the ichor flowed away: the fluid of life (originally a term for the fluid that takes the place of blood in the gods, Il. 5. 339 ff., but later used in a more general sense for animal serum). In AR 4. 1665 ff., Medea invokes the Keres, spirits of death, with songs and prayers, and when Talos tries to hurl boulders to repel them, he grazes his ankle on a rock, causing the ichor to pour out like molten lead. The alternative in which Poias (the father of Philoctetes who lit Heracles’ pyre, p. 91) shoots him in the ankle implies the same cause of death.
a competition developed: again explaining a local custom, see AR 4. 1765 ff. (cf. Callimachus fr. 198; Hellenistic scholars, and scholar-poets, were much interested in local material of this kind).
put Aison to death: if Jason is dead, Pelias can safely consolidate his rule by eliminating Jason’s father Aison, who has a legitimate claim to the throne as the son of Cretheus.
bull’s blood: the Greeks believed that bull’s blood was dangerous to drink because its rapid coagulation would cause the drinker to choke; there was a famous tale that Themistocles committed suicide by drinking it (see Plut. Them. 31).
So she went to the palace. . . boiled him: cf. P. 8. 11. 2 f. and Ov. Met. 7. 297 ff.; Medea had power enough as a magician to rejuvenate Pelias if she wished, but in his case she failed to put the necessary potions into the cauldron. She is said to have made Jason young again by boiling him (Arg. Eur. Med., reporting Simonides and Pherecydes).
Creon: the son of Lycaithos, and his successor as king of Corinth; not to be confused with Creon, son of Menoiceus, the king or regent of Thebes, p. 111. His father ruled Corinth at the time of Bellerophon’s departure (sc. Eur. Med. 19). According to an earlier tradition, ascribed to the Corinthian epic poet Eumelos, who was probably the inventor of the genealogical scheme underlying it, Medea was invited to Corinth to become queen in her own right (sc. Eur. Med. 19, quoting Simonides to the same effect).
a raging fire: see Eur. Medea1167 ff. She is said to have thrown herself into a fountain named after her in Corinth (P. 2. 3. 6).
received from the Sun a chariot: following Eur. Medea(1317 ff., with Arg.; and for the murder of her two children, 1236 ff.). It should be remembered that her father Aietes was a son of the Sun, p. 43.
the Corinthians forced them away: the local Corinthian tradition, see P. 2. 3. 6; they stoned the children because they had carried the fatal gifts to Glauce, but as a result of this murder the young children of Corinth began to die. The Corinthians were ordered by the oracle to offer sacrifices in their honour each year (which were continued until the city was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC) and to raise an altar to Fear.
she married Aigeus: Aigeus had difficulty fathering children, p. 136, and he is said to have married Medea when she promised to cure the problem by her spells (Plut. Thes. 12). For her expulsion see p. 139.
a son, Medos: either directly (P. 2. 3. 7) or through her son, she becomes the eponym of the Medes, whose empire south-west of the Caspian Sea was later absorbed into the Persian Empire. According to another tradition, Medea bore Medos to an Asian king after her expulsion from Athens, DS 4. 55. 7, and he then succeeded to his father’s kingdom.
she killed Perses: or Medos killed him and conquered Media thereafter (DS 4. 56. 1, cf. Hyg. 27).
Inachos: as one of the most prominent features in the landscape, rivers often appear at an early stage in local genealogies. The statement that the river was named after him presents the matter in a rationalized form; Inachos would originally have been the river itself, which, in myth, can function as a person at the same time, cf. Acheloos on p. 113.
Phoroneus and Aigialeus: in the mythology of their particular areas each would be seen as the local earth-born ‘first man’, Phoroneus in Argos, and Aigialeus in Aigialeia to the north of Argos (in the region of Sicyon; compare his position in the local genealogies as reported by P. 2. 5. 5). Here they are absorbed into a broader genealogical scheme.
was called Sarapis: the cult of Sarapis, which was encouraged by the Hellenistic kings of Egypt, developed from the cult of Apis, the sacred bull worshipped at Memphis. The Argive Apis is here identified with the Egyptian Apis, and thence with Sarapis, who became the chief god in the cult of the Egyptian gods as celebrated outside Egypt.
Pelasgos: the ‘first man’ in Arcadia, in the central Peloponnese; that he was born from the earth was the local tradition. Ap. will return to Pelasgos and the mythology of Arcadia on p. 114.
Pelasgians: also used in a more general sense to refer to the aboriginal inhabitants of various parts of Greece, notably Thessaly.
calling the Peloponnese Argos: this continues a pattern in which regional names are said to have originated as names for the whole Peloponnese. (According to the context, the name Argos can refer either to the Argolid, as a region in the north-east Peloponnese, or to Argos, as the main city within it.)
eyes all over his body: as with the hydra’s heads, the numbers vary according to the fancy of the author. That he had eyes ‘all over’ may have been wrongly inferred from his title Panoptes. In Pherecydes (sc. Eur. Phoen. 1116) he had only a single extra eye, on the back of his head, granted to him by Hera, who also made him sleepless.
Echidna: a fearsome monster and progenitor of monsters, who lived in a cave in a hollow of the earth and feasted on raw flesh, see Theog. 295 ff.
Peiren: a son of the first Argos and Evadne; he can be identified with Peiras two paragraphs previously.
Zeus seduced Io: for all the following, cf. Aesch. Suppliants291 ff; there Io is transformed by Hera. See also [Aesch.] PV561 ff. and Ov. Met. 1. 583 ff.
betrayed by Hierax: otherwise unknown. Since hieraxmeans a hawk, perhaps associated with a transformation story (as with another Hierax in AL 3).
Argeiphontes: an ancient title (e.g. Od. 8. 338) of uncertain origin, here interpreted as meaning ‘Argos-slayer’.
Ionian Gulf: the Adriatic; for this explanation of its name, cf. [Aesch.] PV 836 ff.
Bosporos: ‘the cow’s strait’, or ‘ox ford’; a valid etymology.
Hera asked the Curetes . . . discovered Epaphos: as Ap. remarks, the Greeks identified Io with the Egyptian goddess Isis, and the present story is based on the tale of Isis’ search for the lost Osiris; for a Greek account of the latter, see Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris355 ff. Osiris was washed ashore at Byblos. In view of the Curetes’ previous services to him, p. 28, it seems ungrateful of Zeus to kill them.