Stricken with guilt for killing a member of his family Perseus arranged to exchange kingdoms with an uncle, giving Argos for Tiryns. As a king he recaptured lost territories and fortified his city. And having settled down with Andromeda, he fathered a number of sons. Through these he became the ancestor of the great Heracles.
Corinth was the location of Bellerophon's family. His grandfather Sisyphus, for informing on Zeus, was sentenced to roll a boulder up a hill forever in the underworld. His father, Glaucus, who fed human flesh to horses to make them savage, was trampled and devoured by those same horses at the will of Aphrodite. And Bellerophon himself had a luckless beginning. He murdered a fellow townsman named Bellerus, and by accident he killed his own brother.
Bellerophon went into exile and arrived at the court of King Proetus. The wife of Proetus fell in love with the handsome young man and attempted to seduce him, but he rejected her advances. To retaliate she told her husband that Bellerophon had tried to rape her. King Proetus did not want to kill a guest, fearing the punishment of Zeus, so he sent Bellerophon to his father-in-law, King Iobates, with instructions that Bellerophon be put to death.
At Iobates' court Bellerophon was well received. After entertaining him as a guest, Iobates asked to see the sealed letter. Upon opening it Iobates was filled with the same consternation that had filled Proetus, for he too could not kill a guest. But as an expedient Iobates decided to send Bellerophon off on dangerous missions that were bound to finish him off.
