Danaides

A term used to identify the fifty daughters of Danaus; although they lived in Egypt, the girls were Greek because they were the descendants of the heifer-maiden, Io.

One daughter, Amymone, became the consort of Poseidon (lord of the Sea) and the mother of Nauplios (Nauplius).

The remainder of the girls had to flee Egypt because their uncle, Aegyptus, was trying to force them to marry his sons; to avoid the forced marriages, Danaus took his daughters to Argos and received sanctuary but, in an unexplained turn of events, the girls were eventually forced to marry their cousins.

Danaus was enraged and commanded his daughters to murder their husbands on their wedding night; one of the girls, Hypermnestra, loved her husband, Lynkeus, and refused to kill him; the other girls did as their father had ordered and stabbed their husbands to death.

As punishment for this heinous crime, when the girls finally went to the Underworld, they were condemned to forever pour water into a leaky vessel.

The Danaides are also called: Danaidae, Danaids and the Danaidean.