Eyes over the whole body
Apollodorus comes to Argus Panoptes in the second book of his Bibliotheke, where he traces the family of Inachus. The line runs through an older Argus, a son of Zeus and Niobe, who took the kingdom and called the Peloponnese Argos after himself. That Argus had a son Ecbasus, and Ecbasus had a son Agenor. Agenor’s son is Argus Panoptes, and Apollodorus gives him his name, his body and four deeds in one short passage.
τούτου δὲ Ἄργος ὁ πανόπτης λεγόμενος. εἶχε δὲ οὗτος ὀφθαλμοὺς μὲν ἐν παντὶ τῷ σώματι, ὑπερβάλλων δὲ δυνάμει τὸν μὲν τὴν Ἀρκαδίαν λυμαινόμενον ταῦρον ἀνελὼν τὴν τούτου δορὰν ἠμφιέσατο, Σάτυρον δὲ τοὺς Ἀρκάδας ἀδικοῦντα καὶ ἀφαιρούμενον τὰ βοσκήματα ὑποστὰς ἀπέκτεινε. λέγεται δὲ ὅτι καὶ τὴν Ταρτάρου καὶ Γῆς Ἔχιδναν, ἣ τοὺς παριόντας συνήρπαζεν, ἐπιτηρήσας κοιμωμένην ἀπέκτεινεν. ἐξεδίκησε δὲ καὶ τὸν Ἄπιδος φόνον, τοὺς αἰτίους ἀποκτείνας
“Agenor had a son Argus, the one who is called the All-seeing. He had eyes in the whole of his body, and being exceedingly strong he killed the bull that ravaged Arcadia and clad himself in its hide; and when a satyr wronged the Arcadians and robbed them of their cattle, Argus withstood and killed him. It is said, too, that Echidna, daughter of Tartarus and Earth, who used to carry off passers-by, was caught asleep and slain by Argus. He also avenged the murder of Apis by putting the guilty to death” — Apollodorus, Bibliotheke 2.1.2, tr. J. G. Frazer
The first sentence gives the father and the name together. τούτου δὲ Ἄργος ὁ πανόπτης λεγόμενος: Agenor had a son Argus, the one who is called the All-seeing. The word λεγόμενος, called, marks πανόπτης as a byname, and the byname sets him apart from his great-grandfather, the king. The next clause gives the reason for it. εἶχε δὲ οὗτος ὀφθαλμοὺς μὲν ἐν παντὶ τῷ σώματι: He had eyes in the whole of his body. Apollodorus gives no number.
Strength comes next, ὑπερβάλλων δὲ δυνάμει, being exceedingly strong, and with it the deeds. Argus Panoptes killed τὸν μὲν τὴν Ἀρκαδίαν λυμαινόμενον ταῦρον, the bull that ravaged Arcadia, and τὴν τούτου δορὰν ἠμφιέσατο: he put its hide on himself. Then a satyr wronged the Arcadians and took away their herds, τὰ βοσκήματα, and Argus stood up to him and killed him, ὑποστὰς ἀπέκτεινε. Frazer renders it withstood and killed him.
The third deed comes with a change of voice. λέγεται δὲ ὅτι: It is said, too. Apollodorus reports this one and does not vouch for it. The victim is Echidna, daughter of Tartarus and Earth, ἣ τοὺς παριόντας συνήρπαζεν, who used to carry off passers-by. Argus killed her ἐπιτηρήσας κοιμωμένην. The participle ἐπιτηρήσας says that he watched for his chance, and κοιμωμένην says that she was asleep when it came. Frazer turns the sentence round: she was caught asleep and slain by Argus. Of the four deeds, this is the only one that turns on watching.
The last deed looks back to the section before, where Apis, a son of Phoroneus, made his rule a tyranny and was killed by Thelxion and Telchis. ἐξεδίκησε δὲ καὶ τὸν Ἄπιδος φόνον: Argus avenged that murder, τοὺς αἰτίους ἀποκτείνας, by putting the guilty to death. So the passage gives him a byname, a body and four killings. It does not yet give him a task.
Io’s keeper
The task comes in the next section. Apollodorus first sets out the family of Io, and then he tells how Zeus seduced her while she was a priestess of Hera. Hera found them out, and Zeus turned Io with a touch into a white cow and swore that he had not known her. The cow is where Argus Panoptes comes back into the story.
Ἥρα δὲ αἰτησαμένη παρὰ Διὸς τὴν βοῦν φύλακα αὐτῆς κατέστησεν Ἄργον τὸν πανόπτην, ὃν Φερεκύδης μὲν Ἀρέστορος λέγει, Ἀσκληπιάδης δὲ Ἰνάχου, Κέρκωψ δὲ Ἄργου καὶ Ἰσμήνης τῆς Ἀσωποῦ θυγατρός· Ἀκουσίλαος δὲ γηγενῆ αὐτὸν λέγει. οὗτος ἐκ τῆς ἐλαίας ἐδέσμευεν αὐτὴν ἥτις ἐν τῷ Μυκηναίων ὑπῆρχεν ἄλσει. Διὸς δὲ ἐπιτάξαντος Ἑρμῇ κλέψαι τὴν βοῦν, μηνύσαντος Ἱέρακος, ἐπειδὴ λαθεῖν οὐκ ἠδύνατο, λίθῳ βαλὼν ἀπέκτεινε τὸν Ἄργον, ὅθεν ἀργειφόντης ἐκλήθη
“But Hera requested the cow from Zeus for herself and set Argus the All-seeing to guard it. Pherecydes says that this Argus was a son of Arestor; but Asclepiades says that he was a son of Inachus, and Cercops says that he was a son of Argus and Ismene, daughter of Asopus; but Acusilaus says that he was earth-born. He tethered her to the olive tree which was in the grove of the Mycenaeans. But Zeus ordered Hermes to steal the cow, and as Hermes could not do it secretly because Hierax had blabbed, he killed Argus by the cast of a stone; whence he was called Argiphontes” — Apollodorus, Bibliotheke 2.1.3, tr. J. G. Frazer
Hera asks Zeus for the cow, and she puts a guard over it. φύλακα αὐτῆς κατέστησεν Ἄργον τὸν πανόπτην: she set Argus the All-seeing to guard it. The byname comes back with him, and it is the only thing in this section that recalls his eyes.
Then Apollodorus stops the story to ask whose son this Argus was, and he gives four answers. ὃν Φερεκύδης μὲν Ἀρέστορος λέγει: Pherecydes says that he was a son of Arestor. Ἀσκληπιάδης δὲ Ἰνάχου: Asclepiades says that his father was Inachus. Κέρκωψ δὲ Ἄργου καὶ Ἰσμήνης τῆς Ἀσωποῦ θυγατρός: Cercops gives him two parents, Argus and Ismene, daughter of Asopus. Last, Ἀκουσίλαος δὲ γηγενῆ αὐτὸν λέγει: Acusilaus says that he was earth-born, and so gives him no father at all. None of the four is Agenor, the father in Apollodorus’s own line one section earlier. Apollodorus lists the other answers and does not argue with them. Inachus has a second place in the story too. Apollodorus reports that the annalist Castor and many of the tragedians made Io a daughter of Inachus.
The guard that Apollodorus describes is plain. οὗτος ἐκ τῆς ἐλαίας ἐδέσμευεν αὐτὴν ἥτις ἐν τῷ Μυκηναίων ὑπῆρχεν ἄλσει: He tethered her to the olive tree which was in the grove of the Mycenaeans.
Zeus does not order a killing. Διὸς δὲ ἐπιτάξαντος Ἑρμῇ κλέψαι τὴν βοῦν: he orders Hermes to steal the cow. The theft fails because someone talks. μηνύσαντος Ἱέρακος: Hierax gave the secret away, and Frazer says that he had blabbed. ἐπειδὴ λαθεῖν οὐκ ἠδύνατο: Hermes could not do it secretly. So he kills the guard instead. λίθῳ βαλὼν ἀπέκτεινε τὸν Ἄργον: he killed Argus by the cast of a stone. In this telling the killing is the second plan, after the theft has failed.
The last clause turns the killing into a name. ὅθεν ἀργειφόντης ἐκλήθη: whence he was called Argiphontes. Apollodorus explains a title of Hermes by this story. Hesiod uses the same title in the Works and Days, in the making of Pandora. He calls Hermes διάκτορον Ἀργειφόντην, which Evelyn-White renders the guide, the Slayer of Argus. Hesiod tells no story about the title in that passage.
A hundred eyes round the head
Ovid tells the story in the first book of the Metamorphoses. In Miller’s English, Zeus is Jove and Hera is Juno. Jove at last gives the heifer up to Juno, but she does not put off her suspicion, for she feared Jove and further treachery. So she looks for a keeper, and Ovid’s keeper is Argus Panoptes.
donec Arestoridae servandam tradidit Argo. Centum luminibus cinctum caput Argus habebat: inde suis vicibus capiebant bina quietem, cetera servabant atque in statione manebant. Constiterat quocumque modo, spectabat ad Io: ante oculos Io, quamvis aversus, habebat
“until she had given her over to Argus, the son of Arestor, to keep for her. Now Argus’ head was set about with a hundred eyes, which took their rest in sleep two at a time in turn, while the others watched and remained on guard. In whatsoever way he stood he looked at Io; even when his back was turned he had Io before his eyes” — Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.624–629, tr. F. J. Miller
Ovid names the father in one word, Arestoridae, the son of Arestor. That is the answer of Pherecydes in Apollodorus’s list, and Ovid gives no other.
The next line gives the body, and it does not agree with Apollodorus. Centum luminibus cinctum caput Argus habebat: Argus’ head was set about with a hundred eyes. Apollodorus gave no number and put the eyes ἐν παντὶ τῷ σώματι, over the whole body. Ovid gives a number, centum, a hundred, and he puts all of the eyes round the caput, the head. The two texts do not explain the difference, and this entry does not choose between them.
Ovid also tells how the eyes keep watch. inde suis vicibus capiebant bina quietem: they took their rest in sleep two at a time in turn. cetera servabant atque in statione manebant: the others watched and remained on guard. Argus Panoptes is never wholly asleep, and he is never wholly awake. Because the eyes go all round the head, it does not matter where he faces. ante oculos Io, quamvis aversus, habebat: even when his back was turned he had Io before his eyes.
The lines that follow show the watch at work. By day Argus lets the heifer graze, and at sunset he shuts her up and ties an ignominious halter round her neck. Io comes to the river of her father, Inachus, and the two weep together, but star-eyed Argus drives her away to more distant pastures. Then he sits on a high mountain-top, where he can keep watch on every side.
The sword and Juno’s bird
In Ovid the death of Argus Panoptes is ordered from the sky. Jove, Ovid’s Zeus, can no longer bear the sufferings of Io, so he calls his son whom the shining Pleiad bore, and he bids him do Argus to death. This order, unlike the order in Apollodorus, is an order to kill. Hermes, whom Miller calls Mercury, comes down to earth in the character of a shepherd, with a flock of goats and a reed pipe. Argus, Juno’s guardsman, likes the strange sound and asks the stranger to sit beside him on the rock. Hermes talks and plays to overcome those watchful eyes. Argus fights against sleep. He lets some of his eyes sleep and watches with the others, and he asks how the reed pipe came to be invented. So Hermes begins the story of Syrinx, the nymph whom Pan pursued and who became the marsh reeds of the first pipe. He does not finish it.
Talia dicturus vidit Cyllenius omnes succubuisse oculos adopertaque lumina somno. Supprimit extemplo vocem firmatque soporem languida permulcens medicata lumina virga. Nec mora, falcato nutantem vulnerat ense qua collo est confine caput, saxoque cruentum deicit et maculat praeruptam sanguine rupem. Arge, iaces, quodque in tot lumina lumen habebas, exstinctum est, centumque oculos nox occupat una. Excipit hos volucrisque suae Saturnia pennis collocat et gemmis caudam stellantibus inplet
“When Mercury was going on to tell this story, he saw that all those eyes had yielded and were closed in sleep. Straightway he checks his words, and deepens Argus’ slumber by passing his magic wand over those sleep-faint eyes. And forthwith he smites with his hooked sword the nodding head just where it joins the neck, and sends it bleeding down the rocks, defiling the rugged cliff with blood. Argus, thou liest low; the light which thou hadst within thy many fires is all put out; and one darkness fills thy hundred eyes. Saturnia took these eyes and set them on the feathers of her bird, filling his tail with star-like jewels” — Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.713–723, tr. F. J. Miller
Ovid’s name for Hermes in this line is Cyllenius, and Miller writes Mercury. The first thing that Hermes sees is the failure of the watch. vidit Cyllenius omnes succubuisse oculos: he saw that all those eyes had yielded. The word omnes undoes the rule of the earlier passage. There, two eyes slept at a time and the rest kept guard. Here every eye is closed. Hermes makes the sleep deeper with his wand: languida permulcens medicata lumina virga, passing his magic wand over those sleep-faint eyes.
The death follows at once. falcato nutantem vulnerat ense: he smites with his hooked sword the nodding head. The blow falls qua collo est confine caput, just where it joins the neck, so it takes the head that carried the hundred eyes. Ovid’s weapon is a hooked sword, and the guard is asleep. Apollodorus’s weapon was a thrown stone, and he said nothing of sleep. This entry records both.
Then Ovid speaks to the dead watchman. Arge, iaces: Argus, thou liest low. The light within thy many fires is all put out, and centumque oculos nox occupat una: one darkness fills thy hundred eyes. The number of the first passage comes back in the count of the dead eyes.
The eyes are not lost. Excipit hos volucrisque suae Saturnia pennis collocat: Saturnia took these eyes and set them on the feathers of her bird. Saturnia, daughter of Saturn, is Ovid’s name here for Juno. She fills the bird’s tail with star-like jewels, gemmis caudam stellantibus. Ovid does not name the bird. Readers know it as the peacock, but Ovid writes only volucrisque suae, her bird. In Apollodorus the story moves on without the eyes. Hera next sends a gadfly against the cow, and Io wanders over land and sea until at last she comes to Egypt.