PERSEUS (Perseus). The famous Argive hero, was a son of Zeus and Danae, and a grandson of Acrisius (Hom. Il. xiv. 310; Hes. Scut. Herc. 229). Acrisius, who had no male issue, consulted the Pythian oracle, and received the answer, that if Danae should give birth to a son, he would kill his father. Acrisius, accordingly, shut up his daughter in a subterraneous apartment, made of brass or stone (Soph. Ant. 947; Lycoph. 838 ; Horat. Carm. iii. 16). But Zeus having metamorphosed himself into a shower of gold, came down upon her through the roof of the apartment, and became by her the father of Perseus. From this circumstance Perseus is sometimes called chrusopatros or aurigena (Lycoph. 838; Ov. Met. v. 250). When Acrisius discovered that Danaë had given birth to a son, he threw both mother and son into a chest, and put them out to sea; but Zeus caused the chest to land in the island of Seriphos, one of the Cyclades, where Dictys, a fisherman, found them, and carried them to his brother, king Polydectes.