order of Argos the city are embodied in Argos the
neatherd, lord of the herd and lord of the land, whose name itself is the
Argolid."
[Walter Burkert, Homo Necans (1972) 1983:166-67.] renders the theme of stealth and murder in modern dress, 1659 (
Prado)|229x229px]]The epithet
Panoptes, reflecting his mythic role, set by
Hera as a very effective watchman of Io, was described in a fragment of a lost poem
Aigimios, attributed to Hesiod:
[Hesiodic Aegimius, fragment 294, reproduced in Merkelbach and West 1967 and noted in Burkert 1983:167 note 28.]
In the 5th century and later, Argus' wakeful alertness was explained for an increasingly literal culture as his having so many eyes that only a few of the eyes would sleep at a time: there were always eyes still awake. In the 2nd century AD Pausanias noted at Argos, in the temple of Zeus Larissaios, an archaic image of Zeus with a third eye in the center of his forehead, allegedly Priam's Zeus Herkeios purloined from Troy.[Pausanias, 2.24.4 (noted by Burkert 1983:168 note 28).]
Argus was Hera's servant. His great service to the Twelve Olympians pantheon was to slay the chthonic serpent-legged monster Echidna as she slept in her cave.[Homer, Iliad ii.783; Hesiod, Theogony, 295ff; Apollodorus, 2.1.2).] Hera's defining task for Argus was to guard the white heifer Io from Zeus, who was attracted to her, keeping her chained to the sacred olive tree at the Argive Heraion.[Apollodorus, 2.1.4.] She required someone who had at least a hundred eyes spread out, always watching in all directions, someone who would stay awake despite being asleep. Argos was meant to be the perfect guardian.[Hermes was tried, exonerated, and earned the epithet Argeiphontes, "killer of Argos".] After beheading Argus, Hermes acquired the epithet Argeiphontes or “Argus-slayer”.
The sacrifice of Argus liberated Io and allowed her to wander the earth, although tormented by a gadfly sent by Hera, until she reached the Ionian Sea, named after her, from where she swam to Egypt and gave birth to a love child of Zeus, according to some versions of the myth.
According to Ovid, Argus had a hundred eyes.[Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.624.] Hera had Argus' hundred eyes preserved forever in a peacock's tail so as to immortalise her faithful watchman.[Impelluso, p. 28; Jackson, p. 39. The peacock is an Eastern bird, unknown to Greeks before the time of the Greco-Persian Wars (Tortel, pp. 119-132).] In another version, Hera transformed the whole of Argus into a peacock.[Moschus 2.59]
The myth makes the closest connection of Argus, the neatherd, with the bull. According to the mythographer Apollodorus, Argus, "being exceedingly strong ... killed the bull that ravaged Arcadia and clad himself in its hide".[Apollodorus, 2.1.2.]
Eponyms
Argus Panoptes is referenced in the scientific names of at least eight animals, each of which bears a pattern of eye spots: reptiles
Cnemaspis argus, Eremias argus, Sibon argus,
Sphaerodactylus argus, and the Argus monitor
Varanus panoptes;
[Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Argus", p. 11).] the pheasant
Great argus; the fish Cephalopholis argus and the cowry
Arestorides argus.
== Gallery ==
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(1733)]]
(c. 1770–1775)]]
(1773)]]
(1776)]]
(18th century)]]
(18th-century)]]
(c. 1650)]]
(1700s)]]
(c. 1558)]]
(2nd half of 17th century)]]
(1st half of 18th century)]]
(17th century)]]
(between c. 1645 and c. 1647)]]
(1864)]]
(1606)]]
(16th or 17th century)]]
(1606)]]
(1664 - 1700)]]
See also
Notes
-
Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, edited and translated by William H. Race, Loeb Classical Library No. 1, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2009. . Online version at Harvard University Press.
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Fowler, R. L. (2013), Early Greek Mythography: Volume 2: Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2013. .
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Impelluso, Lucia, Gods and Heroes in Art, Getty Publications, 2003.
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Ovid, Metamorphoses, Brookes More, Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
-
Pausanias, Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
-
Tortel C., (2019), Sacralisé, diabolisé: le paon dans les religions de l'Asie à la Méditerranée, Geuthner, 2019. .
-
West, M. L., Greek Epic Fragments: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC. Edited and translated by Martin L. West. Loeb Classical Library No. 497. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003. Online version at Harvard University Press.
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