Myth Monday - Turnus and Io

Or How Did the Peacock Get Its Tail?

Last week's Myth Monday gave the basics on the legends about the founding of Rome. One of the people closely associated with Rome's founding was the hero Aeneas.

Today's installment continues with the topic, tying the Italic people back to Argos, in the Peloponnese.

Aeneas was to found the Roman race through his marriage to Lavinia, but first he had to fight Turnus, prince of the Rutuli. Turnus had been the intended husband of his first cousin Lavinia (intended by her father, Latinus), but then Aeneas arrived in Italy. The Trojan prince appeared to be better suited, so Latinus changed his mind.

Turnus may be the one the Sibyl called another Achilles, in Book VI of the Aeneid, because of the way in which he lost the woman he prized (like Achilles' war prize Briseis) and the fact that his mother was a nymph. Turnus' mother was Venilia, sister of Lavinia's mother, while Achilles' mother was the nymph Thetis. Turnus was also, like Achilles, a Greek (in Vergil; for Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he was Etruscan) whose ancestor was the river god Inachus, the first king of Argos.

• Historians of Ancient Rome
• People in the Aeneid

When Latinus cheated Turnus of his almost-fiance, Juno/Hera couldn't just let Turnus' own salient trait, violentia, take over. Instead she summoned the Fury Alecto to make him burn with rage. Juno had earlier done something similar to another descendant of Inachus, Io.

Io is commonly said to be the daughter of Inachus, but other parents are sometimes given. Timothy Gantz suggests that Io's genealogy may have been simplified to exclude characters whose mythological footprint is virtually nil. Io is said to be a nymph and, according to Apollodorus, a priestess of the Argive Hera ["Argive" because it was in Argos]. When Io attracted the eye of the great philanderer, Juno was nearby. She saw her husband embracing Io. Caught red-handed, Jupiter turned the nymph into a white cow, which Juno requested as a gift for herself. Jupiter couldn't refuse. To prevent her husband from having sexual relations with Io, Juno set a guard named Argos (Argus). Argos is often described as hundred-eyed, although sometimes the number given is smaller.

Jupiter wanted his Io back, so he persuaded Mercury to dispose of Argos. If only Mercury could get Argus to sleep, he would be able to kill him. Mercury was a sleep-conferring god, but the vast number of eyes presented a challenge. In the end, Mercury prevailed, winning the god the title "Argive-slayer".

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Juno was unwilling to waste the hundred eyes of the slain Argos, so she put them into the tail plumage of her favorite bird, the peacock.

As Juno did later to Turnus with Allecto, so Juno sent an appropriate force to goad poor Io. Cow-Io ran about wildly trying to get rid of the pesky gadfly Juno had set upon her. Eventually, Io wound up in Egypt where Jupiter re-transformed her, and impregnated her. Io gave birth to Ephaphos.

The shield Turnus wore into battle against Aeneas bears the story of the metamorphosis of his ancestor Io. His own fate was death at the hand of Aeneas.

Sources

• Gantz, Timothy. Early Greek Myths.
• "The Arms of Turnus: Aeneid 7.783-92," by Stuart G. P. Small. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 90, (1959), pp. 243-252.
• "The Shield of Turnus ('Aeneid' 7.783-92)," by M. R. Gale. Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Oct., 1997), pp. 176-196.
• "Turnus and His Ancestors," by C. J. MacKie. The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 41, No. 1 (1991), pp. 261-265.