Argus Panoptes (Ἄργος Πανόπτης) was the guardian of the
heifer-
nymphIo 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 (
authochthon), born from Gaia.[1] Probably
Mycene[2] (in another version the son of
Gaia[3]) was a primordial
giant whose
epithetPanoptes, "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
name of the land."[4]
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:[5]
And set a watcher upon her, great and strong Argus, who with four eyes looks every way. And the goddess stirred in him unwearying strength: sleep never fell upon his eyes; but he kept sure watch always.
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.[6]
Argus was
Hera's servant. His great service to the
Olympian pantheon was to slay the
chthonicserpent-legged monster
Echidna as she slept in her cave.[7] 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.[8] 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.[9] She charged him to "Tether this cow safely to an olive-tree at
Nemea". Hera knew that the heifer was in reality
Io, one of the many nymphs Zeus was coupling with to establish a new order. To free Io, Zeus had Argus slain by
Hermes. The messenger of the Olympian gods, disguised as a shepherd, first put all of Argus' eyes asleep with spoken charms, then slew him. Some versions say that Hermes used his wand to close Argus' eyes permanently, while other versions say that Hermes simply hurled a stone at Argus. Either way, Argus' death was the first stain of bloodshed among the new generation of gods.[10] After beheading Argus, Hermes acquired the epithet Argeiphontes or “Argus-slayer”.[3]
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.[11] Hera had Argus' hundred eyes preserved forever in a
peacock's tail so as to immortalise her faithful watchman.[12] In another version, Hera transformed the whole of Argus into a peacock.[13][14]
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".[15]
^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.
^Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp.
ISBN978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Argus", p. 11).
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.
ISBN978-2-7053-3987-6.