The Dutch Tiphys

[...to other] regions, and they also reached Argos. For at that time, Argos excelled all the other states of Greece. The Persians recount that the Phoenicians, having put into port here, displayed their merchandise; and on the fifth or sixth day after their arrival, when almost everything had been sold off, several women came down to the sea, among whom was the king’s daughter. Her name was the same as that handed down by the Greeks: Io, daughter of Inachus Inachus was the mythical founder and first king of Argos.. While these women stood by the ship and were purchasing what they most desired, the Phoenicians, by common consent, made an attack upon them. While most of the women escaped by flight, Io and a few others were seized, and the Phoenicians turned their sails back toward Egypt. Surely, as it was said:

You, O Nile, remained as the final task of that immense labor. original: Vltimus immenso restabas Nile labori. This verse suggests that Egypt and the Nile were the final destination of Io’s long and wearying journey.

Yet, the glory of the art of navigation and the method of ship construction is claimed for himself by the most ancient Prometheus in the works of Aeschylus:

"None other than I invented the sea-wandering, flaxen-winged original Greek: Λινόπτερ' (linoptera), referring to the linen used for sails. chariots of sailors." original Greek: Θαλασσόπλαγκτα δ' οὔτις ἄλλος ἀντ' ἐμοῦ / Λινόπτερ' εὗρε ναυτίλων ὀχήματα. From the play Prometheus Bound by the Greek tragedian Aeschylus.

And truly, those who brought ships to unknown shores, and who—whether by oars or by spread sails—scoured the seas in a vehicle never before seen by the inhabitants until that day, struck the minds of the Barbarians In this context, "Barbarians" refers to non-Greek or non-Phoenician indigenous peoples. with no less awe than the ship Argo struck the mind of that shepherd in the works of Attius Referring to Lucius Accius, an early Roman tragic poet whose work often survives only in fragments.. Having never seen a ship before, he gazed upon the divine and strange vessel of the Argonauts from afar, stunned and terrified. Indeed, such a discovery was so welcome in those times that whoever devised a more convenient or swifter type of vessel, or led an expedition to shores never before reached...