Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Proetus ruled Tiryns (having divided the Argolid with Acrisius). His daughters—Lysippe, Iphinoe, and Iphianassa (names vary)—came of age and offended the gods: either they scorned Dionysus’s rites, or they mocked Hera’s wooden image (xoanon), claiming their father’s wealth made them finer than the goddess. Madness followed. They wandered the Argive land believing themselves cows, or with their skin whitened and itching with disease (a “scabby” affliction in some lyric), lowing and ranging like untamed heifers. Bacchylides stresses Hera’s anger and a cure tied to Artemis’s cult; Apollodorus allows either Hera or Dionysus as the offended deity. Melampus the seer offered to heal them for a third of the kingdom. Proetus refused; the madness spread to the other Argive women, who killed their own children and left their homes. Proetus then promised Melampus the third—and Melampus demanded a second third for his brother Bias. Cornered, Proetus agreed. Melampus, with the strongest young men, chased the women in a revelrous pursuit from Argos to Sicyon; Iphinoe died in the chase in Apollodorus, but the rest were purified with cries, herbs, and rites, and restored. Melampus and Bias received their Argive shares and married Proetids (or related brides). The myth is the Argive template of divine madness cured by a bargained seer: kingdom-fractions paid for restored women, and Melampus’s mantic line planted in the Argolid beside Proetus’s house.