Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Perseus hastened with Danaë and Andromeda to Argos, wishing to see Acrisius. But Acrisius, learning of their approach and still dreading the oracle, left Argos for the Pelasgian land. Teutamides, king of Larissa, was holding funeral games for his dead father; Perseus came to compete. Competing in the pentathlon, he cast the discus (quoit) and struck Acrisius on the foot, killing him at once. Perceiving that the oracle was fulfilled, Perseus buried Acrisius outside the city. Ashamed to return to Argos and claim the inheritance of the man who had died by his hand, he went to Megapenthes son of Proetus at Tiryns and exchanged kingdoms with him: Megapenthes took Argos, and Perseus took Tiryns, afterward fortifying Midea and Mycenae as well. Pausanias’s Argive local notice agrees on the accidental killing at Larisa on the Peneus but colors the motive: Acrisius had retired there on learning that Perseus lived and was winning fame; Perseus sought his maternal grandfather in goodwill, proud of inventing the quoit, and gave displays; Acrisius stepped unnoticed into the discus’s path. Pausanias also records the exchange with Megapenthes and Perseus’s rule from Tiryns with the fortification of Mycenae. Another antiquarian notice places Acrisius’s grave in Athena’s temple on the Larissan acropolis; Apollodorus’s “outside the city” remains the primary burial for this version line. Thus the prophecy of 001 is closed without intentional parricide: the hero who fled fate meets it in the athletic field, then yields Argos and founds his own power in the Argolid’s fortified towns.