PHINEUS

Son of Agenor, reigning at Salmydessus in Thrace; he possessed the gift of prophecy. He put away his first wife Cleopatra, daughter of Boreas and Orithyia, who had borne him two sons, and married Idaea, daughter of Dardanus. She inducead him by slanders to destroy the sight of the sons whom he had by his first wife. For this Zeus punished him, giving him the choice of death or blindness. He chose never more to see the sun, whereat Hellios, enraged by the slight, sent the Harpies, who stole or defiled his food, so that he suffered perpetual hunger. From this plague he was not delivered till the landing, of the Argonauts, when Calais and Zetes, the brothers of his first wife, drove off the Harpies from him for ever. In gratitude, Phineus, by virtue of his prophetic powers, instructed the Argonauts as to the rest of their route. His brothers-in-law sent the wicked step-mother back to her home, freed their sister and her sons from the dungeon in which they were pining, and set the sons, who recovered their sight, on their father's throne.