Wikipedia
Proetus was a mythical king of Argos and Tiryns. According to one source he was father of Perseus. His father Abas, son of the last surviving Aegyptiad Lynceus and the Danaid Hypermnestra, had ruled over Argos and married Aglaea or Ocalea, who bore him twin sons, Proetus and Acrisius, who quarreled continually ever since they still were in the womb. They carried on with the rivalry into their adult years, inventing shields or bucklers in the process. In one tradition, the conflict was reiterated when Proetus seduced Acrisius' daughter (and his own niece) Danae. Proetus started out as king of Argos, and held the throne for about seventeen years, but Acrisius defeated and exiled him and he fled to King Jobates or Amphianax in Lycia, and married his daughter Antea or Stheneboea. Jobates, thereupon, attempted to restore Proetus to his kingdom by armed force. After the war had gone on for a while the kingdom was divided in two. Acrisius then shared his kingdom with his brother, surrendering to him Tiryns and the eastern half of Argolis, i.e. the Heraeum, Midea and the coast of Argolis.
By his wife Proetus became the father of three daughters (the so-called Proitides) and a son Megapenthes. The daughters' names are Lysippe, Iphinoe, and Iphianassa in the Bibliotheca; Servius calls the last two Hipponoe and Cyrianassa, whereas Aelian only mentions two, Elege and Celaene. When these daughters arrived at the age of maturity, they were stricken with madness, the cause of which is differently stated by different authors; some say that it was a punishment inflicted upon them by Dionysus, because they had despised his worship. Others have assumed the troubles arose by Hera, because they presumed to be more beautiful than the goddess, or perhaps because they had stolen some of the gold off her statue. In this state of madness they wandered through Peloponnesus. Melampus promised to cure them, if Proetus would give him one third of his kingdom. As Proetus refused to accept these terms, the madness of his daughters not only increased, but was communicated to the other Argive women also, so that they murdered their own children and ran about in a state of frenzy. Proetus then declared himself willing to listen to the proposal of Melampus; but the latter now also demanded for his brother Bias an equal share of the kingdom of Argos. Proetus consented and Melampus, having chosen the most robust among the young men, gave chase to the mad women, amid shouting and dancing, and drove them as far as Sicyon. During this pursuit, Iphinoe, one of the daughters of Proetus, died, but the two others were cured by Melampus by means of purifications, and were then married to Melampus and Bias. There was a tradition that Proetus had founded a sanctuary of Hera, between Sicyon and Titane, and one of Apollo at Sicyon. The place where the cure was effected upon his daughters is not the same in all traditions, some mentioning the well Anigros, others the well Cleitor in Arcadia, or Lusi in Arcadia. Some even state that the Proetides were cured by Asclepius or that they were cured in the Cave of the Lakes.
In one account, Proetus had yet another daughter, Nyctaea, who fled from her own father's attempts of violation and was changed by Athena into an owl; her story is a variant for that of Nyctimene.
When Bellerophon came to Proetus to be purified of a murder which he had committed, the wife of Proetus fell in love with him, and invited him to come to her: but, as Bellerophon refused to comply with her desire, she charged him before Proetus with having made improper proposals to her. Proetus then sent Bellerophon to Iobates in Lycia, with a letter in which Iobates was desired to murder Bellerophon. Iobates challenged Bellerophon to several seemingly impossible tasks which Bellerophon did complete.
According to Ovid, Proetus ended up changed into stone by Perseus, the grandson of Acrisius (who had eventually got expelled by Proetus), upon being made by him to see the head of Medusa. Later Proetus' son, Megapenthes, exchanged kingdoms with Perseus.
Usage examples of "proetus".
Amazon between our trysts, and breaks off the affair when she finds herself pregnant, but reinstitutes it some years later, I forget why, but breaks it off finally when she and Proetus go vacationing in Italy, et cetera, I forget.
Who it turns out is like as not to kill Proetus and Acrisius both and take over the country.
King Proetus was the delivery to your late father-in-law of a diplomatic message in epistolary form.
When he rejected her advances, she accused him of having tried to seduce her, and Proetus, who believed the story, grew incensed.
I was doing a kind of purificatory labor for King Proetus, perhaps unnecessary, but a good trial run in any case for whatever true labors lay ahead.
I smiled, thought better of Proetus, affirmed my willingness to attempt whatever Iobates wished.
King Proetus himself, all gazed in our direction, frozen in postures of attack or alarm.
Poor Proetus had ignored my counsel and been petrified for posterity half off his throne, wiping his mouth with a stone napkin and spilling alabaster wine from his granite glass.
Acrisius, he wages war on his granduncle, Proetus, who drove Acrisius away by force of arms and seized his citadel.
But neither arms nor the citadel that he had wrongly seized allowed Proetus to prevail against the fierce gaze of the serpent-bearing monster.
Venus is awful when despised, as the daughters of Proetus found: but her handmaids are the Graces, not the Furies.
Their names were Acrisius and Proetus, and they lived in the pleasant vale of Argos, far away in Hellas.
Acrisius took Argos and one half the land, and Proetus took Tiryns and the other half.
And Proetus and his Cyclopes built around Tiryns great walls of unhewn stone, which are standing to this day.
Melampus the seer cures the madness of the Argive women and receives one third of Proetus kingdom and his brother Bias another third.