Agenor of Argos

Accounts vary by source. In Argive genealogies (house of Phoroneus/Triopas) Agenor appears as a royal descendant who in some versions — described by summaries of Pausanias and local tradition — becomes king of Argos after invading the dominions of his elder brothers. In a different strand preserved in Apollodorus (the Europa passage), a figure named Agenor is a son of Poseidon and Libya who goes to Phoenicia, marries Telephassa, and is father (in that tradition) of Europa, Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix; when Europa disappears he sends out his sons to seek her, setting in motion their dispersal and the founding of peoples and place‑names. Ancient sources do not consistently reconcile these traditions, and it is uncertain whether they reflect one originally single figure or distinct local figures later conflated.

The supplied sources do not provide a consistent physical description or iconography for Agenor. Literary portrayals present him as a human/heroic king and paterfamilias — an Argive dynast or a Phoenician/Libyan patriarch (Apollodorus) — and occasionally as an epic warrior (the Iliad records an Agenor who slew Clonius). Because the attestations are genealogical and narrative, surviving texts emphasize social role and actions rather than bodily attributes or standard visual markers.

No supernatural powers are attributed to Agenor in the provided material; his narrative 'abilities' are political and genealogical. In Argive tradition he exhibits dynastic ambition and capacity for seizure of rule (summarized from Pausanias via modern summaries). In the Apollodoran Europa cycle his authority as paterfamilias precipitates the search for Europa and the subsequent ethnogenic settlements of his children (Phoenix → Phoenicia; Cilix → Cilicia; Cadmus → Thebes in later narratives). Separately, an Agenor in Homeric epic is attested behaving as a capable warrior (he slays Clonius in the Iliad). The sources therefore present him as a human king/hero whose social power structures mythic migrations and foundations rather than as a being with magical faculties.