Perseus and his Children

Acrisius (Acrisios, Ἀκρίσιοσ) consulted the oracle from Delphi about having a son; instead the oracle warned him that his grandson would kill him one day.

Acrisius tried to avoid the fulfilment of the oracle by first imprisoning his daughter Danaë (Danae, Δανάη) in a tower. This may have kept mortal men away from his daughter, but Acrisius never took account that a god might be interested. Zeus lay with her in a form of golden rain falling from heaven. (A different version says that it was Acrisius' brother Proëtus (Proitos) who seduced Danaë, therefore Perseus (Περσεύς) would be the son of Proëtus, Acrisius' main rival.)

Later, finding out that Danaë had given birth to a son, the king locked Danaë and his grandson Perseus in a chest and threw the chest into the sea.

When Acrisius' grandson Perseus grew to manhood and returned to Argos with his mother and wife, Acrisius fled to Thessaly. During a funeral game held by King Teutamides of Larisa for his father, Acrisius was accidentally killed by a discus thrown by Perseus, who had participated in the funeral games.

Feeling ashamed for killing his grandfather, Perseus decided to trade his throne in Argos for Tiryns with either his great uncle Proëtus (Proetus) or with Proëtus' son, Megapenthes.

See Perseus for the full story of his adventure.

Later, Perseus founded a new city in Argolis and called it Mycenae. According to Pausanias, Perseus was terribly thirsty, seeking water on the hill. On the hill, he pulled a mushroom called mykes out of the ground, and water miraculously gushed from the ground.

However, Pausanias also recalled a different tradition that was found in the Great Eoiae, where the city was named after Mycene, daughter of the river god Inachus and wife of Arestor. Apollodorus didn't say that Perseus founded the city, but he did fortify Mycenae with walls.

Mycenae seemed to have grown even more powerful than Tiryns, even surpassing Argos. It was rather confusing about the two kingdoms, since Argos was frequently used interchangeably with Mycenae. The three great Athenian tragedians often wrote that Agamemnon was a king of Argos, instead of Mycenae.