Apollodorus, Library, book 2, chapter 1, section 2
[2]
About him I shall speak again.1 But Argus received the kingdom and called the Peloponnese after himself Argos; and having married Evadne, daughter of Strymon and Neaera, he begat Ecbasus, Piras, Epidaurus, and Criasus,2 who also succeeded to the kingdom.
Ecbasus had a son Agenor, and Agenor had a son Argus, the one who is called the All-seeing. He had eyes in the whole of his body,3 and being exceedingly strong he killed the bull that ravaged Arcadia and clad himself in its hide;4 and when a satyr wronged the Arcadians and robbed them of their cattle, Argus withstood and killed him. It is said, too, that Echidna,5 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.
1 See below, Apollod. 3.8.1.
2 Compare Scholiast on Eur. Or. 932; Hyginus, Fab. 145.
3 As to Argus and his many eyes, compare Aesch. Supp. 303ff.; Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 1116; Ov. Met. 1.625ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 145; Serv. Verg. A. 7.790; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 5ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 18).
4 Compare Dionysius, quoted by the Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 1116, who says merely that Argus was clad in a hide and had eyes all over his body.
5 As to the monster Echidna, half woman, half snake, see Hes. Th. 295ff.
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
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