Mythical Danaides: Daughters Of Danaus Condemned In Hades To Eternal Punishment

A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - There are many crimes in ancient Greek myths. This story is about a terrible crime committed by forty-nine maidens, who were later punished for their horrible wrongdoing.

The maidens were daughters of Danaus, the son of King Belus of Egypt and the twin brother of Aegyptus.

The Danaides (1904), a Pre-Raphaelite interpretation by John William Waterhouse - Art Renewal Center - Public Domain

Driven out of Egypt by his brother, Danaus fled with his 50 daughters (the Danaides) to Argos, where he became king. Soon after that, the 50 sons of Aegyptus also arrived in Argos.

The sons of Aegyptus presented themselves to Danaus' daughters and asked to marry them, and unfortunately, Danaus - having no choice - was forced to consent to their marriage with his daughters.
He knew that Aegyptus had arrived to take over his new kingdom, so he organized a wedding party and decided to preside at the marriage feast.

A mass marriage was arranged, and Danaus paired off the couples. His choice was made in some cases because the bride and bridegroom had mothers of equal rank or their names were similar. Otherwise, in most cases, he drew lots from a helmet.

During the wedding feast, Danaus secretly doled out sharp pins that his daughters were to conceal in their hair; at midnight, each stabbed her husband through the heart.

There was only one survivor; on the goddess Artemis's advice, Hypermnestra saved the life of Lynceus and helped him in his flight to the city of Lyncea, sixty furlongs away. She begged him to light a beacon as a signal that he had reached safety, undertaking to answer it with another beacon from the citadel. Traditionally, the inhabitants of Argos still light annual beacon fires to commemorate this pact.

The Danaïdes kill their husbands, miniature by Robinet Testard. Source . Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF). Cote : Français 874, folio 170v. Public Domain

At dawn, Danaus learned of Hypermnestra's disobedience. He brought her in front of the Argos court and imprisoned her for her betrayal, according to one version of the story. It is also said that she was acquitted from a criminal charge by a verdict of not guilty.

One story says that she and Lynceus came together again and lived happily. They had a son, Abas, the great-grandfather of Perseus, the legendary founder of Mycenae and the Perseid dynasty of Danaans.

Another story says that Aphrodite, the goddess of love, helped Hypermnestra save her from punishment and her husband, Lynceus, the only survivor of the fifty sons of Aegyptus, who later killed Danaus and took revenge for his brothers.

The forty-nine daughters of Danaus who killed their husbands were punished. They were compelled to follow in the lower world as a punishment. At the river's edge, they filled forever jars, full with holes, so that the water poured away, and they must return to fill them again and again.
Their torture would never end.

Sisyphus, an evil ruler who enjoyed killing people and was extremely greedy for wealth, tried to escape his fate. Also, his story shows that he had to pay the price for his evil nature and misbehavior. He could not escape the inevitable, which in this case was death.

Written by – A. Sutherland AncientPages.com Staff Writer

Updated on January 5, 2023

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