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The Daughters of Cadmus: Ino


The Short Version: Another ancestor of Oedipus is driven to madness, throws herself into the sea, and is transformed into a goddess.



Ino has a briefer turn in the spotlight than her three other sisters, but her fate represents yet another intersection between the divine and the House of Cadmus. Sources on her exact fate vary more wildly than the rest of her generation (with the exception of Polydorus, who tends to exist or not exist depending on the whim of the author), but an extant version (attested to by some Aeschylean fragments, as well as a scanty few from Sophocles himself) gives the following account:


The second birth of the god Dionysus, much like the first, was not without incident. Even after Semele had gone up in smoke, Hera’s jealousy still followed the infant wine-god; he could not be raised on Olympus, it was too risky to have him in her reach. Hermes himself took the child from Zeus and returned right back down to the earth, not to Thebes, but to a nearby Boeotian settlement where Ino’s husband Athamas reigned. Ino took the god-child as her own and agreed to rear him out of Hera’s sight.


As one might imagine, trying to hide anything from a goddess is a difficult task, and Hera found out soon enough. Even more incensed that Zeus would go out of his way to deny her, Hera struck Athamas and Ino with madness, sending them both running wild through the palace. Athamas shot one of their children down, believing him a deer. By varying accounts, Ino either boiled the other in a cauldron or threw herself, child in her arms, into the sea.

There is, however, consensus upon one facet of the story: Ino does not die. Rather, upon hitting the water, she and her son are transformed into sea-gods, worshipped as Leucothea and Palaimon. Leucothea/Ino even has a cameo in the Odyssey, saving Odysseus from Poseidon’s wrath.

-Emma

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