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Io (mythology)


Io (/ˈ./; Ancient Greek: Ἰώ [iːɔ̌ː]) was, in Greek mythology, one of the mortal lovers of Zeus. She was an ancestor of many kings and heroes such as: Perseus, Cadmus, Heracles, Minos, Lynceus, Cepheus, and Danaus. The astronomer Simon Marius conceived a name for one of Jupiter's moons after Io in 1614, coming into use later.

In most versions of the legend, Io was the daughter of Inachus, though various other purported genealogies are also known. According to some sources her mother was the nymph Melia, daughter of the Oceanus. The 2nd century AD geographer Pausanias also suggests that she is the daughter of Inachus and retells the story of Zeus falling in love with Io, the legendary wrath of Hera, and the metamorphosis by which Io is becoming a cow. At another instant several generations later, Pausanias recounts another , descendant of Phoroneus, daughter of Iasus, who himself was the son of Argus and Ismene, the daughter of Asopus, or of Triopas and Sosis; Io's mother in the latter case was Leucane. Io's father was called Peiren in the Catalogue of Women, and by Acusilaus, possibly a son of the elder Argus, also known as Peiras, Peiranthus or Peirasus. Io may therefore be identical to Callithyia, daughter of Peiranthus, as is suggested by Hesychius of Alexandria.


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