Αγηνωρ
A descendant, through Io and her son Epaphus, of Zeus himself. Epaphus had a daughter, Libya who by Poseidon had twin sons Agenor and Belus (Table 3). While Belus was king of Egypt Agenor settled in Syria and ruled over Tyre or Sidon. He married Telephassa and had by her a daughter Europa and three sons Cadmus, Phoenix and Cilix. When Europa was carried off by Zeus in the likeness of a bull Agenor sent his sons to search for her, with orders not to come back until they had found her, and as one by one the young men regarded their search as being in vain, they founded towns where they set themselves up - in Cilicia, at Thebes and at Thasos in Thrace. Phoenix chose Phoenicia. The traditions about the names of Agenor's sons are not always consistent. Euripides calls them Cilix, Phoenix and Thasos: Pausanias gives the name of Thasos, and Herodotus speaks of Phoenician colonies established in the island of that name, as well as a colony set up in the island of Thera by Cadmus. Diodorus Siculus knew of a colony in Rhodes also set up by Cadmus. There are local legends keeping alive the memory of Phoenician settlements, of whose expansion they are a sign.
Agenor's wife is sometimes said to be Argiope and not Telephassa, or sometimes Antiope her niece, the daughter of Belus.
{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}
Table of Sources:
- Apollod. Bibl. 2, 1, 4; 3, 1
- Ovid. Met. 2, 838; 3, 51; 97; 257
- Hdt. 4, 147; 6, 46ff.; 2, 44
- Serv. on Virgil, Aen. 3, 88
- schol. on Euripides, Phoen. 6
- Paus. 5, 25, 12
- Diod. Sic. 5, 59, 1ff.
- Hyg. Fab. 6; 178; 179