First inhabitant of the Argolid, son of the river Inachus: he gathered the scattered families into a first community — the City of Phoroneus — and by Argive reckoning it was he, not Prometheus, who discovered fire.1
Apollodorus draws his line straight from the world-river: Inachus, son of Ocean and Tethys, had by Melia, daughter of Ocean, two sons — Phoroneus, and Aegialeus. Phoroneus reigned over the whole country afterwards called the Peloponnese, and by the nymph Teledice he had Apis and Niobe: Apis turned his power into a tyranny, named the land Apia after himself, and died leaving no child, while Niobe became the first mortal woman with whom Zeus lay — her son was Argus.2
The Argives whom Pausanias questioned began their human history with him: Phoroneus was the first inhabitant of this land, they said — and his father Inachus was not a man at all, but the river. It was Phoroneus who first gathered the people into a community, for until then they had lived scattered, each family by itself; and the place where they first assembled was named the City of Phoroneus.3
Beside the sanctuary of Apollo Lycius at Argos, Pausanias saw a fire kept burning that they call the fire of Phoroneus — for the Argives do not admit that fire was given to mankind by Prometheus, but insist on assigning the discovery of fire to Phoroneus. Against the famous fennel-stalk theft, Argos kept its own first fire, and kept it lit.4⚖
Hyginus gives him a different mother and a sharper title: Inachus, son of Oceanus, begat Phoroneus by his own sister Argia — no Melia in sight — and Phoroneus 'is said to have been the first of mortals to rule'.5⚖
In Hyginus' catalogues that first kingship is Juno's reward. Phoroneus was the first to make offerings to Juno, and for that Jove gave him the rule of men; he was first, too, to build a temple to Juno at Argos, and first to make arms for her. His name accordingly heads Hyginus' king-list of the Achaeans, before Argus son of Jove and all the line that follows down to the house of Pelops.6
Argos never let go of him. In Pausanias' own day the grave of Phoroneus still stood in the city, and offerings were still being brought to it as to a hero; in the agora they showed the tomb of Cerdo, his wife. Ages after his supposed kingship, the first man of the Argolid was still receiving his due.7
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story