Appendix: Texts

Editions and translations of most texts that have been cited such as Herodotos, Apollodoros and Diodoros are easy to find. A few that are more difficult to find or that need a few words of commentary are printed below. The first text (Schol. Eur. 1 This scholion comments on two lines from Euripides's Hecuba: 'Yet was it not women who killed Aigyptos' sons, and did women not completely rid Lemnos of men?' (Eur. 2 Of course, the killing of Aigyptos' sons by Danaos' daughters is a well known story, but this scholion has an unusual version, in which Aigyptos and Danaos are sons of Io, while they are sons of Belos in most sources, and Danaos is a villain who seals his own fate by his evil designs. It is not known in which source this version was found by the scholiast, nor how old it is. Translation 3 τί δ᾿ οὐ γυναῖκες εἷλον Αἰγύπτου τέκνα: Aigyptos and Danaos were brothers, sons of Io, a daughter of Inachos. Aigyptos had fifty sons, while Danaos had fifty daughters. Danaos envied his brother Aigyptos because of his sons and was afraid that through them he would deprive him of his kingship. Therefore he expelled Aigyptos together with his sons to Egypt, and as a result, this country is called Egypt, after him. When some time had passed and his sons had become men, Aigyptos returned to Argos, having faith in their power. Because Danaos was afraid of him and had a premonition about what would happen to him and his kingship, he thought of the following plan against the sons of Aigyptos. He proposed that Aigyptos join his own daughters to his sons in matrimony. When Aigyptos willingly agreed to this, Danaos instructed his daughters to kill their husbands at night before they had slept with them and threatened to kill them if they did not do so. All of them obeyed their