THE HISTORY
OF THE ARGONAUTS
AND THE CONQUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE
abbé Antoine Banier
1711/1740
The French clergyman abbé ANTOINE BANIER (1673-1741) wrote a handbook of Greek myth that served as the standard scholarly interpretation until the middle of the nineteenth century. Banier’s book underlay (often unacknowledged) the mythological sections of Diderot’s famed Encyclopédie. His Mythologie et la fable expliqués par l’histoire (first published in 1711; final revised edition 1738-1740) is known in English as The Mythology and Fables of the Ancients, Explained from History. Banier’s work carefully collects the conflicting opinions of ancient authors and then offers Banier's own rationalizations of myth, appealing to supposed facts which underlay the fantasy of myth. The following chapters make up the first part of Book III, in vol. IV of Banier's four-volume work, as translated into English for the London edition of 1740, inconsistent and variable spelling included.
The History of the Argonauts, and of the Conquest of the Golden Fleece.
The antient History of Greece sets before us. few Subjects so celebrated as the Conquest of the Golden Fleece by the Argonauts; but at the same Time there is none that abounds more in Fictions.
'Tis however connected with the antient History of Greece, and cannot be detached from it without overthrowing almost all the Genealogies of those Times; being fully laid open, it serves to give great Light to the Antiquities of the heroic Age, in fine, there are few antient Authors but speak of it; and I was of Opinion, that by drawing together what is dispersed in their Works, I might contribute in some Measure to clear up the History of an Age, the Study whereof is attended with considerable Difficulty.
Tho' we have now neither the Poem of the true Orpheus, nor that of Epimenides of Crete, who, according to Diogenes Laertius, wrote a Poem upon this Expedition towards the Forty seventh Olympiad, about 600 Years before the Christian Æra, consisting of Six thousand fix hundred Verses; nor yet the Work of Varro, who, as we learn from Probus in his Commentary upon Virgil's Georgics, left four Books upon the fame Subject; nor lastly, the other Poets, who, according to Lylio Gyraldi, Dial. 4. had wrote upon this Expedition; yet we are not quite destitute of Helps. Among the Historians, Diodorus Siculus, Apollodorus, Strabo, Trogus Pompeius, not to mention others, are those who have wrote upon it at greatest Length. I name not here Herodotus, because he says only a Word of it by the By; but indirect Proofs taken from that fame Author, will be of great Service to me as I go along.
We have still three Poems upon this Expedition; that of Onomacritus, which goes under Orpheus s Name, and which was composed in the Time of Pisistratus, towards the Fifty fifth Olympiad, about 550 Years before the Christian Æra; that of Apollonius Rhodius, who lived about the Time of the first Ptolomys, and that of Valerius Flaccus, who wrote it under the Reign of Vespasian, and whose Work being imperfect, ends about the Middle of the eighth Book.
The Bulk of the other Poets make frequent Allusions to this Conquest; Pindar especially speaks of it very particularly in his fourth Olympic, and in his third Istmic. Homer indeed says of it but little, but that fame little enables us to form a just Idea of it. 'Tis in the twelfth Book of the Odyssey, where Circe foretelling to Ulysses the Dangers he should undergo by Sea, mentions to him the floating Rocks which she represents to be' in the Straits between Sicily and Italy, tho' they are in Reality at the Mouth of the Euxine Sea, and where she adds, the Ship Argo passed. “There never was, says Circe, but one Ship that got clear of those devouring Eddies, namely, the celebrated Ship Argo, which returned that Way from Colchis where King Æetes reigned, with the Flower of the Grecian Heroes; and they too had been infallibly dashed against the Rocks by the impetuous Waves, had not Juno herself been their Pilote, and guided them safely through, because she loved and protected Jason."
These are the Sources whence I have drawn the History of the Argonautic Expedition, not neglecting however those of the Moderns, who have explained some Circumstances of it, as Bochart and M. le Clerc; and 'tis also from the same Sources we must derive the true Idea of this Event, which certainly is neither a grand Mystery, as some Philosophers imagined, nor a mere Voyage of Greek Merchants who undertook to traffic upon the eastern Coasts of the Euxine Sea, as M. le Clerc alledges, who has however, by the Lights he has got from the learned Bochart, very happily explained some Adventures in this Expedition; far less is it the History of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah, of Moses and Joshua, as was undertaken to be proved not long ago by an Author (a), who, upon the System of F. Thomassin, Huetius, and some other Authors of the last Age, is for reducing most of the antient Fables to holy Writ, ill interpreted by the Pagans, and particularly the History now in debate to Abraham's Peregrinations; as if there 'were the smallest Degree of Resemblance between the various Transmigrations of that Patriarch, who traversed Syria and the neighbouring Provinces, and came at last into Egypt still by Land, and the maritime Expedition of the Argonauts. By pursuing such Ideas, what may we not compare?
Eustathius, of all the Antients, is the one perhaps who gives us the justest Conception of it, when he lays this Voyage Was a military Expedition, which besides the Purpose of the Golden Fleece, or, to speak more accurately, the Recovery of the Effects which Phryxus had carried to Colchis, was also undertaken from other Motives; as that of trafficking upon the Coasts of the Euxine Sea, and of settling there some Colonies, for the Security of their Commerce. For that End several Ships and a considerable Number of Men were necessary; and they had both, as appears from the Settlements made by the two Squires of Castor and Pellux, whereof the one was called the Colony of the Tyndarides, the other that of the Heniochians. Some of those Vessels deserted the Ship Argo, which was as it were the Admiral to that small Fleet; others of them were separated by the Winds; but the Poets, continues this learned Author, speak only of one Ship, and name none but the Leaders in this Expedition.
That I may fully lay open an Event wherein all Greece was so much concerned, I shall trace the Matter from its Original.
The Causes of the Expedition.
Athamas, the Son of Eolus, the Grandson of Hellen, and Great-grandson of Deucalion, was King of Thebes in Beotia, or only of Orchomenos, according to Pausanias. This Prince had two Wives; Ino, the Daughter of Cadmus, whom he divorced some Time after to marry Nephele, by whom he had Phryxus and Helle; this is the Name which Sophocles gives to Athamas's second Wife, whom Pindar calls Demotice; and Pherecides, Themisto. As she was subject to certain Fits of Madness, he was very soon disgusted at her, and took back Ino, who bore him two Sons, Learchus and Melicerta. Ino, who then gained greatly the Ascendant over her Husband, had a mortal Aversion to the Children of her Rival, who, being the eldest, were to succeed their Father, to the Exclusion of hers, so that she sought all Means to destroy them. To accomplish her Purpose the more effectually, she had Recourse to Religion. The City Thebes was laid waste by a cruel Famine, whereof she herself is reckoned to have been the Cause, having poisoned the Grain that was sown the preceding Year; or, if we may believe Hyginus, having steeped it in boiling Water to burn the Bud. It was usual in public Calamities to have Recourse to Oracles; the Priests were gained by the Queen, and their Response was, that in order to put a Stop to the Desolation, Nephele's Children must be sacrificed to the Gods. These barbarous Sacrifices were not unknown in a Country where Cadmus had introduced the religious Worship of the Phenicians, who offered the like Sacrifices to Moloch with vast Solemnity.
Phryxus, apprized of Ino's Design by his Governor, if we may believe Diodorus Siculus, or by one of the Priests of the Oracle, who, according to Herodotus, made him the Discovery, fitted out a Ship secretly; and having carried off a Part of his Father's Treasures, imbarked with his Sister Helle to seek a secure Retreat at the Court of Æetes his Kinsman, who reigned in Colchis. The young Helle, oppressed with the Hardships of the Voyage, died by the Way, or, as we learn from Diodorus, having got up to the Ship's Deck, fell into the Sea, and was drowned. She is thought to have derived her Name to that Part of the Archipelago, which from that Adventure has been called the Hellespont, or the Sea of Helle. As they were then at no great Distance from the Coast, Pbryxus landed there to bury his Sister, and after performing her Funeral Obsequies, he re-imbarked, and arrived happily in Colchis, where Æetes gave him a kind Reception, and some Time after bestowed upon him his Daughter Calciope in Marriage.
Pindar assigns another Motive for Ino's Persecutions. This Princess, fays he, was in love with Phryxus, but finding him insensible to her Passion, she formed a Resolution to destroy him. Be that as it will, Phryxus's first Care after his Arrival was to thank the Gods for the happy Success of his Voyage, and he consecrated the Prow of his Ship either to Neptune, or Mars, or, if we rely on the old Scholiast on Pindar, to Jupiter Phryxius, or The Preserver. To embellish this Piece of History, we are told, that a Ram with a golden Fleece, that had Wings, and was even endowed with the Faculty of Speech, had forewarned Phryxus and Helle of the bad Designs of their Mother-in-law; or, according to another Tradition, that seeing them near the Altar upon which they were to be sacrificed, the Animal had taken them upon its Back, and carried them off; that Phryxus, upon his Arrival in Colchis, had sacrificed this Ram to Jupiter, and consecrated the Skin of the Animal in his Temple; and that it was this precious Fleece, so much coveted by the Greeks, that gave Occasion afterwards to the Expedition of the Argonauts. The Poets went even so far as to give the Genealogy of this Ram, and fabled that he was the Son of Neptune and Theophane, whom that God, the better to conceal his Intrigue, had transformed into a Sheep, having metamorphosed himself into a Ram.
By way of Explanation of Circumstances so manifestly absurd, the antient Mythologists invented a new Fable, and said the Governor of Phryxus was named Crios, the Ram, or Chrysomallus, the Golden Fleece: But I believe we had better say simply with Diodorus Siculus, Eusebius, and the antient Scholiast on Apollonius, that the Ship on which Phryxus went aboard was named the Ram, or the Golden Fleece, because it bore the Representation thereof. I add, that this Ship being very light, had flown, as I may say, from Greece to Colchis, and that Phryxus, according to the Custom of those Times had consecrated the Prow of it to one of the Gods whom I have named. ’Tis even easy to see from this Explanation, in what Sense it might have been said that the Ram and the Golden Fleece was the Son of Neptune, because the Ram represented the Ship which carried Phryxus and Helle, and every good Ship might be considered as the Son, or rather the Work of the God of the Sea.
Apollonius Rhodius adds to the Fable now explained, that it was Nephele herself, by assuming the Form of a Cloud, had concealed her two Children when ready to be sacrificed, and mounted them upon the Back of the Ram with the Golden Fleece; but 'tis easy to see that this Fiction is founded only upon the Name of this Princess, which in Greek signifies a Cloud.
The first Years of the Marriage of Phryxus and Calciope were very happy, and he had by her four Sons, Argos, Pbrontis, Melas, and Cylindus; but Æeies, who coveted the Treasures of his Son-in-law, put him to Death; and Calciope, to save her Children from the bloody Hands of their Grandfather, who undoubtedly would not have spared them, put them secredy a Shipboard to transport them into Greece; hoping that Ino, of whose Death me had got Intelligence, being no more in the Way to persecute, them, Athamas would give them a favourable Reception; but they were shipwrecked in an Isle, where, according to Diodorus Siculus, they waited the Arrival of Jason, who carried them back to Colchis, and delivered them to their Mother, who, the same Historian adds, in Gratitude for so important a Service, used all possible Means to promote the Success of that Prince's Passion for Medea her Sister, as I shall have Occasion afterwards to observe.
During that Time, Pelias the Relation of Athamas by Eolus, from whom they were both descended, governed a Part of Thessaly. This Prince had usurped the Crown from Eson, to whom it of Right belonged, and a long Series of Tyranny rendered him the Object of his People's Horror and Dislike (2). For the better Understanding of this History, we are to know that Tyro, the Daughter of the celebrated Salmoneus (3), having gained Neptune's good Graces, that is to say, one of his Priests, had by him Neleus and Pelias; but as these Sorts of Gallantries did not then mar a Lady's Fortune, she was afterwards married to Cretheus, of the Race of the Eolides, and had by him three Sons, Efon, Pheres, and Amithaon. Cretheus built in Thessaly the City Mars, which he made the Capital of his Dominions, and at his Death left the Crown to Eson the eldest, leaving other Settlements to Pheres the Father of Admetus, and to Amithaon, without any Regard to Pelias, who was none of his. He however, after the Death of Cretheus, became very powerful, and dethroned Eson, reducing him to a private Station, tho' he durst not banish him from Iolcos. In the mean time, to secure the Crown, he no sooner heard that Alcimede the Wife of Eson, was delivered of a Son, than he sought all Means to destroy him, because the Oracle whom he had consulted after his Usurpation had foretold him that he was to be dethroned by a Prince of the Race of the Eolides. Eson and Alcimede, discovering the Tyrant's cruel Purpose, gave out that the young Diomedes, this was Jason's first Name, was dangerously sick, and in a few Days after spread the News of his Death. His Funerals were even prepared with great Solemnity; but instead of his Interment, his Mother secretly conveyed him to Mount Pelion, where Chiron, the wisest and most ingenious Man of his Time, took Care of his Education. Other Authors say Pelias never knew that Eson had a Son till he was pretty well grown up, and that he had shipp'd him off in an old Weather-beaten Vessel, in hopes he would perish ; but that having been happily preserved, Chiron concealed him in his Cave.
This young Prince, about the Age of twenty Years, went to consult the Oracle, who ordered him to dress himself after the Manner of the Magnesians, superadding to that Habit a Leopard's Skin, like that which Chiron wore, to arm himself with two Lances, and to go in that Equipage to the Court of Iolcos, all which he punctually put in Execution.
In going from Mount Pelion to that City, he had to pals the Anaurus, a River unknown to the Geographers, but which is so called by Apollodorus Rhodius [sic]and Lucan. This River, or rather Brook (b) having then overflowed its Banks, Jason fortuned to meet Juno in the Form of an old Woman, who offered to carry him over upon her Shoulders. In the Passage the young Prince drop'd one of his Shoes. Dicdorus Siculus, who relates this Circumstance, fays the Oracle which foretold Pelias that he was to be dethroned by a Prince of the Race of the Eolides, had added, that he was to beware of a Man who should appear before him with one Foot bare, the other shod. Jason making his public Appearance in Iolcos, in the Equipage which the Oracle had prescribed to him, drew the Attention of the whole City. They were astonished to see so handsome a Youth, in so extraordinary a Habit. Pelias hearing of the Arrival of this Stranger, went himself to the Place where he was; and observing that he had but one Shoe, made no doubt but he was the Person with whom the Oracle had threatened him. However, he dissembled his Surprize, and demanded of the Stranger who he was. Jason, without being apprehensive of the Danger there was in declaring the Truth, told him briskly that he was the Son of Eson, and recounted to him in what Manner he had been educated in Chiron’sCave: Then addressing himself to the chief of the Assembly, asked them where his Father dwelt, was conducted to his House, there received as his Son, while the Tyrant, who had the Mortification to see how much the People interested themselves in the Prince, durst make no Attempt against him.
Pheres, who reigned in a Part of Thessaly, hearing of his Nephew's Arrival, came to Iolcos, accompanied with his Son Admetus, and sent for Neleus and Amithaon who were settled in Messenia. When the three Brothers were met, they spent five Days in rejoicing; On the sixth in the Morning Jason had an Interview with his Father and his Uncles, and they consulted together how to dethrone Pelias. After several Overtures, it was agreed that they should go all to his Palace; and upon their Arrival, Jason addressed his Uncle in a bold courageous Manner, demanded of him the Crown which he had usurped, reproached him with his unjust Procedure, and exhorted him amicably to compromise the Matter; assuring him, that far from coveting his Possessions, however unjustly taken from him, all he demanded was the Crown, and that he consented to leave him all the Wealth he had acquired by it.
Peleas was old, and hated by his People: so bold a Speech struck him to the Heart, and he made no doubt but his Subjects, charmed with Jason's fine Address, would support him with all their Might. Perhaps too he might apprehend, for Tyranny is always timorous, that there was already a Party formed against thus, without daring openly to refuse so reasonable a Proposal, he sought to evade it.
Jason was then in that Time of Life when the Love of Glory is the darling Passion; and Pelias being persuaded that he might remove him from Iolcos by setting before him an Opportunity of gratifying his Ambition, told him that the unfortunate Phryxus, their common Relation, descended with them from Eolus, had been assassinated in Colchis, and that his Ghost had appeared to him, charging him to revenge his Death, and to save his Children who were every Day exposed to the insatiable Avarice of the Tyrant, who detained them at his Court. He added, that he was very ready toresign to him a Crown to which he had a legal Title; but that as a Duty of Religion bound him to the Expedition to Colchis, which he was not in a Condition to undertake himself, he hoped he would not refuse to discharge it for him, and give Satisfaction to the injured Manes of a Relation who called aloud for Revenge. To make Jason relish this Proposal the better, and the more to inflame his Ardour to undertake the Expedition, he told him that Phryxus, when he was obliged to abandon Thebes, had carried with him a Fleece of great Value, the Conquest whereof would enrich him, and at the same Time crown him with immortal Glory. Disturbed, as I have been, says Pelias, with frightful Dreams, I sent to consult the Oracle of Apollo, who made Answer, that it was absolutely necessary to appease the Manes of Phryxus, and to bring them back to Greece; but my Tears make so long a Voyage impossible for me. You who are in the Flower of Youth, are in a Condition to undertake it, your Duty engages you to it, Glory calls and invites you; thereby you shall fulfil an Obligation which I am not able to discharge, and I swear by the Almighty Jove, from whom you and I derive our Original, that you shall no sooner be returned, than I will establish you in the Possession of the Throne that belongs to you.
This Proposal was highly grateful to Jason, who having withdrawn to confer with his Father and Uncles, they resolved unanimously to publish their Design through all Greece, to invite the Youth to join with him in so glorious and advantageous an Expedition.
While the Choice of the Grecian Youth were assembling in Thessaly to accompany Jason, a Ship was ordered to be got ready proper for so long a Voyage; this is the famous Argo, of which so many Fables have been uttered. As no Body has explained them better than Bochart, from him I shall partly borrow what I am to say on this Article, after I have delivered what the Antients themselves say of it.
In the first Place there are four Opinions concerning the Name Argo, which was given to this Ship. Apollonius, Diodorus Siculus, Ptolomeus Ephestion in Photius, Servius, and some others, will have it to have been derived from Argus, who proposed the Plan of it; and then they vary too a good deal with respect to this Argus, who certainly cannot be the Argus whom Juno employed as a Guard to lo, whose Time preceded that of the Argonauts by eight or nine Generations, for which I refer to Meziriac, who has very justly remarked, that in Apollonius Rhodius, we must read, Argus the Son of Alector, instead of Son of Arestor, who is the Father of the antient Argus. Alector, a Thespian by Birth, lived in the Time of the Argonauts, and most of the Antients agree, that it was his Son built the Ship Argo, and took Care of it during the whole Voyage: For we ought to reject the Opinion of Ptolomy Ephestion, who said, as we are told by Photius, that Hercules himself had built that Ship, and had given it the Name of Argo, from the Name of a Son of Jason, whom he loved, since we learn from Pindar, and most Authors, that Jason himself was but eight and twenty Years of Age, when he undertook this Expedition.
The second Opinion is that of Diodorus Siculus, Servius, and the Scholiast upon Euripides, who alledge, that the Name of Argo, was given to that Vessel upon Account of its Swiftness, the Word argos, signifying Swift.
According to the third Opinion, which is that of Tzetzes, it was so called because it was built at Argos, or rather because it was made upon the Model of that of Danaus King of Argos, which Germanicus, in his Commentary upon Aratus, alledges to have been named Argo. Lastly, Cicero quotes two Verses, intimating, that this Ship was named Argo, merely because it carried the Greeks, Argivos.
Argo, quia Achivi in ea delecti viri
Vecti, petebant pellem inauratam arietis.
These Verses are from Ennius who translated the Medea of Euripides; though Euripides says no such Thing.
The same Antients vary no less about the Quality of the Wood that was used in the Construction of this Ship: I shall not enter here into any Detail, only observe that according to Euripides in his Medea, and almost all the Antients, it was built of the Wood of Mount Pelion, whence it had the Epithet given it of Pelias, and in Latin, Peliaca; and that it was built in a Place of Magnesia, which from that Time was stiled Pegase, from the Word Pegnumi, signifying among other Things to build. The learned Scholiast on Apollonius says so expresly: Pegase is a Cape of Magnesia, so called from the Ship Argos having been built there. In that Place there was a Temple of Apollo; hence that God, in Hesiod, has the Name of Pegasian given him. There it was also that the Argonauts imbarked, and the particular Spot ot Ground where this Imbarkation was made, from that Time gat the Name of Aphetae, as is positively asserted by Strabo (7), and Stephanus, who cites for this Opinion Hellanicus.
One Thing not to be omitted is, that in the Construction of this Ship an Oak of the Forest of Dodona was imployed, which was put in the Prow, and hence undoubtedly cams the Tradition, importing that the Ship Argo delivered Oracles, and gave Responses to those who consulted it, as may be seen in Apollodorus, in Apollonius, Lycophron, &c. whence it has the Epithet given it of Loquax and Sacra. Valerius Flaccus places this Oak upon the Stern, and Appollonius Rhodius says it served for a Mast.
As for the Form of this Ship, ’tis certain from all the Antients, whose Authorities need not be quoted here, that it was long, and nearly of the Figure of our Galleys, whereas those which the Greeks used before were round; which makes Pliny say, Longa nave Jasonem primum navigasse, Philo Stephanus autor est. Where it is to be remarked by the by, that by long Ships the Greeks understood Ships of War, and by the round those which served for Merchants. 'Tis according to this Idea that the Scholiast on Aristophanes explains these Words naus nachras, long Ship, by naus polemias, Ships of War: And this single Remark demolishes the Opinion of M. le Clerc, who will have the Expedition of the Argonauts to have been only an Enterprize of Merchants, as has been already said at the Beginning of this Chapter. There was even, according to Clidimus cited by Plutarch, a general Law for all Greece, forbidding Merchants to set sail with a Ship containing more than a hundred Persons.
I promised after delivering the Opinions of the Antients about the Ship Argo, to give Bocharl's Sentiments of it, and I shall now fulfil that Promise. The Greeks, says this Author, had learned the Art of Navigation from the Phoenicians, whom Cadmus brought into their Country. The Phœnicians made Use of two Sorts of Ships; the one round, which they called Gaulis, and the other long, which were denominated Arco; whence the Greeks by changing the c into g, as of Cneius and Caius they made Gneitis and Gaius, instead of Arco pronounced and wrote Argo. Appollonius fays, this Galley consisted of fifty Oars, and calls it, pentochonteron naus; thus, continues our learned Author, we may Conjecture that it had twenty-five Oars on each Side, and fifty Cubits in Length. If we rely on Theocritus, who mentions it on Occasion of the young Hylas, it was even ten Cubits more in Length, having, according to him, thirty Oars on each Side. Consequently, he concludes, it was neither from its Lightness nor Swiftness, as the Antients imagined, nor because it was built by Argus, whoever he was, nor because it carried the Greeks or Argives, that this Galley was named Argo; but on Account of its long Figure.
The Number of the Argonauts
The Antients are not agreed as to the Number of those who imbarked with Jason; but the most common Opinion is that they were fifty two. First of all they considered who should be the Leader in this Enterprize, and though Hercules, both by his Character and Exploits, might have disputed it with any, he was however content to yield the Honour thereof to Jason, as the one whom this Expedition more nearly concerned, being a near Kinsman of Phryxus; besides that Pelias had invested him with the Commission. Next they nominated the Pilot of the Ship, and this Trust was vested in Typbis, who was accounted a Son of Neptune, that is, he was a good Sea-Man. As most of the other Argonauts were celebrated Princes in that Time, I ought as I name them, to give their Characters in a few Words, reserving the latter Part of this Book for a more particular Account of those who distinguished themselves not only in this but alfa in other Expeditions wherein they were concerned.
Jason, as Chief, claims the first Place in this Catalogue; but what I have already said, and what I shall be obliged to say of him afterwards, will make him sufficiently known. What I am to say of Hercules, whom I name immediately after Jason, will only turn upon what relates to this Enterprize, wherein some Antients even pretend that he had no Part. All the rest however agree that he embarked with the Argonauts: Some alledging too that he was at first nominated their Chief, and that Jason did not become so till after Hercules had been left in Troas where he landed to go in quest of Hylas, as I give Account in the Life of Hercules. There are even Authors who will have it that this Heroe did not go the Length of Asia, but debarked upon the Coasts of Thessaly, in the Gulph of Magnesia, where the Argonauts stopped to take in fresh Water, and that this Place was from that Time called, Aphetes, or the Place of Dereliction; others, on the contrary, that it was in that very Gulph the Argonauts imbarked, and that Apbetes signifies, the Place of Departure.
If Hercules went not as far as the Coasts of Asia, it was upon another Occasion that he took the City Troy, and perhaps, as M. Freret observes in a Dissertation of his printed in our Memoirs upon his Return from Lydia: But what makes against this Opinion, in the Trojan Expedition, this Heroe was accompanied with Telamon, on whom he bestowed Hesione in Marriage, and it will not be easy to account for it how that Prince could then be upon the Coasts of Phrygia.
Theseus, according to Plutarch, also embarked for this Expedition, but this Article is likewise liable to great Difficulty, as I have remarked in speaking of that Prince.
Acastus, the Son of Pelias and Anaxibiai was of the Number of these Chieftains. He was Cousin-German to Jason, and known by the Antients as a celebrated Hunter, very expert at handling the Bow, as Ovid remarks: Jaculo que insignis Acastus.
Again, some reckon Actor among the Argonauts; but as there were several Princes of that Name, he whom I take to be the Argonaut, must have been the famous Eurythus. Ovid (3) gives him a Place with his Father in the Battle between the Centaurs and the Lapitha, and in the hunting of Calydon. These three Events happened near enough to one another, for the fame Man to have been concerned in them all, as I shall prove elsewhere.
Actorides who b also ranked among the Argonauts, and who is designed under this patronymic Name, is Menatius the Son of Actor and Father of Patroclus.
Aimetus, the King of Thessaly, whom all the Antients reckon in the Number of the Argonauts, was the" Son of Pheres, and Grandson of Cretheus, and consequently Jason's Cousin. The Story of the loving Alsesties his Spouse is universally known.
Ætalides the Son of Mercury, and of Eupoleme a Native of Lariffa, is added by some Authors to the List: of the Argonauts. 'Tis said of him that he had obtained of his Father Mercury two Favours; the one, that whether alive or dead he should always be informed of what was transacted in the World; the other, that he should be one half of his Time among the Living, and the other half among the Dead: A Fable built perhaps upon his having been the Herald of the Argonauts, which Office occasioned his being often present, often absent from the Army* and obliged him" to be exactly informed of all that passed. He was also by his Mother's Side of the Race of the Eolidest since she was the Daughter of Pisidice the Sister of Cretheus.
Apollodorus is the only one who names Almenus, a Person unknown to the other Antients; he means perhaps an Inhabitant of a City situated upon the Coasts of the Euxine Sea, which wa3 called Almene, who embarked with the Argonauts, and is stiled by that Author a Son of Mars, which agrees well enough to a Thracian: But what is more surprizing, Apollodorus is the only one who reckons the celebrated Ampbiaraus among the Argonauts. It is very possible that he was both in the Expedition to Colchis, and at the Siege of Thebes, where he died, as I shall shew afterwards.
As Apollodorus is the sole Author who names Amphiaraus, so he is the only one who has omitted Amphidainas, an Arcadian the Son of Aleus and Cleobule, and Brother of Lycurgus and Cepheus, who is in all the other Lists, as also Ampbion, the Son of Hyperasius, a Native of Pallene in Arcadia, where his Father was King. We must nor however confound this Amphion with the King of Thebes, who had the same Name, but was dead before this Expedition.
All the Antients, with one accord, mention among the Argonauts the Pilote Typhis of the little City Typha in the Extremity of Beotia upon the Sea-coast, whose Inhabitants were valued for being good Seamen. Some Authors make him the Son of Phorbas and Iniane, and others give him for his Father Angimis or Hagnius. He died at the Court of Lycus, in the Country of the Mariandinians, and his Palace was supplied by the famous Anceus, who is reckoned the Son of Nepture because he was an excellent Pilote; his Mother was named Astipalea, the Daughter of Phœnix. Upon his Return from Colchis he applied himself to the Improvement of Agriculture, and took great Care of his Vineyards i As he bore too hard upon his Vine-dressers, and used them ill, he was told by one of them, that he would never drink of the Vine which he was then labouring. The Time of the Vintage being come, he ordered a Goblet to be quickly filled up of the first Juice that could be drawn from die Grape; and fixing his Eye upon him who had made the Prediction upon him, reproached the Man for his Want of Foresight, upon which the Labourer replied, that many Things often intervened between a full Cup and the Time of drinking it. Accordingly, in the very Moment he was bearing the Cup to his Mouth, he was informed that a monstrous Boar was ravaging his; Vines: Forthwith he parted with the Cup, flew to his Arms, and in pursuing the Boar received a Wound whereof he died; and this Answer of Anceus’s Servant became a Proverb, which Cato thus turns into Latin: Multum interest inter os & offam ; though the Sense of the Words of the Proverb is, Multacadunt inter Calicem supremaque labra. We must not confound this Anceus with another of the fame Name, whom all the Antients reckon in the Number of the Argonauts. He was the Son of Lyeurgas, King of the Tegeates in Arcadia, who lent him in his Place into Colchis, because he would not part with his Father Alctus, whose Age and Infirmities required his Presence.
Onomacritus speaks also of another Anceus of the City Pleuron in Etolia, whom he names among the Argonauts; but the List of this antient Author is the least exact of all; for he inserts into it also one Ancystheus, a Person quite unknown, unless we suppose, with some Authors, that he had wrote Acastus the Son of Pelias, of whom he makes no mention, though he be owned by all the Antients to have been of the Number of the Argonauts. He names also one Areus; which Is an Epithet often used by Homer, rather than a proper Name j for it was a common Practice with the antient Poets to give the Name of Mars, or Son of Mars, to Warriors celebrated by their Exploits.
The fame Author takes no Notice of two of the Name of Argus, whom all the rest reckon among the Argonauts; and as there were many Persons of this Name, 'tis not easy to distinguish them. 'Tis however commonly allowed, that one of these Argus's was the fame who built the Ship Argo. The other Argonaut of the same Name was that Son of Phryxus, who having suffered Shipwreck in his Return from Colcbis, as has been said, was driven upon an Island, whence Jason brought him back to his Mother with his Brothers.
We know little about one Armenius, or Armenus, whom some reckon in the Number of those Chiefs who accompanied Jason, and alledge, that he was of a City of the lame Name, situated between Pheres and Larissa, whether the Name of the City had been given to the Argonaut, or that of the Argonaut to the City, whereof perhaps he was the Founder, for all those who em-barked with Jason were of the best Families in Greece.
Apollodorus again stands alone in filling up the List of those Heroes wtith the Names of Ascalaphus and Almenus, of rather Ialmenius, as he calls him elsewhere; as he is also named by Homer, of them Sons of Mars, who had them by the fair Astioche.
If Aesculapius assisted in the Expedition of the Argonauts, 'tis surprizing that he is to be found only in Hyginus's List: 'Tis true, Clement of Alexandria name him also with Castor and Pollux, upon the Authority of Apollonius Rhodius, who, however, in the Passage which he quotes, mentions only the Dioscuri, without taking any Notice of Asclepius or Esculapius. As for Castor and Pollux, there is not any one of the Antients has omitted them (a).
Asterion, though we know little else about him, is however named among the Argonauts by some Authors, who fay he was the Son of Cometes and Antigone, the Daughter of Plans; and as Pharos was the Brother of Cetheus die Son of Eolus; he was Jason's Cousin: Cometes too, as well as his Wife, may have been of the Race of the Eolides. I am however of Opinion, that we must not confound this Asterion, as Apollodorus has done, with Asterius the Son of Neleus, and Brother of Nestor, who is also reckoned among the Argonauts.
Those who will have it that Atalanta embarked with these Captains, are certainly mistaken; for what Probability is there that one young Woman alone would have undertaken this Expedition among all these Heroes?
Several of the Antients have also put down in their List, Augeas, or Augias the Son of the Sun, or rather of Phorbas King of Elis; this is that Augeas whose Stables Hercules cleaned, which makes one of that Heroe's Labours.
Euphemus is mentioned by Pausanias alone, who in speaking of the other Argonauts who were present at the Funeral Games celebrated by Acastus at his Return from Colchis, names some that are very little known to the other Antients; among the rest Eurybates, who he says distinguished himself in the Game of the Coit. He was the Son of Teleon, and he it was that cured the Wound which Oileus received as he was hunting with Hercules the Birds of the Stymphalic Lake. Pausanias adds next, that Melanion, Neotheus, Phalareus, Argeus and Iphiclus, arc the five who seem to have disputed the Prize of the Foot Race. This Iphiclus was the Father of Protesilaus, the first that was slain upon the Banks of Troy when besieged by the Greeks; as for the rest, they are not named by the other Anrients among the Argonauts. According to the same Author, Iolas the Companion of Hercules in his Labours, won the Prize of the Chariot-race; and as it is probable that none were admitted to those Gamts but those who had accompanied Jason, we may conclude that lolas had left Hercules, as the other Argonauts had done, and went with them to Colchis.
Calais and Zethes, the Sons of Boreas and Orithya, the Daughter of Erectheus King of Athens, are too famous in this Expedition, to have been omitted; I shall speak of their Adventures in the History of the Expedition which those Heroes made after their Departure from Greece.
Canthus the Son of Abas, or according to some Authors, the Son of Cometes, and Grandson of Abas,who reigned in Elis, is also named among these Captains; Apollonius fays he perished in Libya, probably when the Ship Argo, in returning from Colchis, landed upon the Coasts of Africa, as shall be said afterwards. The fame Author is singular in reckoning among these Chieftains, Autolycus, that celebrated Robber, who was the Son of Mercury and Chione the Daughter of Dedalion; but 'tis probable that he confounded this Autolycus, who lived ar a very great Distance from the Time of this Expedition, with another Prince of the lame Name, who according to other Authors joined the Argonauts near the City Sinope, with his two Brothers Deileon and Phlagius. The first was Father to Ulysses's Great Grandfather.
I shall only name Azorus, a Person unknown to all the Antients but Hesychius, who says he was for some Time Pilote to the Ship Argo. I ought not even to name Buphagas, tho' reckoned by some among the Argonauts: Perhaps 'tis not without Reason that those who have taken him into their List are censured for having made a Person of the Epithet that was given to Hercules, because he ate up all the Provisions of the Argonauts; which probably was not one of the least The brave Ceneus, the Son of Elatus, so celebrated in the Battle between the Centaurs and the Lapithae is named among Jason's Companions by Hyginus alone: His Son Serenas is also in the Lists given by other Authors, of those who joined in this Expedition. Cepbeus an Arcadian, the Brother of Lycurgus, and Son of Aleus, is mentioned by all the Antients.
Cius is named by none of those who have written, upon the Expedition of the Argonauts; but Strabo's Authority seems sufficient to give him a Place among those Heroes. That Author fays the City Prusa in Bilhynia, rebuilt by Prusias, was formerly named Cius, from the Name of its Founder, who built it upon his Return from Colchis.
Clytus and Ipbitus, the Sons of Eurythus and Antiope, come from Oechalia, where their Father reigned: Eumedon, the Son of Bacchus and Ariadne, and Clymemis, the Brother of Iphiclus, and Uncle of Protesilaus, are found but in a few Authors.
As there were several Deucalions, Authors are at a, Loss to determine which of them is he whom we find in some Lists of the Argonauts: We may however, reckon, with a great deal of Probability, that he is either the Son of, Minos I. or the Son of Melampus, Jason's Kinsman by Eolus, who had both the Name of Deucalion, and lived in the Time of this Expedition.
There is as little Difficulty in determining who that Echion was, whom all the Antients make to have accompanied Jason; 'tis undoubtedly he who was said to be the Son of Mercury and Antianira. For the one, who lived in the Time of Cadmus, and whose Son was Pentheus, cannot be the Argonaut now in question., Echion was a Man of Cunning and Policy, and this is what made him be called a Son of Mercury; accordingly he was employed as a Spy during the Voyage.
Ergynus, another celebrated Argonaut, who shared the Piloteship with Tiphis, was undoubtedly accounted a Son of Neptune, for no other Reason, but because he was expert in Navigation. We are to think the same of Euphemus, who was also said to be the Son of Neptune and Macionissa, and who, after the Death of Tiphis, was made Pilote of the Ship Ago. All those who have given account of the Argonauts make Mention of him; and I shall have Occasion to speak of him afterwards.
In the Number of the Argonauts is also reckoned Phlias, who communicated his Name to that small Country near Sicyon, which is watered by the River Asopus, and which was called Phliasia: He passed for the Son of Bacchus, his Mother was Arethyrea, and not Ctonophile, who was rather his Wife, by whom he had a Son named Androdamas.
Euryalus, the Son of Mecistius, the Grandson of Talaus, and Great-grandson of Amithacn, who had for his Father Cretheus, is also reckoned among the Argonauts. We find this fame Prince at the Siege of Troy, where Homer fays he commanded the Argives with Diomedes.
Eurydamas, the Son of Iras and Demonassa., is named by Hyginus alone, tho' His Brother Eurytion is in all the Authors who have spoke of the Argonauts. Several Antients have confounded this Eurytus with Eurytion; but I believe we must distinguish them, and make of the latter a third Argonaut, who is omitted by none of those who give account of this Expedition; and as several Authors concur in making Eurytus the Son of Mercury and Antianira, and Brother to that Echion whom I mentioned a little before, we must conclude from thence that this Eurytus is not the fame with Eurytus the King of Oechalia, whom Hercules put to Death, and whose two Sons, Iphitus and Clytus, were of the Number of the Argonauts.
Posides, an antient Author, cited by Athentcus, reckons also in the Number Glaucus, without saying any more about him. 'Tis not probable that he means Glaucus of the City of Anthedon, that celebrated Fisher mentioned by Ovid, who says he was transformed into a Sea-God, and who, according to Apollonius, rose up from the Bottom of the Water to let the Argonauts know that Destiny stood in the Way of Hercules's Voyage to Colchis, and that they had done sight to leave him: Thus I reckon he designed Glaucus the Son of Sisyphus, the Grandson of Eolus, and Jason’s Kinsman.
Idas, a Messenian, and Brother of Lynceus, is celebrated among these Captains. He, as well as Jason, was descended from Eolus, since his Father Aphareus was the Son of Perieres, whose Grandfather was Eolus. Arane his Mother, the Daughter of Oebalus, gave her Name to a City of Messenia.
Idmon is named also by almost all the Antients. As this was a celebrated Soothsayer, he had Apollo given him for his Father; but Hyginus, upon antient Authorities, asserts that he was the Son of Abas, and that Argos was his Country. Some of the Antients confound ldmon with Mopsus, and others distinguish them, Tho' Idmon foresaw, by the Principles of Divination, that he was to perish in this Voyage, he imbarked however, and actually died either of Sickness, according to some, or, according to others, of a Wound which he had received at the hunting of the Boar in the Country of the Mariandinians.
Iolaus, the Son of Iphiclus, and Nephew of Hercules, is named among the Argonauts by none but Hyginus, and Ovid says he assisted at the hunting of Calydon: He might very well have been at both these Exploits. The fabulous Tradition delivered by this last Author, imported that Hebe had renewed his Youth at the Request of Hercules;which means that this Prince advanced in Years, had recovered all the Vigour of Youth, when he flew Eurystheus, who, after Hercules's Death, declared War against the Athenians, to oblige them to deliver up to him the Heraclides, who had thrown themselves upon their Mercy to secure them from the Persecutions of this Enemy.
Among the Argonauts are also named two Iphiclus's one the Son of Thestius, the Brother of Althea, Meleager's Mother, and the other the Son of Philacus, and Father of Protestians. Valerius Flaccus is the only one who reckons in this Number Iphis the Son of Alector; and none but Hyginus name Ixition of the City of Corinth. Munkerus thinks there is a Fault in the Text of that Author, and that we are to read Cantbus instead of Ixition; this Cantbus I have already taken notice of.
If Laertes, the Son of Arcesius, and Father of Ulysses, was among the Argonauts, 'tis surprizing that he is mentioned by none but Apollodorus. What may be said in Vindication of this Author, is, that Laertes was contemporary with Jason, and his Kinsman; and this perhaps is the Reason why he has inserted him in his List, where he has omitted Leodatus, the Son of Bias, the Brother of Talaus and Arcius, who are all three named among the Argonauts.
They have not omitted the celebrated Lynceus, the Son of Athareus, and Brother of Idas, who must not be confounded with the Son of Epytus, who had the same Name. This is that Lynceus, who is said by all the Antients to have been so quick-sighted, that he saw even into the Bowels of the Earth; a Hyperbole under which is figured a Man skilful in the Search of Metals.
Meleager, the Son of Oeneus King of Calydon, must have been very young when he set out for this Expedition with Tydeus his Father's Brother, since he had a Governor given him, Leodatus his natural Brother whom some Authors have also reckoned among the Argonauts. As all the Antients are agreed that Meleager was of the Number of these Heroes, ’tis evident that the famous hunting of the Calydonian Boar, and the Death of this Prince, who perished in the Manner known to all the World, are Events posterior to the Conquest of the Golden Fleece.
The famous Diviner Mopsus is also reckoned of the Number by all the Antients, tho' they are divided as to the Place of his Nativity: Some think he was of Oechalia, but the most; common Opinion makes him a Thessalian, of the City of Titarene.
I presume we are not to confound this Mopsus with another Diviner of the fame Name; the first was the Son of Ampycus and Chloris, whence he got the Name of Ampycides; the second had for his Father Tiresias; the first practised Divination during the Voyage to Colchis; the second signalized himself at the Siege of Thebes, and both of them were very much honoured after their Death, and had Oracles which were often consulted. That of Mopsus the Son of Tiresias was in Cilicia, and that of the Argonaut was in Africa, where he died in his Return from Colchis.
Butes the Athenian is mentioned by all the Authors, who have spoke of the Argonauts, After his Death he was honoured by the Athenians as a Hcroe, and ho had an Altar, according to Pausanias, in the Temple of Erectheus.
Nauptius, the Son of Neptune and Amymone, Danaus's Daughter, is also reckoned in all the Lists, as also Menatius, who is omitted by none of the Antients; he was the Son of Atlor and Egine, and Father of the famed Patrodus.
Neleus the Brother of Pelias, who had quitted Thessaly to go and settle at Pylos in the Peloponnesus, came with Periclymenes his Son, to imbark with Jason: This, is the fame Periclymenes, who being transformed into an Eagle, was slain by Hercules; whence we may conclude, that it was not till after the Expedition of the Argonauts this Heroe made an inroad into the Peloponnesus, during which he slew all the Children of Neleus, Nestor excepted, whom Valerius Flaccus also makes to have been at the Conquest of the Golden Fleece.
We have none but Apollodorus who names Palemon the Son of Etolus, and Great-grandson. of Eolus by Calice his Grandmother; and Hyginus is the only one who reckons among the Argonauts Oileus the Father of that Ajax who ravished Cassandra; but in all the Lists we find Peleus, the Son of Æacus, and Father of Achilles, as also Telamon his Brother.
Peneleus, the Son of Hipalmus, Staphylus, Phanus and Phalerus, the Sons of Alcon the Athenian, are little known, tho' the Name of the last is in all the Lists, whereas none but Apollodorus names the rest.
Philammon, the Son of Apollo and Chione, celebrated in Ovid's Metamorphoses, is mentioned among the Argonauts by none but Hyginus, who takes also into the Number of those Captains Philoctetes the Son of Pean, the Companion of Hercules, and Heir to his, Arrows, who afterwards joined in the Siege of Troy, as /hall be said in the Sequel. The same Author is also the only one who reckons among them Phocas, the Son of the Lapithe Ceneus, Of the City Magnesia, as also his Brother Priasus, and his Cousin Polyphemus, the Son of the Thessalian Elatus, the Brother of Ceneus. But what shall we think of one Thersanon, the Child of the Sun, and Leucethea, the Daughter of Orcamus King of Persia, whom Hyginus names among the Argonauts? Shall we fay it is an Error in the Text, and that we are to read Philammon; But this Name is joined to a Genealogy which admits not of such Corrections. I leave also to Muncherus the Thessalus whom he has inserted in the Catalogue he has made up from that Author. May he not have taken for an Argonaut the Country where most of the Heroes were born? I have not the same Opinion of Thesor, the Father of the celebrated Calchas, who, according to the antient Scholiast on Apollodorus, was inserted by some of the Antients into the Number of Jason's Companions.
I have reserved for the Close of this List, Thesus and his Friend Pirithous, who are named among the Argonauts, by none but Hyginus and Apollodorus; whereas Apollonius Rhodius asserts, that they were then both of them confined in Prison, by Aidoneus King of Epirus, upon whose Daughter Pirithous had attempted a Rape; and whom other Authors will have not to have yet left Trezene. Plutarch in the Life of Theseus, fays indeed, that Hero performed this Expedition with the other Argonauts; but like an inaccurate Compiler, he plainly contradicts himself, since in the fame Life he says, Theseus at his first setting out from Trezene for Athens, where he was acknowledged by his Father, found Medea there: Now Medea returned not till the Return of the Argonauts. The Age I am now speaking of is full of chronological Difficulties, and the Life of Theseus makes one of the most considerable of them. Some make him too young at the Time of the Conquest of the Argonauts, others again make him too old. If we consider the Genealogies of those Times, Theseus would have been even extremely old, if not dead, when the Argonauts set out, since Hypsiphile was the Daughter of Thoas, and Thoas the Son of that fame Ariadne, whom Theseus left in the Island of Naxo: Accordingly we find in Apollonius, and Valerius Flaccus, Jason reciting to Medea the Story of Theseus and Ariadne. On the other hand, the Arrival of Theseus at Athens after his Departure from Trezene, is sufficiently marked by Diodorus, Plutarch, and Pausanias; and according to these Authors he was at that time very young, and in a Virgin's Habit, that he might not be known. These Authors say it was in the Time that Egeus his Father was new married to Medea, and consequently long after Jason's Expedition. Further, we know that this Heroe, younger than his Cousin Hercules, lived to the Time of the Trojan War. After the Authorities now offered, I am determined upon the whole to believe, that he is not to be reckoned in the Number of the Argonauts. There is no less Difficulty as to the Time of the War with the Centaurs, and of the hunting of Calydon; for all the Antients agree, that Theseus was present at the Marriage of Pirithous, and at the Battle of the Centaurs, and all inform us also, that he joined in the hunting of the Caledonian Boar; Events which border very near upon the Conquest of the Argonauts, and the first whereof, I believe, even preceded it. Thus 'tis impossible for us to extricate ourselves from these Difficulties.
Such were the Heroes who joined in the Conquest of the Golden Fleece, that is, all who were most distinguished in Greece at that Time, both for their Valour and their Birth, and whereof the most Part were Jason's Relations, because at that Time, almost all Greece, except a Part of the Peloponnesus, was peopled by Deuealion's Descendants, from whom he derived his Original.
As the Art of Navigation was then so little known, that they kept generally pretty near the Coasts, and yet foresaw they would be obliged often to lose sight of them, they applied to Chiron to make up a new Kalendar, and to reform the old one; because, according to the old Kalendar, where the Ascensions and Declinations of the Sun were not marked, the Equinoxes and the Solstices happened in times remote from the Points where they ought to have been fixed: Chiron, say some Authors, rectified them, and formed a Kalendar proper to direct the Princes in their Navigation; which Opinion I have examined in a Chapter by itself.
When all things were in readiness for the Voyage, Jason, according to Apollonius, before he set tail, ordered a solemn Sacrifice to the God the Founder of his Race, and to all the Divinities whom he thought able to succeed his Enterprize. Every one was zealous to carry Stones for erecting the Altar, which was covered with Olive-branches. After the ordinary Oblations, the Priests sprinkled upon the Altar Flour mixed with Honey and Oil, offered up two Oxen to the Gods in Honour of whom the Sacrifice was performed, and invoked their Protection from the Dangers of so long a Voyage. Jupiter, adds Apollonius after Pindar, promised by the Voice of Thunder his Aid to this heroic Body, who imbarked after the Sacrifice.
The Argonauts were already in the Ship, when Chiron arrived to take leave of his dear Jason; and after having embraced him as well as the other Heroes, gave them proper Directions for their Voyage, and offered up Vows for the happy Success of their Enterprize. He hugged the young Achilles in his Arms; a Circumstance which I remark, because it will be of use afterwards to prove the Date of this Expedition.
In fine, the Wind being favourable, they launched cut into the Sea, and set sail.
Chapter I.
The Voyage of the Argonauts to Colchis.
The Voyage of the Argonauts, which furnishes several Adventures, which I shall endeavour to reduce to History, was at first prosperous enough; but a Storm obliged them very soon to put in to the Island of Lemnos. The Worrien in that Island had failed in their respect to Venus, and the Goddess in revenge, had infected them with such a bad Smell, that their Husbands had forsaken theirs for Slaves whom they had taken from the Thracians, with whom they were at War. The Lemnian Ladies, exasperated with this signal Contempt, conspired against the Men in the Island, and falling upon them in their Sleep, assassinated all of them who were in Lemnos, for the greater Number was not there at that Time, as we shall see afterwards. Hypfipbik alone spared the Life of her Father Thoas, who was the King of the Island. However extraordinary this Fact appears, 'tis however confirmed by the unanimous Testimony of all the Ancients; for their varying in some Circumstances, instead of destroying it, demonstrates on the contrary, that it was generally believed. Apollodorus, and after him Suidas, alledge that Venus's Resentment was owing to the Lemnian Women having desisted to offer Sacrifice to her, and we know how highly the Gods thought themselves outraged by such Sort of Contempt. The Scholiast on Euripides, after Hyginus, says this Goddess was provoked at the abolishing of a Festival, which used to be celebrated in her Honour, which amounts to much the fame, and was equally punishable according to the Principles of their Theology. Others in short, ascribe the Cause of the Goddess's Wrath to the Adventure of the Net in that Island, the Work of Vulcan, who by means thereof discovered to the Gods the Adultery of his Spouse with Mars. The learned Scholiast on Apollonius, Cays after Myrtilus of Lesbos, that it was Medea, upon the Return of the Argonauts, had infected the Women of Lemnos ; but this Opinion which changes the Time of this Event, is embraced by no other Author.
Since this Adventure is generally attested, in order to reduce it to History, we need but set the Fiction of Venus’s Wrath aside, and say that those Wives jealous of the Slaves who had been preferred to them, revenged themselves upon them at a Time when part of the Men in the Island were absent and engaged in the Thracian War. In this Conjuncture the Argonauts arriving at Lemnos, the married Women run to the Shore to oppose their landing, upon which ensued a Skirmish;but our Warriors, whom the Ladies had mistaken for their Husbands, making themselves known, were kindly received by them. They spent two Years in the Island, where they had several Children, who. were those Mynians I shall have occasion to speak of afterwards. Hypsiphile for her part had two by Jason, the one of whom was called Thoas after his Grandfather, the other Euneus, who commanded the Lemnians at the Siege of Troy.
From Lemnos the Argonauts went to Samothrace, first to accomplish the Vow which Orpheus had made during the Storm we have mentioned; and in the second Place, because Castor and Pollux, according to Diodorus Siculus, were desirous to be initiated into the Mysteries that were celebrated in that Island, in order to render the Gods propitious to their Expedition.
As they were at Sea after departing from Lemnos, the Tyrrhenians gave them a bloody Battle, where all our Heroes were wounded, except Glaucus, who disappeared, and was taken into the Number of the Sea-Gods. From thence they entered the Hellespont, turned towards Asia, and landed upon the Coasts of the Lesser Mysia, above Troas, and there it was that Hercules, Telamon, and Hylas lost them, as shall be more fully said afterwards.
From thence the Argonauts landed at Cyzicum, a City situated at the Foot of Mount Dindymus, whereof Cyzicus was King. Besides the Molions who inhabited his City, Apollonius Rbodius says, there were Giants who had each six Arms and six Legs, whom Juno had made the Earth produce to be the Death of Hercules; that is, some Pyrates who cruized upon their Coasts with six Ships, signified by the Number of their Arms and Legs; or, which comes to the fame, some Freebooters who ravaged the Country, as we learn by Polygnotus, cited by the ancient Scholiasts, for they gave the Name of Giants to that fort of Banditti, as well as to those who were of an extraordinary Size. The King being apprized by an Oracle of the Arrival of those Strangers, gave them a favourable Reception; and after giving them an Entertainment, and large Presents, he dismissed them; but being driven bad in the Night-time, by a contrary Wind, into the farm Port, Cyzicus hearing a Ship was newly arrived, and apprehending it to be the Pelasgi his Enemies, went to attack them, and was slain in the Engagement by Jason himself, who to expiate this Bloodshed, tho’ involuntary, having first given the Prince a magnificent Funeral, offered a Sacrifice to the Mother of the Gods and built her a Temple upon Mount Dyndimus, imploying therein the Water of a Fountain which the Goddess, we are told by the Poets, made to spring out of the Earth; that is, setting aside the Marvellous, which the Argonauts found in an unknown Spot of Ground. Clyte, the Wife of that King, not being able to survive the Death of a Husband whom she fondly loved, hanged herself in Despair, as we read in Apollonius and his Scholiast, who had borrowed the Story I have now related from the Periplus of Callisthenes.
After departing from Cyzicum, our Voyagers spent some time in Bebrycia, which was the old Name of Bitbynia, if we may believe Servius. There reigned Arnycus, who was wont to challenge in Gauntlet-fight those who arrived in his Dominions, Pollux accepted the Challenge; but having learned that Ambuscades were laid for him by the Prince, to take away his Life, he called one of his Companions to his Assistance, and served the King himself with his own Measure. Theocritus, in the Idyllium he has composed upon the Dioscuri, describes this Combat, as also Valerius Flaccus. Virgil, who keeps always Probability in his Eye, speaking of Butes, celebrated in the Gauntlet-fight, says he came from the Bebrycians, and valued himself on having derived his Original from Arnycus.
After the Death of Athycus, the Argonauts set out from his Dominions to continue their Voyage; but being driven by Stress of Weather upon the Coasts of Thrace, they landed at Salmydessa, where reigned Phineus the Son of Phoenix, a Prince old and blind, who was continually tormented by the Harpies. Some Authors make Phineus to have reigned in Bitbynia; others in Arcadia; but the most common Opinion, and that which Servius follows, is, that he was King of Salmydessa in Thracia. He married Cleobule, according to the fame Author, or Cleopatra the Daughter of Orythia and Apollo, or rather of Boreas King of a Part of Thrace, and his Neighbour, and had by her two Sons Plexippus and Pandion; but having afterwards divorced this Princess and married Idea the Daughter of Dardanus, this cruel Step-dame, to get rid of these two Princes, accused them of having offer'd to dishonour her, and the too credulous Phineas put out their Eyes. The Gods, we are told, made use of the Northwind to be the Instrument of their Revenge, and by means thereof struck him blind; which no doubt means, that Boreas his Father-in-law retaliated upon him the fame Punishment he had inflicted upon his two Sons.
As the Traditions of these antient Histories were never uniform, some Authors will have it, that Phineus was struck blind by Neptune, for having shewn the Argonauts the Way to Colchis; others, that it was for having disclosed the Secret of the Gods; which signifies some Piece of Indiscretion that Prince had been guilty of, like that of Tiresias. They add further, that he was at the same Time given over to the Persecution of the Harpies. These Monsters, whereof the Poets have said so much, were as Hesiod tells us, the Offspring of Thaumas and Electra. They were three Sisters, Celeno, Ocipeta, and Aello, who with a Woman's Face, had a Bill and crooked Claws, and a prodigious big Belly. They raised a Famine wherever they came, carried off the Provisions from Pbineus's Table, poisoned whatever they touched, and predicted future Events.
Phineus having given a kind Reception to the Argonauts, and promised them a Guideto conduct: them through the Cyanean Rocks, or Symplegades, which were then reckoned extremely dangerous to pass, they offered to employ their utmost Efforts to deliver him from the Persecution of those Monsters, and Calais and Zetbes the Sons of Boreas, who had Wings, pursued them without Intermission as far as the Islands Plota, in the Ionian Sea; and there it was that they received an Order from the Gods by Iris, to give them no further Disturbance, but to return. This return strophe was the Occasion of changing the Name of those Islands, which from that Time were called Strophades.
This Fiction undoubtedly conceals some Truth; accordingly great Pains have been taken to find it out. Palephatus is of Opinion, that the Harpies were Phineus’sown Daughters, who ruined him by their Debauchery. According to Servius, they were the Furies who incessantly reproached him for his Cruelty towards his Children; and ’tis true that Virgil confounds the Harpies with those Goddesses. M. le Clerc takes the Harpies for a Swarm of Locusts, which after they had laid waste Bithynia and Paphlagonia, produced a Famine there; and it must be owned, that his Explication of this Fable is very ingenious. The Word Arbé, says he, of which that of Harpy is formed, signifies a Locust; and as the Northwind rid the Country of them, having driven them as far as the Ionian Sea, where they perished, hence it was fabled, that the Sons of Boreas had put them to flight. Whatever the Poets, continues he, have said of the Harpies, agrees to the Locusts. To raise Famine, is not this to carry off the Food even from the Tables of Kings? To say that they are invulnerable, is undoubtedly true in respect of their prodigious Number; that they were the Dogs of Jupiter or Juno, that they had the Gift of Prediction, and that Tartarus had thrown them out; in fine, that they returned as fast as they were pursued: What else does all this signify? but that this Plague was considered as an Effect of Divine Vengeance, which the Gods had poured forth from the Gulph of Hell, to be a sad Prognostic of Famine and Desolation, and to make such Havock as was not in the Art of Man to prevent. And what others add of their being the Daughters of Neptune and the Earth, is agreeable to the ancient Physiology, which taught that all Insects were formed of a Mixture of Earth and Water. We may add further, that the Names given them by the Antients, wonderfully quadrate with this Explanation, since Occipeta, signifies Volatile; Celeno, Obscurity, a Cloud; and Aello, a Storm; and is it not their Nature to fly, to obscure the Air, and make greater Havock than the most violent Storms?
However happy these Conjectures are, I cannot give into them: 1st, Because the Scene of this Adventure not having been in Bithynia, but in Thrace, the Northwind cannot have driven the Harpies to the Strophades, 2dly, In support of this Explication Calais and Zethes can only be considered as allegorical Personages, against the Sentiment of all Antiquity, which takes them for Heroes, the Sons of Boreas King of Thrace, but confounded sometimes with the Wind of the fame Name, and of Orythia the Daughter of Pandion King of Athens, Phineus had married their Sister, and ’tis no Wonder that finding their Brother-in-Law in the Condition we have now represented him, they assisted him with all their Might. But who then were those Harpies? For my Part, I believe Antiquity designed to figure by those pretended Monsters some turbulent and troublesome Neighbours, or rather some Pirates who made frequent Descents upon Phineus's Dominions. As, no doubt, they pillaged the Country and the Towns, they literally carried off the Provisions that were for his Use j and what accounts for their being called Juno's Dogs, is, that the Ravages they committed were considered as an Effect of celestial Vengeance. Calais and Zethes, witha Ship which Phineus equipped, put them to flight, and pursued them to the Strophades Isles, where they destroyed them, or put out their Eyes. What Apollodorus says that one of the Harpies fellinto the River Tygres, upon the Coasts of the Peloponnesus, since called Harpis, where she perished, undoubtedly signifies, that one of those Pirates was shipwrecked at the Mouth of that River; and what we are further told, that the other, having flown as far as the Echinades, turned back, and not being able to bear up any longer, fell into the Sea, signifies that this was the Place where the second Pirate perished.
Diodorus Siculus relates this Adventure, without mentioning the Harpies, he who seldom omits the antient Fables; all he says is, that Hercules, who had not yet left the Argonauts, not being able to obtain from Phineus the Release of the young Princes whom he kept in Prison, put him to Death, and parted his Dominions between them.
After having received from Phineus seasonable Directions for the rest of their Voyage, and especially as to the Passage of the Cyaneae or Symplegades, the Argonauts quitted Thrace, and entred into the Euxine Sea.
The Cyaneae are two Clusters of Rocks at the Mouth of the Euxine Sea, of an irregular Figure, whereof one Part is on the Side of Asia, and the other of Europe, and which leave between them, according to Strabo, only a Space of twenty Furlongs,so that the Waves of the Sea, which break against them with a violent Noise, raise a Foam which darkens the Air, and makes that Passage very difficult. As the nearer you approach to an Object, or go further from it, its Extremities seem proportionably to draw nearer, or remove farther; hence the Opinion that those Rocks were moveable when seen at some Distance, and that they drew nearer to one another to swallow up Ships, which made them get the Name of Symplegades, which implies that they dashed upon one another; and this, Pliny tells us, was the Origine of the Fable.
Our Voyagers, startled at the Sight of this Frith, let go a Pigeon, which happily flew across it; after which they attempted the Passage themselves. This Pigeon which the Poets speak of, was nothing else but a light Vessel Phineus had given them, and whose Pilote was well acquainted with those Straits. Nor is this a mere Conjecture, since Apollodorus expresly fays, that this Prince, to fortify the Argonauts, had given them a Guide. Homer will have it, that Juno befriended them on that Occasion; which signifies, that the Air, whereof this Goddess was the Symbol, was calm and serene; and as to the additional Circumstances, 1. Of the Pigeon's having lost its Tail, and the Ship Argo a Piece of its Stern; this intimates that those two Vessels struck against one of the Rocks, by which the former lost her Rudder. 2. That from that Day Neptune fixed those Rocks; as much as to say, that the Passage once well known, there was no longer such Difficulty in attempting it; and from that Time Commerce was free in that Sea. Accordingly, if we may believe Plutarch, it was by that Voyage of the Argonauts the Commerce of the Greeks in the Euxine Sea was established, Jason having cleared it of the Pirates who infested it.
Our Voyagers, leaving this Pass, turned towards Asia, and landed in the Country of the Mariandinians, where Lycus, who was their King, and a Greek by Birth, gave them a favourable Reception; but during their Stay in that Country, they lost two of their Companions; Idmon the Son of Abas, who died of a Wound from a Boar, and the Pilote Trphis. They gave them a magnificent Funeral; and after substituting Anceus in Tiphis's Stead, they reimbarked, and a Storm having driven our Heroes upon the Island of Arecia, they found there the Children of Phryxus, whom Ætes their Grandfather was sending into Greece to inherit their Father's Estate, and carried them back to Colchis, after a lharp Encounter with certain Fowls; which, according to Apollonius Rhodius and Pomponius Mela, darted deadly Quills at a Distance;that is, no doubt, with the Inhabitants of that Island, who pursued them with Showers of Darts. Nothing remarkable befel them from the .Island of Mars, till they came to Æea, the Capital of Colchis; the Theater of their great Adventures.
Since this Adventure is generally attested, in order to reduce it to History, we need but set the Fiction of Venus’s Wrath aside, and say that those Wives jealous of the Slaves who had been preferred to them, revenged themselves upon them at a Time when part of the Men in the Island were absent and engaged in the Thracian War. In this Conjuncture the Argonauts arriving at Lemnos, the married Women run to the Shore to oppose their landing, upon which ensued a Skirmish;but our Warriors, whom the Ladies had mistaken for their Husbands, making themselves known, were kindly received by them. They spent two Years in the Island, where they had several Children, who. were those Mynians I shall have occasion to speak of afterwards. Hypsiphile for her part had two by Jason, the one of whom was called Thoas after his Grandfather, the other Euneus, who commanded the Lemnians at the Siege of Troy.
From Lemnos the Argonauts went to Samothrace, first to accomplish the Vow which Orpheus had made during the Storm we have mentioned; and in the second Place, because Castor and Pollux, according to Diodorus Siculus, were desirous to be initiated into the Mysteries that were celebrated in that Island, in order to render the Gods propitious to their Expedition.
As they were at Sea after departing from Lemnos, the Tyrrhenians gave them a bloody Battle, where all our Heroes were wounded, except Glaucus, who disappeared, and was taken into the Number of the Sea-Gods. From thence they entered the Hellespont, turned towards Asia, and landed upon the Coasts of the Lesser Mysia, above Troas, and there it was that Hercules, Telamon, and Hylas lost them, as shall be more fully said afterwards.
From thence the Argonauts landed at Cyzicum, a City situated at the Foot of Mount Dindymus, whereof Cyzicus was King. Besides the Molions who inhabited his City, Apollonius Rbodius says, there were Giants who had each six Arms and six Legs, whom Juno had made the Earth produce to be the Death of Hercules; that is, some Pyrates who cruized upon their Coasts with six Ships, signified by the Number of their Arms and Legs; or, which comes to the fame, some Freebooters who ravaged the Country, as we learn by Polygnotus, cited by the ancient Scholiasts, for they gave the Name of Giants to that fort of Banditti, as well as to those who were of an extraordinary Size. The King being apprized by an Oracle of the Arrival of those Strangers, gave them a favourable Reception; and after giving them an Entertainment, and large Presents, he dismissed them; but being driven bad in the Night-time, by a contrary Wind, into the farm Port, Cyzicus hearing a Ship was newly arrived, and apprehending it to be the Pelasgi his Enemies, went to attack them, and was slain in the Engagement by Jason himself, who to expiate this Bloodshed, tho’ involuntary, having first given the Prince a magnificent Funeral, offered a Sacrifice to the Mother of the Gods and built her a Temple upon Mount Dyndimus, imploying therein the Water of a Fountain which the Goddess, we are told by the Poets, made to spring out of the Earth; that is, setting aside the Marvellous, which the Argonauts found in an unknown Spot of Ground. Clyte, the Wife of that King, not being able to survive the Death of a Husband whom she fondly loved, hanged herself in Despair, as we read in Apollonius and his Scholiast, who had borrowed the Story I have now related from the Periplus of Callisthenes.
After departing from Cyzicum, our Voyagers spent some time in Bebrycia, which was the old Name of Bitbynia, if we may believe Servius. There reigned Arnycus, who was wont to challenge in Gauntlet-fight those who arrived in his Dominions, Pollux accepted the Challenge; but having learned that Ambuscades were laid for him by the Prince, to take away his Life, he called one of his Companions to his Assistance, and served the King himself with his own Measure. Theocritus, in the Idyllium he has composed upon the Dioscuri, describes this Combat, as also Valerius Flaccus. Virgil, who keeps always Probability in his Eye, speaking of Butes, celebrated in the Gauntlet-fight, says he came from the Bebrycians, and valued himself on having derived his Original from Arnycus.
After the Death of Athycus, the Argonauts set out from his Dominions to continue their Voyage; but being driven by Stress of Weather upon the Coasts of Thrace, they landed at Salmydessa, where reigned Phineus the Son of Phoenix, a Prince old and blind, who was continually tormented by the Harpies. Some Authors make Phineus to have reigned in Bitbynia; others in Arcadia; but the most common Opinion, and that which Servius follows, is, that he was King of Salmydessa in Thracia. He married Cleobule, according to the fame Author, or Cleopatra the Daughter of Orythia and Apollo, or rather of Boreas King of a Part of Thrace, and his Neighbour, and had by her two Sons Plexippus and Pandion; but having afterwards divorced this Princess and married Idea the Daughter of Dardanus, this cruel Step-dame, to get rid of these two Princes, accused them of having offer'd to dishonour her, and the too credulous Phineas put out their Eyes. The Gods, we are told, made use of the Northwind to be the Instrument of their Revenge, and by means thereof struck him blind; which no doubt means, that Boreas his Father-in-law retaliated upon him the fame Punishment he had inflicted upon his two Sons.
As the Traditions of these antient Histories were never uniform, some Authors will have it, that Phineus was struck blind by Neptune, for having shewn the Argonauts the Way to Colchis; others, that it was for having disclosed the Secret of the Gods; which signifies some Piece of Indiscretion that Prince had been guilty of, like that of Tiresias. They add further, that he was at the same Time given over to the Persecution of the Harpies. These Monsters, whereof the Poets have said so much, were as Hesiod tells us, the Offspring of Thaumas and Electra. They were three Sisters, Celeno, Ocipeta, and Aello, who with a Woman's Face, had a Bill and crooked Claws, and a prodigious big Belly. They raised a Famine wherever they came, carried off the Provisions from Pbineus's Table, poisoned whatever they touched, and predicted future Events.
Phineus having given a kind Reception to the Argonauts, and promised them a Guideto conduct: them through the Cyanean Rocks, or Symplegades, which were then reckoned extremely dangerous to pass, they offered to employ their utmost Efforts to deliver him from the Persecution of those Monsters, and Calais and Zetbes the Sons of Boreas, who had Wings, pursued them without Intermission as far as the Islands Plota, in the Ionian Sea; and there it was that they received an Order from the Gods by Iris, to give them no further Disturbance, but to return. This return strophe was the Occasion of changing the Name of those Islands, which from that Time were called Strophades.
This Fiction undoubtedly conceals some Truth; accordingly great Pains have been taken to find it out. Palephatus is of Opinion, that the Harpies were Phineus’sown Daughters, who ruined him by their Debauchery. According to Servius, they were the Furies who incessantly reproached him for his Cruelty towards his Children; and ’tis true that Virgil confounds the Harpies with those Goddesses. M. le Clerc takes the Harpies for a Swarm of Locusts, which after they had laid waste Bithynia and Paphlagonia, produced a Famine there; and it must be owned, that his Explication of this Fable is very ingenious. The Word Arbé, says he, of which that of Harpy is formed, signifies a Locust; and as the Northwind rid the Country of them, having driven them as far as the Ionian Sea, where they perished, hence it was fabled, that the Sons of Boreas had put them to flight. Whatever the Poets, continues he, have said of the Harpies, agrees to the Locusts. To raise Famine, is not this to carry off the Food even from the Tables of Kings? To say that they are invulnerable, is undoubtedly true in respect of their prodigious Number; that they were the Dogs of Jupiter or Juno, that they had the Gift of Prediction, and that Tartarus had thrown them out; in fine, that they returned as fast as they were pursued: What else does all this signify? but that this Plague was considered as an Effect of Divine Vengeance, which the Gods had poured forth from the Gulph of Hell, to be a sad Prognostic of Famine and Desolation, and to make such Havock as was not in the Art of Man to prevent. And what others add of their being the Daughters of Neptune and the Earth, is agreeable to the ancient Physiology, which taught that all Insects were formed of a Mixture of Earth and Water. We may add further, that the Names given them by the Antients, wonderfully quadrate with this Explanation, since Occipeta, signifies Volatile; Celeno, Obscurity, a Cloud; and Aello, a Storm; and is it not their Nature to fly, to obscure the Air, and make greater Havock than the most violent Storms?
However happy these Conjectures are, I cannot give into them: 1st, Because the Scene of this Adventure not having been in Bithynia, but in Thrace, the Northwind cannot have driven the Harpies to the Strophades, 2dly, In support of this Explication Calais and Zethes can only be considered as allegorical Personages, against the Sentiment of all Antiquity, which takes them for Heroes, the Sons of Boreas King of Thrace, but confounded sometimes with the Wind of the fame Name, and of Orythia the Daughter of Pandion King of Athens, Phineus had married their Sister, and ’tis no Wonder that finding their Brother-in-Law in the Condition we have now represented him, they assisted him with all their Might. But who then were those Harpies? For my Part, I believe Antiquity designed to figure by those pretended Monsters some turbulent and troublesome Neighbours, or rather some Pirates who made frequent Descents upon Phineus's Dominions. As, no doubt, they pillaged the Country and the Towns, they literally carried off the Provisions that were for his Use j and what accounts for their being called Juno's Dogs, is, that the Ravages they committed were considered as an Effect of celestial Vengeance. Calais and Zethes, witha Ship which Phineus equipped, put them to flight, and pursued them to the Strophades Isles, where they destroyed them, or put out their Eyes. What Apollodorus says that one of the Harpies fellinto the River Tygres, upon the Coasts of the Peloponnesus, since called Harpis, where she perished, undoubtedly signifies, that one of those Pirates was shipwrecked at the Mouth of that River; and what we are further told, that the other, having flown as far as the Echinades, turned back, and not being able to bear up any longer, fell into the Sea, signifies that this was the Place where the second Pirate perished.
Diodorus Siculus relates this Adventure, without mentioning the Harpies, he who seldom omits the antient Fables; all he says is, that Hercules, who had not yet left the Argonauts, not being able to obtain from Phineus the Release of the young Princes whom he kept in Prison, put him to Death, and parted his Dominions between them.
After having received from Phineus seasonable Directions for the rest of their Voyage, and especially as to the Passage of the Cyaneae or Symplegades, the Argonauts quitted Thrace, and entred into the Euxine Sea.
The Cyaneae are two Clusters of Rocks at the Mouth of the Euxine Sea, of an irregular Figure, whereof one Part is on the Side of Asia, and the other of Europe, and which leave between them, according to Strabo, only a Space of twenty Furlongs,so that the Waves of the Sea, which break against them with a violent Noise, raise a Foam which darkens the Air, and makes that Passage very difficult. As the nearer you approach to an Object, or go further from it, its Extremities seem proportionably to draw nearer, or remove farther; hence the Opinion that those Rocks were moveable when seen at some Distance, and that they drew nearer to one another to swallow up Ships, which made them get the Name of Symplegades, which implies that they dashed upon one another; and this, Pliny tells us, was the Origine of the Fable.
Our Voyagers, startled at the Sight of this Frith, let go a Pigeon, which happily flew across it; after which they attempted the Passage themselves. This Pigeon which the Poets speak of, was nothing else but a light Vessel Phineus had given them, and whose Pilote was well acquainted with those Straits. Nor is this a mere Conjecture, since Apollodorus expresly fays, that this Prince, to fortify the Argonauts, had given them a Guide. Homer will have it, that Juno befriended them on that Occasion; which signifies, that the Air, whereof this Goddess was the Symbol, was calm and serene; and as to the additional Circumstances, 1. Of the Pigeon's having lost its Tail, and the Ship Argo a Piece of its Stern; this intimates that those two Vessels struck against one of the Rocks, by which the former lost her Rudder. 2. That from that Day Neptune fixed those Rocks; as much as to say, that the Passage once well known, there was no longer such Difficulty in attempting it; and from that Time Commerce was free in that Sea. Accordingly, if we may believe Plutarch, it was by that Voyage of the Argonauts the Commerce of the Greeks in the Euxine Sea was established, Jason having cleared it of the Pirates who infested it.
Our Voyagers, leaving this Pass, turned towards Asia, and landed in the Country of the Mariandinians, where Lycus, who was their King, and a Greek by Birth, gave them a favourable Reception; but during their Stay in that Country, they lost two of their Companions; Idmon the Son of Abas, who died of a Wound from a Boar, and the Pilote Trphis. They gave them a magnificent Funeral; and after substituting Anceus in Tiphis's Stead, they reimbarked, and a Storm having driven our Heroes upon the Island of Arecia, they found there the Children of Phryxus, whom Ætes their Grandfather was sending into Greece to inherit their Father's Estate, and carried them back to Colchis, after a lharp Encounter with certain Fowls; which, according to Apollonius Rhodius and Pomponius Mela, darted deadly Quills at a Distance;that is, no doubt, with the Inhabitants of that Island, who pursued them with Showers of Darts. Nothing remarkable befel them from the .Island of Mars, till they came to Æea, the Capital of Colchis; the Theater of their great Adventures.
CHAPTER II.
What happened to the Argonauts in Colchis.
While Jason and his Companions passed the" Night in deliberating after what Manner they mould present themselves next Day to the King, and what Way they should take to demand the Effects which Phryxus had left at his Death. Æetes, on his Side, hearing of their Arrival, and of the Motive of their Expedition, and moreover terrified by an unhappy Dream, was contriving Means how to destroy them, or at least their Chief, as the most interested in the Affair. Thus when the Argonauts appeared before him, that Prince, upon Jason's demanding the Golden Fleece, prescribed to him such hard Conditions, that he was hopeful he would either desist from his Purpose, or perish in the Execution. There is nothing in all this but what is natural; but as the Relation of this Voyage was probably written in that antient Language of Greece, which was almost the fame with that which Cadmus introduced thither, I mean the Phœnician, those who came afterwards to read it, finding in it many Expressions which they did not understand, and which offered several Senses, embraced that which appeared the most marvellous; and upon occasion of an Adventure quite simple, broached Fables no less extraordinary than difficult to be explained. The Poets especially who borrowed from this History the Subject of their Poems, or of their Tragedies, sought to embellish it. The Interposition of the Gods, so common in Works of Antiquity, and Love, those two great Springs, were the Machinery they employed. Apollonius Rbodius, and Onomacritus, probably after other more antient Poets, for the Argonaut Orpheus himself had composed a Poem upon this Subject, tell us, that Juno, who loved Jason, and Minerva agreed together that it was necessary to make Medea fall in love with Jason, not doubting but that she, who was perfectly Mistress of the Art of Inchantments, would happily extricate him from the Dangers to which he was going to be exposed. In the mean time Jason and Medea meet together without the City, near the Temple of Hecate, whither both of them had repaired to implore the Assistance of the Goddess; and Medea, who was already beginning to conceive a fond Regard for Jason, promises him all Manner of Assistance, if he will plight his Faith to her. After mutual Oaths they parted, and Medea goes to prepare whatever was necessary for the Preservation of her Paramour ; for the King had prescribed, that before he could have the Golden Fleece, in quest of which he had come so far, he was first to put under the Yoke two Bulls, a Present from Vulcan, which had Feet and Horns of Brass, and vomited Clouds of Fire and Smoke j fasten them to a Plough of Adamant-stone, and make them plough up two Acres of a Field consecrated to Mars, which had never been cultivated, there to sow the Teeth of a Dragon, whence armed Men were to spring up, who were all to be exterminated without so much as one of them being left;lastly, to flay the Monster that waked continually for the Preservation of that sacred Depositurn, and to execute all these Labours in one Day. Jason, secure of Medea's Assistance, accepted all, and the next Morning an Assembly is held without the City in the Field of Mars. The King on one Side, accompanied with a Multitude of his Subjects, came up to be Spectator of the Combat; on the other, the Leader of the Argonauts, with all his Associates, full of Consternation at seeing the Danger to which he was going to expose himself. The Bulls are let loose, whose very Sight made the Spectators tremble. Jason tames them, puts them under the Yoke, ploughs the Field, sows therein the Teeth of Man's Dragon j and when he fees the Combatants spring up, throws a Stone among them, which puts them into such Fury, that they kill one another; goes next in quest of the Monster that kept the Golden Fleece, laid him asleep by means, of inchanted Herbs and a prepared Draught, which his Lover had given him, puts him to Death, and carries off the precious Treasure; returns victorious to his Ship, where Medea having come to him by Night, he sets fail, and goes off with her.
It might be said, that all these Fables are nothing but the mere Invention of the Poets, who, contrary in that to the Historians, never recount the Facts which are the Foundation of their Poems without Machinery. However, the celebrated Bochart, who perfectly understood the Genius of the Eastern Languages, thinks he has found in that of the Phœnicians a Key to most of these Fictions, and as no body has succeeded better than he in the Explanation of this Fable, I shall set before the Reader his Thoughts. Medea, whom Jason had promised to marry, and to carry along with him to Greece, at the Solicitation of Calciope her Sister, Phryxus's, Widow, who-saw her Children a Prey to the Avarice of a cruel Tyrant, assisted her Paramour to rob her Father's Treasures, either by giving him a false Key, or in some other Manner, and sets sail with him.
This History was written, as has been already said, in Phœnician, which the Poets, who came long after, understood not, and 'tis the equivocal Words of that Language that gave Rise to the Fable which I have now recited. For, in that Language the Syrian Word Gaza signifies literally a Treasure: Saur, which imports a Wall, signifies also a Bull, and in that Language, Brass, Iron, and a Dragon, are all expressed by the Word Nachas: Thus, instead of saying that Jason had carried off a Treasure, which the King of Colchis had in a Place well secured, and which he carefully kept, they fabled, that in order to carry off a Golden Fleece, he was put to the Necessity of taming Bulls, flaying a Dragon, and the rest. Medea's love to Jason, this great Spring, which Elian takes to have been the Invention of Euripides in the Tragedy of Medea, composed at the Desire of the Corinthians, has nothing in it but what is common; and that Princess, who left her Father and her Country to follow Jason, makes it plain, by this Conduct of hers, that she was hi love with him, without any Occasion of bringing in Juno and Minerva in this Intrigue, which was the Work of Calciope, who, to revenge the Death of her Husband, and to save her Children, whom Æetes resolved to put to Death upon their Return from Greece, whither he had sent them, as I have said, exerted all her Endeavours to promote the Passion which her Sister had conceived for Jason. We may further add, that the four young Princes whom he had brought back into Colchis, seeing themselves exposed to the Fury of their Grandfather, if the Greeks were overcome, assisted them to the utmost of their Power.
The same Bocbart gives a very happy Explication of the Circumstance of the armed Men who sprung out of the Earth, and killed one another. There must have been, says he, in this History a Phrase consisting nearly of Words that signify, Jason drew together an Army of Soldiers, armed with Brazen Pikes, ready to fight, which they explained thus by means of equivocal Words: He few spring up from the Teeth of Serpents, an Army of five Men, or rather of armed Soldiers ranged by Fives, which was the ancient Manner, especially among the Egyptians, of marshalling and marching Troops. Thus we may very reasonably conjecture, that Jason, besides his Companions, had raised in the Country some auxiliary Troops, which were given out to be sprung out of the Earth, because they were Subjects of the King of Colchis, and of the same Country, and who perished in the Battle that was probably fought between the Greeks and the Colchans: For this whole poetical Mystery which I have set forth, may very well be understood of a Battle which made the Greeks victorious, and Masters of Æetes's Person and Treasures. This Explanation is undoubtedly preferable to that of Diodcrus Siculus, who fays the Keeper of the Golden Fleece was named Draco, and that the Troops which served him had come from the Tauric Chersinesus, which gave Rise to the Fables I have been now explaining.
We have observed, in the History of Cadmus, that the antient Poets introduced into it the fame Fable of those armed Men, sprung from the Teeth of Mars's Dragon, who killed one another, all but five; because, in fact, such another Adventure having happened to that Leader of the Colony, with the Assistance of Troops which he had levied in Beotia, was writ in the lame Language, and probably pretty much in the fame Terms with that of Jason.
I know it is not generally agreed that the Golden. Fleece was nothing but the King of Colchis's Treasure. Dicdorus Siculus is of Opinion, that it was the Fleece of a Ram which Phryxus had sacrificed, and which was kept very carefully, because an Oracle had foretold, that the King would be slain by him who should carry it off. Strabo and Justin thought the Foundation of the Fable as this Fleece was, that in Colchis there were Streams which rolled a golden Sand, which they gathered with Sheep's Skins, as is the Practice at this Day about Fort-Louis, where the Gold Dust is collected with such Fleeces, which, when well filled therewith, may be considered as golden Fleeces. Varro and Pliny will have it, that this Fable derives its Original from the sine Wool of those Countries and that the Expedition which some Greek Merchants had undertaken in quest thereof, had given Rise to the Fiction. We may add, that as the Colchans had great Traffic in Marten's Skins, and other Furs, this perhaps was the Motive of the Argonautic Expedition.
Palephatus imagines, I know not upon what Foundation, that under the Emblem of the Golden FIeece,was designed a fine golden Statue which the Mother of Pelops had' procured, and which Phryxus had carried with him into Colchis.
Lastly, Suidas reckons that the Golden Fleece was a Parchment Book, containing the Secret of making Gold, a proper Object: to inflame the Ambition, or rather the Covetousness, not only of the Greeks, but of the whole Earth; and this Opinion, which Tollius thought to have revived, is followed by all the Alchymists.
It might be said, that all these Fables are nothing but the mere Invention of the Poets, who, contrary in that to the Historians, never recount the Facts which are the Foundation of their Poems without Machinery. However, the celebrated Bochart, who perfectly understood the Genius of the Eastern Languages, thinks he has found in that of the Phœnicians a Key to most of these Fictions, and as no body has succeeded better than he in the Explanation of this Fable, I shall set before the Reader his Thoughts. Medea, whom Jason had promised to marry, and to carry along with him to Greece, at the Solicitation of Calciope her Sister, Phryxus's, Widow, who-saw her Children a Prey to the Avarice of a cruel Tyrant, assisted her Paramour to rob her Father's Treasures, either by giving him a false Key, or in some other Manner, and sets sail with him.
This History was written, as has been already said, in Phœnician, which the Poets, who came long after, understood not, and 'tis the equivocal Words of that Language that gave Rise to the Fable which I have now recited. For, in that Language the Syrian Word Gaza signifies literally a Treasure: Saur, which imports a Wall, signifies also a Bull, and in that Language, Brass, Iron, and a Dragon, are all expressed by the Word Nachas: Thus, instead of saying that Jason had carried off a Treasure, which the King of Colchis had in a Place well secured, and which he carefully kept, they fabled, that in order to carry off a Golden Fleece, he was put to the Necessity of taming Bulls, flaying a Dragon, and the rest. Medea's love to Jason, this great Spring, which Elian takes to have been the Invention of Euripides in the Tragedy of Medea, composed at the Desire of the Corinthians, has nothing in it but what is common; and that Princess, who left her Father and her Country to follow Jason, makes it plain, by this Conduct of hers, that she was hi love with him, without any Occasion of bringing in Juno and Minerva in this Intrigue, which was the Work of Calciope, who, to revenge the Death of her Husband, and to save her Children, whom Æetes resolved to put to Death upon their Return from Greece, whither he had sent them, as I have said, exerted all her Endeavours to promote the Passion which her Sister had conceived for Jason. We may further add, that the four young Princes whom he had brought back into Colchis, seeing themselves exposed to the Fury of their Grandfather, if the Greeks were overcome, assisted them to the utmost of their Power.
The same Bocbart gives a very happy Explication of the Circumstance of the armed Men who sprung out of the Earth, and killed one another. There must have been, says he, in this History a Phrase consisting nearly of Words that signify, Jason drew together an Army of Soldiers, armed with Brazen Pikes, ready to fight, which they explained thus by means of equivocal Words: He few spring up from the Teeth of Serpents, an Army of five Men, or rather of armed Soldiers ranged by Fives, which was the ancient Manner, especially among the Egyptians, of marshalling and marching Troops. Thus we may very reasonably conjecture, that Jason, besides his Companions, had raised in the Country some auxiliary Troops, which were given out to be sprung out of the Earth, because they were Subjects of the King of Colchis, and of the same Country, and who perished in the Battle that was probably fought between the Greeks and the Colchans: For this whole poetical Mystery which I have set forth, may very well be understood of a Battle which made the Greeks victorious, and Masters of Æetes's Person and Treasures. This Explanation is undoubtedly preferable to that of Diodcrus Siculus, who fays the Keeper of the Golden Fleece was named Draco, and that the Troops which served him had come from the Tauric Chersinesus, which gave Rise to the Fables I have been now explaining.
We have observed, in the History of Cadmus, that the antient Poets introduced into it the fame Fable of those armed Men, sprung from the Teeth of Mars's Dragon, who killed one another, all but five; because, in fact, such another Adventure having happened to that Leader of the Colony, with the Assistance of Troops which he had levied in Beotia, was writ in the lame Language, and probably pretty much in the fame Terms with that of Jason.
I know it is not generally agreed that the Golden. Fleece was nothing but the King of Colchis's Treasure. Dicdorus Siculus is of Opinion, that it was the Fleece of a Ram which Phryxus had sacrificed, and which was kept very carefully, because an Oracle had foretold, that the King would be slain by him who should carry it off. Strabo and Justin thought the Foundation of the Fable as this Fleece was, that in Colchis there were Streams which rolled a golden Sand, which they gathered with Sheep's Skins, as is the Practice at this Day about Fort-Louis, where the Gold Dust is collected with such Fleeces, which, when well filled therewith, may be considered as golden Fleeces. Varro and Pliny will have it, that this Fable derives its Original from the sine Wool of those Countries and that the Expedition which some Greek Merchants had undertaken in quest thereof, had given Rise to the Fiction. We may add, that as the Colchans had great Traffic in Marten's Skins, and other Furs, this perhaps was the Motive of the Argonautic Expedition.
Palephatus imagines, I know not upon what Foundation, that under the Emblem of the Golden FIeece,was designed a fine golden Statue which the Mother of Pelops had' procured, and which Phryxus had carried with him into Colchis.
Lastly, Suidas reckons that the Golden Fleece was a Parchment Book, containing the Secret of making Gold, a proper Object: to inflame the Ambition, or rather the Covetousness, not only of the Greeks, but of the whole Earth; and this Opinion, which Tollius thought to have revived, is followed by all the Alchymists.
Chapter III.
The Return of the Argonauts into Greece.
Jason having happily accomplished all his Designs, was now solicitous to be gone, and how to conceal his Departure; thus taking Advantage of a dark Night, when Medea and those who accompanied her, had repaired to his Ship with Æetes's Treasures, he quickly set sail, not doubting but that he would soon be pursued. Accordingly he was so: The King quickly fitted out some Ships, which set out under the Command of Absyrthus his Son, with a View to pursue the Ravisher. He very soon overtook him j but Jason, according to Onomacritus, having landed with his Brother-in-law, conveyed him with Medea into some remote Place, under Pretext of treating of an Accommodation, where he and Medea assassinated him, and scattered the Members of his Body along the Way to retard the March of his Pursuers; after which they re-imbarked.
This Fact is undoubtedly the Invention of the Poets now quoted, since we shall find afterwards, that Absyrthus pursued the Ship Argo for a long Time. Further, the Character of Medea, which I shall give in a particular Chapter, where I shall shew, that she was by no means such a bad Woman as some Poets have represented her, especially Euripides, corrupted by the Corinthian Money, will remove the very Suspicion of so barbarous an Action.
His Return into Greece is told by antient Poets in several Ways very different one from another; and however extravagant their Relations are, yet they had all the good Luck to find in the Places which they make him to pass through, Monuments to confirm that Heroe's having been there, and their Relations have been adopted either in whole or in part, by grave Historians, such as Hecateus of Miletus, Timagetes, Timeus, &c. Strabo himself, who gives no Credit to them, mentions however Monuments found in the Places where the Poets now cited make him to have pasted.
Onomacitus makes him to have cruised along the Eastern Coasts of Asia, soiled through the Cimmerian Bosphorus, and the Palus Meotis; whence having entered certain Straits, they pasted there nine Days, at the End of which, they were got into the Northern Ocean, where the Wind failing them, they were obliged to land, and lay up their Ship. Some time after a gentle Gale invited them to put again to Sea, and they failed on, still keeping to the Left, and arrived at the Island Peucestes, which was not unknown to the Pilote Anceus: From thence to that of Circe, where Jason sent out for Intelligence, had an Interview with that Princess, who after informing him that all his Misfortunes were owing to the Murder of Absyrthus, from which, however, she refused to expiate him, they continued their Course, arrived at Hercules's Pillars, reentered the Mediterranean, pasted near Sicily, and fell into the Straits of Scylla and Charybdis, where they would infallibly have been shipwreck'd, if Tethys, to prevent the Calamity with which her Husband Peleus was threatned, had not extricated them from it. The Seat of the Sirens, which is not far from thence, was like to have been as fatal to them as the Straits; but Orpheus’s Eloquence saved them from that Peril. Having escaped this new Danger, they arrived in the Country of the Pheacians, where they met with the Enemy's Fleet, which was come by another Way to wait for them. The Commanders of that Fleet demanded of him Medea, and it was agreed on both Sides, that Jason should be obliged to deliver her up to them, it he had not actually married her. But the Wife of Alcinous, who was chosen Judge, having got the Nuptials celebrated that fame Night; and having declared to the Deputies from the Enemy's Fleet, that she certainly knew that Jason and Medea had been married from the Time of his carrying her off, they were obliged to let him keep her, and return. In the mean time, our Adventurers departed from the Island of the Pheacians, and were now arrived in the Gulf of Ambraica, when a Storm drove them upon the Quicksands of Africa, where they underwent a vast Number of Dangers. At length having got clear of so hazardous a Place, they made the Cape Malea, where was performed the Expiation for Absyrthus' Murder, as Circe had enjoined them, after which they arrived upon the Coasts of Thessaly.
How improbable soever this Voyage is, especially for a Period of Time when Navigation was but little improved, that which Apollonius Rhodius makes them accomplish, is still more so. Juno, fays that Poet, having a Mind to deliver the Argonauts from the Danger which they were in from the Fleet of Absyrthus, which was in Pursuit of them, was turning the Ship Argo towards Greece, when they called to mind that Phineus had bid them return home by a different Way from that which they had taken in going to Colchis; that this Course had been marked out by the Priests of Thebes in Egypt ; that from that Country had antiently come a Conqueror, who after having over-run Europe and Asia, and conquered many Countries, had founded several Cities, and among others Æea the Capital of Colchis; that those antient People shewed Pillars whereon were engraved the Roads and Courses from and to all Places both by Sea and Land that were accessible, which Pillars intimated, that there was at the Extremities of the Ocean a vast River, of a very extensive Course. This River was the Danube, into which they entered by one of its Mouths, while Absyrtbus, whom that Poet makes to have been then dead in the Manner above mentioned, entered thither by another Mouth, and went up the River for several Leagues. Then the River failing them, they landed, and carried their Ship for upwards of fifty Leagues, as far as the Adriatic Gulf, where they met with Absyrtbus, who had got before them; and there it was, according to this Poet, that Jason put him to Death, much in. the fame Manner as Onomacritus relates.
It was after this Murder an Oracle was delivered from the Beam that had grown in the Forest of Dodona, letting them know that they were not to get home till Jason had submitted to the Ceremony of Expiation: Upon which, they thought fit to steer their Course another Way, and landed in the Port of Æeat the Scat of Circe, Sister to the King of Colchis, and. Aunt to Medea. This Princess received her Niece with Jason without knowing them: They both advanced with downcast Eyes, and without uttering a single Word, till they came up to the sacred Hearth, where Jason fixed in the Ground the Sword wherewith he had killed Absyrthus. Their Silence, and the Posture in which they appeared, made Circe apprehend that they were Criminals, and therefore she prepared herself to give them Expiation. First, sheordered to be brought a young Pig, not yet weaned, and having cut the Throat of it, rubbed the Hands of Jason and Medea with its Blood, and performed the usual Libations in Honour of Jupiter Expiator. After which, having thrown out of the Palace the Remains of the Sacrifice, she burnt upon the Altar Cakes baked with Meal, Water, and Salt, and accompanied all these Ceremonies with Prayers proper to appease the Gods. The Expiation ended, she made her Guests sit down to an Entertainment; but afterwards, coming to understand that Medea was her Niece, she expelled her with Jason, without however doing them any Harm, because they had implored her Protection in the Posture of Suppliants.
Leaving this Seat, they again put to Sea, made a prosperous enough Voyage for some Time; and they were just almost arrived on the Coasts of Greece, when a Storm drove them upon the Quick-sands of Africa, from which they had the greatest Difficulty imaginable to extricate themselves. However, they got clear of them at length, and arrived happily in Greece.
Lastly, a third Tradition, after making the Argonauts go up the Pbafis a second Time, brings them to visit several Countries of Asia, where they left many Footsteps of their Rout. However void of Probability these three Relations seem to be, they deserve some Reflections. First, That of Onomacritus, which makes our Heroes return by the northern Ocean, is plainly a Fiction, which demonstrates, that in the Time of that Poet the northern Countries were but little known. That the Argonauts entred by the Euxine Sea into the Palus Meotis, has nothing strange in it: 'Tis even possible that they might have for some Time gone up the Tanais; but to imagine it possible by that River to go as far as the Ocean, is the Height of Ignorance, and a childish Fiction which the Author has introduced, only to give him an Opportunity of describing to us the People of those distant Countries so far as they were known in his Time; People to the most of whom we are intire Strangers, and who had not so much as an Existence in the Time when Oncmacritits is slid to have lived; while the Situation of others is only placed at a Venture in the Relation of this Expedition. I shall not enter into any Detail with respect to all the Nations which the Argonauts light upon in this Rout of theirs, and which the Author barely mentions, without saying any thing particular about their Manners or Customs. Herodotus alone is sufficient to rectify the greatest Part of this Relation. What Onomacritus says of the Macrobii is hilly explained in the two Dissertations which the Abbé Gedouyn and I have made upon the Hyperboreans. As to the Cimmerians, who inhabited near the Bosphorus of that Name, this Poet, in Imitation of Homer, has placed them in the Ocean, because possibly it was known even in their Time, that a People could not be buried in Darkness; unless they inhabited nearer the Pole than the Bosphorus is. I say nothing of the other geographical Errors with which, this Poet may be charged, because they are obvious; far left of the Conveyance of the Ship by Land, which appears a mere Fiction; but I ought not to pass over in Silence what Apollonius Rhodius fays of those Pillars of Colchis, upon which were engraved all the Routs known in that Time; this Fact relating to Sesostris, who actually extended his Conquests as far as the Phasis, and left there several Monuments of no less Magnificence than Utility. This Poet having spent most of his Life in Egypt .in Quality of Librarian to Ptolemy Phladelphus, had undoubtedly in his Possession the History of Sesostris; and tho’ this was posterior to the Argonautic Expedition, he might, by way of Anticipation, speak of the Monuments which that Conqueror left in Colchis: For which, besides Herodotus, I refer to Syncellus, Jamblicbus, Huetius, and several other Authors. The antient Commentator on Apollonius Rhodius, gives the Name of Sethoncosis to the Prince who had erected these Pillars, who is the fame with Sesostris.
I might content myself with these general Reflections upon the two Poets, and the Historians who have spoke of the Return of the Argonauts; but as among the Fables with which they have interspersed the Relation, of this Voyage, there are some that may be reduced to History, I hope it will not be ill taken that I attempt to explain them.
I begin with that of Absyrthus. The Murder of this young Prince, sent by his Father in pursuit of those who had carried away the Golden Fleece, is so variously related by those who have had Occasion to speak of this Expedition, that there is little Doubt of its being a mere Fiction. That Medea, or Jason, or both together, laid a Plot to put him to Death; that after having assassinated him, they cut his Body in Pieces, and strewed them in the Way of the Golebans, that they might spend Time in gathering up the scattered Members, and thereby be retarded in their Pursuit v all this appears to be fabulous. The Authors of this Murder, by making use of that Stratagem, instead of retarding, would much more have hastened the Pursuit of the Colchans, who would probably have deferred the gathering up of those sad- Remains of their Chief, till they had overtaken and punished the Criminals. Thus, with respect to this Pursuit, I prefer the Opinion of those of the Antients who tell Us there was an Engagement upon the Euxine Sea, where the Fleet of Æetes had joined the Argonauts, wherein that Prince and his Son were slain; which left our Voyager, the Liberty to return into Greece by the lame Way they came; thus they landed at die Cape of Malea, as Herodotus expresly says.
What we read in Pindar, that the Argonauts arriving near the Coasts of Greece, were assailed by a Storm which drove them upon the Coasts of Africa, is the more probable, that Herodotus, and some other Historians, are agreed with that Poet; but whether it was in their Return, or at their first setting out, is not easy to determine. Herodotus, who advances this Fact, is not clear enough upon this Article. We may suppose it happened not long after their settings out. That Author, speaking of the River Triton, which discharges itself into the LakeTritonis, where is an island which was called Phia, says it was believed that the Island must have been inhabited by the Lacedemonians; and he adds, it was reported by Tradition, that when Jason had built at the Foot of Mount Pelion the Ship which was called Argo, and had stowed in it a Hecatomb and a Tripod of Brass, he undertook the Voyage to Delphi by the Tour of Peloponnesus; that taking his Rout by the Promontory of Male atthe Northwind drove him upon Libya, where he found his Ship run aground in the Lake Tritonis; and while he was endeavouring to extricate himself, a Triton appeared to him, and told him, that if he would give him the Tripod he had in his Ship, he would (hew him how to get clear of this Danger; upon which, Jason agreeing to the Proposal, gave him the Tripod, which the Triton laid up in his Temple, and foretold Jason and his Crew, that when one of their Descendants should carry off that Tripod, it was fixed by Fate that there should be a hundred Greek Towns built upon the Lake Tritonis; in fine, that the Libyans being informed of this Oracle, kept the Tripod carefully concealed.
I shall first make some Reflexions upon this Narration. The first is, that it this Adventure is true, it must have happened not long after the Departure of the Greeks, as has been said; and 'tis natural to believe so, from the Hecatomb which Jason had stowed in his Ship, which would have greatly encumbered him in his Expedition; besides, it was destined for a Sacrifice to Apollo for obtaining a prosperous Voyage, according to the Practice of those Times, and if so, then Medea was not at that Time with the Argonauts, as Pindar tells us. Though little Stress is to be laid upon a Story which Herodotus relates upon the Faith of another, without seeming to adopt it, yet, as it was the Consequence of an antient Tradition, and stood connected with Events which we learn from History, 'tis better to explain the fabulous Circumstances thereof than to reject it.
'Tis certain in Fact, as far as may be affirmed of the Events of that Time, that the Argonauts landed in that Part of Libya which is called Cyrenaicum. Being embarrassed in a difficult Pass, they had the Assistance ofthe People of the Country to help them to get clear of it. This Fable is clothed in a fabulous Dress; the Poets hardly venting any Thing but under the Veil of Fiction. The Triton who appeared to them under a human Form, was a Prince who reigned in that Place, whom Pindar and his Scholiast name Eurypilus. He gave good Instructions to our Heroes to avoid the Sand Banks which lie in the Syrtes and thereabout. This is the whole Mystery: The Prediction which they put in his Mouth having only been invented after the Event; that is, after the Greeks were settled in that Part of Africa, and had built Cities there.
The Sea-Goddesses and the Genii, whom Apollonius makes also to appear to our Voyagers, are the Inhabitants of that Coast who assisted them; and that Horse unyoked from Neptune's Chariot, whose Tract he ordered them to follow, is a Ship detached from Eurypilus's Fleet, which served them for a Guide. This Horse was feigned to have Wings, and to cut the Air with vast Rapidity, which denotes the Swiftness of the Ship: For how is it possible otherwise to reconcile what we read in the Poet now named, of the Argonauts having carried their Ship, being ordered at the fame Time to follow the Traces of a Horse which went as fast as the swiftest Bird?
Our Heroes, in Gratitude for the signal Service done them by Eurypilus, made him a Present of the Tripod above mentioned. Diodorus, who also speaks of it, fays there was upon the Tripod an Inscription in very antient Characters, and adds, that it was preserved to the latest Times among the People called Hesperitans, in Cyrenaicum.
Pindar, intending to write a Panegyric upon Arcesilaus King of Cyrene, one of the Descendants of Euphemus that celebrated Argonaut mentioned elsewhere, quite forgets his Heroe, and runs out at great Length upon the Adventures that befel the Argonauts, especially in Africa, relating the History of that Clod of Earth which the Triton gave them; but he differs from Apollonius Rhodius, who wrote not till after him. The Triton, says Pindar, charmed with the Tripod given him by the Argonauts, beg'd them not to set out till he should have Time to go and fetch them the Presents which every Host is bound to make to his Guests; but those Princes, whom a favourable Wind perhaps invited to set fail, not having allowed him Time, he took a Clod of Earth and gave to Eupbemus. When the Argonauts had arrived near the Island Calisthe, the fatal Clod drop'd into the Sea, and Medea foretold Euphemus that this Incident would retard the Settlement of his Posterity in Libya.
For understanding this Prediction of Medea, we must relate here what we are told by Historians, of the Descendants of the Argonauts, and of the Women of Lemnos, whom the Antients called the Mynians. The Pelasgi, says Dionysius of Halicarnassus, having made themselves Masters of that Island, expelled them from it, in the fourth Generation after the Passage of the Argonauts. Being forced to quit their Country, they put to Sea, as we read in Herodotus (2), and passed into Laconia. The Lacedemonians perceiving them near Mount Taygetus, where they had lighted up Fires, sent a Deputation to them; and hearing that they were the Descendants of the Argonauts, who were coming in quest of their Relations, they received them into their City, upon Account of Castor and Pollux., But these new Guests having become factious, v.ere banished the City, and came most of them and settled in the Island Calisthe, named afterwards the Island of Thera.
From the Island Calisthe the Argonauts happily arrived on the Coasts of Thessaly, whence they set out. Peleus having died in the Voyage, Acastes his Son engaged his Companions before their Separation to celebrate Funeral Games in Honour of his Father; and as Pausanias gives the Description thereof, we shall here set down his Words.
"Behind the Place which represented the Palace of Amphiaraus, upon the Coffer of the Cyphelides, is to be seen a Multitude of Spectators, in the midst of whom is Hercules fitting upon a Throne. Behind him, is a Woman playing upon the Phrygian Flute, as appears from an Inscription. Petus, the Son of Perieres, (he was only his Grandson) and Asterion the Son of Cometes, each mounted on a Chariot, are urging their Steeds in the Race : Pollux, Admetus, and Euphemus are disputing for the same Prize. And we see it is the last that gains the Victory. On another side Admetus and Mopsus the Sons of Ampysus areengaged in the Gauntlet-fight between them is a Man playing upon the Flute. The wrestling Match is between Jason and Peleus; they seem to be of equal Strength. Eurybotus is in the Posture of a Man throwing a Coit. Melanion, Neotheus, Pbalareus, Argius and Iphiclus are the five who seem to have disputed the Prize of the Foot-race: Iphiclus wins the Prize, and Acastes is putting a Crown upon his Head. This Iphiclus was the Father of Protesilaus, who went to the Siege of Troy. We fee also in the fame Picture several Tripods for the Conquerors. The Daughters of Pelias join in those Games, one of whom is named in the Inscription; namely Alcestes. Jalaus the Companion of Hercules in his Labours, carries the Prize of the Chariot-race, and this closes the Funeral Games of Pelias.”
The fame Author adds, that Glaucus the Son of Sisyphus, had been trod down by his Horses in the fame Games; but he says nothing of the literary Contests that accompanied them; Acesander however, cited by Plutarch, will have it that this Sort of Match, was likewise exhibited there, wherein the Poets disputed the Prize, in reading their Tetralogia; and this no doubt, is the most antient Example that can be cited of this literary Trial, so much used afterwards in the Games of Greece.
The Argonauts before they separated, entered into a Confederacy against all who should have any Quarrel with them; and to make it the more solemn, Hercules convened them in the Plains of Elis, there to celebrate the Olympic Games, which had been interrupted for a long Time, as they likewise were afterwards. Jason consecrated in the Isthmus of Corinth to the God of the Sea, the Ship Argo, which the Poets have since placed in the Heavens, as may be seen in Hyginus, and in the first Verses of Valerius Flaccus.
This Fact is undoubtedly the Invention of the Poets now quoted, since we shall find afterwards, that Absyrthus pursued the Ship Argo for a long Time. Further, the Character of Medea, which I shall give in a particular Chapter, where I shall shew, that she was by no means such a bad Woman as some Poets have represented her, especially Euripides, corrupted by the Corinthian Money, will remove the very Suspicion of so barbarous an Action.
His Return into Greece is told by antient Poets in several Ways very different one from another; and however extravagant their Relations are, yet they had all the good Luck to find in the Places which they make him to pass through, Monuments to confirm that Heroe's having been there, and their Relations have been adopted either in whole or in part, by grave Historians, such as Hecateus of Miletus, Timagetes, Timeus, &c. Strabo himself, who gives no Credit to them, mentions however Monuments found in the Places where the Poets now cited make him to have pasted.
Onomacitus makes him to have cruised along the Eastern Coasts of Asia, soiled through the Cimmerian Bosphorus, and the Palus Meotis; whence having entered certain Straits, they pasted there nine Days, at the End of which, they were got into the Northern Ocean, where the Wind failing them, they were obliged to land, and lay up their Ship. Some time after a gentle Gale invited them to put again to Sea, and they failed on, still keeping to the Left, and arrived at the Island Peucestes, which was not unknown to the Pilote Anceus: From thence to that of Circe, where Jason sent out for Intelligence, had an Interview with that Princess, who after informing him that all his Misfortunes were owing to the Murder of Absyrthus, from which, however, she refused to expiate him, they continued their Course, arrived at Hercules's Pillars, reentered the Mediterranean, pasted near Sicily, and fell into the Straits of Scylla and Charybdis, where they would infallibly have been shipwreck'd, if Tethys, to prevent the Calamity with which her Husband Peleus was threatned, had not extricated them from it. The Seat of the Sirens, which is not far from thence, was like to have been as fatal to them as the Straits; but Orpheus’s Eloquence saved them from that Peril. Having escaped this new Danger, they arrived in the Country of the Pheacians, where they met with the Enemy's Fleet, which was come by another Way to wait for them. The Commanders of that Fleet demanded of him Medea, and it was agreed on both Sides, that Jason should be obliged to deliver her up to them, it he had not actually married her. But the Wife of Alcinous, who was chosen Judge, having got the Nuptials celebrated that fame Night; and having declared to the Deputies from the Enemy's Fleet, that she certainly knew that Jason and Medea had been married from the Time of his carrying her off, they were obliged to let him keep her, and return. In the mean time, our Adventurers departed from the Island of the Pheacians, and were now arrived in the Gulf of Ambraica, when a Storm drove them upon the Quicksands of Africa, where they underwent a vast Number of Dangers. At length having got clear of so hazardous a Place, they made the Cape Malea, where was performed the Expiation for Absyrthus' Murder, as Circe had enjoined them, after which they arrived upon the Coasts of Thessaly.
How improbable soever this Voyage is, especially for a Period of Time when Navigation was but little improved, that which Apollonius Rhodius makes them accomplish, is still more so. Juno, fays that Poet, having a Mind to deliver the Argonauts from the Danger which they were in from the Fleet of Absyrthus, which was in Pursuit of them, was turning the Ship Argo towards Greece, when they called to mind that Phineus had bid them return home by a different Way from that which they had taken in going to Colchis; that this Course had been marked out by the Priests of Thebes in Egypt ; that from that Country had antiently come a Conqueror, who after having over-run Europe and Asia, and conquered many Countries, had founded several Cities, and among others Æea the Capital of Colchis; that those antient People shewed Pillars whereon were engraved the Roads and Courses from and to all Places both by Sea and Land that were accessible, which Pillars intimated, that there was at the Extremities of the Ocean a vast River, of a very extensive Course. This River was the Danube, into which they entered by one of its Mouths, while Absyrtbus, whom that Poet makes to have been then dead in the Manner above mentioned, entered thither by another Mouth, and went up the River for several Leagues. Then the River failing them, they landed, and carried their Ship for upwards of fifty Leagues, as far as the Adriatic Gulf, where they met with Absyrtbus, who had got before them; and there it was, according to this Poet, that Jason put him to Death, much in. the fame Manner as Onomacritus relates.
It was after this Murder an Oracle was delivered from the Beam that had grown in the Forest of Dodona, letting them know that they were not to get home till Jason had submitted to the Ceremony of Expiation: Upon which, they thought fit to steer their Course another Way, and landed in the Port of Æeat the Scat of Circe, Sister to the King of Colchis, and. Aunt to Medea. This Princess received her Niece with Jason without knowing them: They both advanced with downcast Eyes, and without uttering a single Word, till they came up to the sacred Hearth, where Jason fixed in the Ground the Sword wherewith he had killed Absyrthus. Their Silence, and the Posture in which they appeared, made Circe apprehend that they were Criminals, and therefore she prepared herself to give them Expiation. First, sheordered to be brought a young Pig, not yet weaned, and having cut the Throat of it, rubbed the Hands of Jason and Medea with its Blood, and performed the usual Libations in Honour of Jupiter Expiator. After which, having thrown out of the Palace the Remains of the Sacrifice, she burnt upon the Altar Cakes baked with Meal, Water, and Salt, and accompanied all these Ceremonies with Prayers proper to appease the Gods. The Expiation ended, she made her Guests sit down to an Entertainment; but afterwards, coming to understand that Medea was her Niece, she expelled her with Jason, without however doing them any Harm, because they had implored her Protection in the Posture of Suppliants.
Leaving this Seat, they again put to Sea, made a prosperous enough Voyage for some Time; and they were just almost arrived on the Coasts of Greece, when a Storm drove them upon the Quick-sands of Africa, from which they had the greatest Difficulty imaginable to extricate themselves. However, they got clear of them at length, and arrived happily in Greece.
Lastly, a third Tradition, after making the Argonauts go up the Pbafis a second Time, brings them to visit several Countries of Asia, where they left many Footsteps of their Rout. However void of Probability these three Relations seem to be, they deserve some Reflections. First, That of Onomacritus, which makes our Heroes return by the northern Ocean, is plainly a Fiction, which demonstrates, that in the Time of that Poet the northern Countries were but little known. That the Argonauts entred by the Euxine Sea into the Palus Meotis, has nothing strange in it: 'Tis even possible that they might have for some Time gone up the Tanais; but to imagine it possible by that River to go as far as the Ocean, is the Height of Ignorance, and a childish Fiction which the Author has introduced, only to give him an Opportunity of describing to us the People of those distant Countries so far as they were known in his Time; People to the most of whom we are intire Strangers, and who had not so much as an Existence in the Time when Oncmacritits is slid to have lived; while the Situation of others is only placed at a Venture in the Relation of this Expedition. I shall not enter into any Detail with respect to all the Nations which the Argonauts light upon in this Rout of theirs, and which the Author barely mentions, without saying any thing particular about their Manners or Customs. Herodotus alone is sufficient to rectify the greatest Part of this Relation. What Onomacritus says of the Macrobii is hilly explained in the two Dissertations which the Abbé Gedouyn and I have made upon the Hyperboreans. As to the Cimmerians, who inhabited near the Bosphorus of that Name, this Poet, in Imitation of Homer, has placed them in the Ocean, because possibly it was known even in their Time, that a People could not be buried in Darkness; unless they inhabited nearer the Pole than the Bosphorus is. I say nothing of the other geographical Errors with which, this Poet may be charged, because they are obvious; far left of the Conveyance of the Ship by Land, which appears a mere Fiction; but I ought not to pass over in Silence what Apollonius Rhodius fays of those Pillars of Colchis, upon which were engraved all the Routs known in that Time; this Fact relating to Sesostris, who actually extended his Conquests as far as the Phasis, and left there several Monuments of no less Magnificence than Utility. This Poet having spent most of his Life in Egypt .in Quality of Librarian to Ptolemy Phladelphus, had undoubtedly in his Possession the History of Sesostris; and tho’ this was posterior to the Argonautic Expedition, he might, by way of Anticipation, speak of the Monuments which that Conqueror left in Colchis: For which, besides Herodotus, I refer to Syncellus, Jamblicbus, Huetius, and several other Authors. The antient Commentator on Apollonius Rhodius, gives the Name of Sethoncosis to the Prince who had erected these Pillars, who is the fame with Sesostris.
I might content myself with these general Reflections upon the two Poets, and the Historians who have spoke of the Return of the Argonauts; but as among the Fables with which they have interspersed the Relation, of this Voyage, there are some that may be reduced to History, I hope it will not be ill taken that I attempt to explain them.
I begin with that of Absyrthus. The Murder of this young Prince, sent by his Father in pursuit of those who had carried away the Golden Fleece, is so variously related by those who have had Occasion to speak of this Expedition, that there is little Doubt of its being a mere Fiction. That Medea, or Jason, or both together, laid a Plot to put him to Death; that after having assassinated him, they cut his Body in Pieces, and strewed them in the Way of the Golebans, that they might spend Time in gathering up the scattered Members, and thereby be retarded in their Pursuit v all this appears to be fabulous. The Authors of this Murder, by making use of that Stratagem, instead of retarding, would much more have hastened the Pursuit of the Colchans, who would probably have deferred the gathering up of those sad- Remains of their Chief, till they had overtaken and punished the Criminals. Thus, with respect to this Pursuit, I prefer the Opinion of those of the Antients who tell Us there was an Engagement upon the Euxine Sea, where the Fleet of Æetes had joined the Argonauts, wherein that Prince and his Son were slain; which left our Voyager, the Liberty to return into Greece by the lame Way they came; thus they landed at die Cape of Malea, as Herodotus expresly says.
What we read in Pindar, that the Argonauts arriving near the Coasts of Greece, were assailed by a Storm which drove them upon the Coasts of Africa, is the more probable, that Herodotus, and some other Historians, are agreed with that Poet; but whether it was in their Return, or at their first setting out, is not easy to determine. Herodotus, who advances this Fact, is not clear enough upon this Article. We may suppose it happened not long after their settings out. That Author, speaking of the River Triton, which discharges itself into the LakeTritonis, where is an island which was called Phia, says it was believed that the Island must have been inhabited by the Lacedemonians; and he adds, it was reported by Tradition, that when Jason had built at the Foot of Mount Pelion the Ship which was called Argo, and had stowed in it a Hecatomb and a Tripod of Brass, he undertook the Voyage to Delphi by the Tour of Peloponnesus; that taking his Rout by the Promontory of Male atthe Northwind drove him upon Libya, where he found his Ship run aground in the Lake Tritonis; and while he was endeavouring to extricate himself, a Triton appeared to him, and told him, that if he would give him the Tripod he had in his Ship, he would (hew him how to get clear of this Danger; upon which, Jason agreeing to the Proposal, gave him the Tripod, which the Triton laid up in his Temple, and foretold Jason and his Crew, that when one of their Descendants should carry off that Tripod, it was fixed by Fate that there should be a hundred Greek Towns built upon the Lake Tritonis; in fine, that the Libyans being informed of this Oracle, kept the Tripod carefully concealed.
I shall first make some Reflexions upon this Narration. The first is, that it this Adventure is true, it must have happened not long after the Departure of the Greeks, as has been said; and 'tis natural to believe so, from the Hecatomb which Jason had stowed in his Ship, which would have greatly encumbered him in his Expedition; besides, it was destined for a Sacrifice to Apollo for obtaining a prosperous Voyage, according to the Practice of those Times, and if so, then Medea was not at that Time with the Argonauts, as Pindar tells us. Though little Stress is to be laid upon a Story which Herodotus relates upon the Faith of another, without seeming to adopt it, yet, as it was the Consequence of an antient Tradition, and stood connected with Events which we learn from History, 'tis better to explain the fabulous Circumstances thereof than to reject it.
'Tis certain in Fact, as far as may be affirmed of the Events of that Time, that the Argonauts landed in that Part of Libya which is called Cyrenaicum. Being embarrassed in a difficult Pass, they had the Assistance ofthe People of the Country to help them to get clear of it. This Fable is clothed in a fabulous Dress; the Poets hardly venting any Thing but under the Veil of Fiction. The Triton who appeared to them under a human Form, was a Prince who reigned in that Place, whom Pindar and his Scholiast name Eurypilus. He gave good Instructions to our Heroes to avoid the Sand Banks which lie in the Syrtes and thereabout. This is the whole Mystery: The Prediction which they put in his Mouth having only been invented after the Event; that is, after the Greeks were settled in that Part of Africa, and had built Cities there.
The Sea-Goddesses and the Genii, whom Apollonius makes also to appear to our Voyagers, are the Inhabitants of that Coast who assisted them; and that Horse unyoked from Neptune's Chariot, whose Tract he ordered them to follow, is a Ship detached from Eurypilus's Fleet, which served them for a Guide. This Horse was feigned to have Wings, and to cut the Air with vast Rapidity, which denotes the Swiftness of the Ship: For how is it possible otherwise to reconcile what we read in the Poet now named, of the Argonauts having carried their Ship, being ordered at the fame Time to follow the Traces of a Horse which went as fast as the swiftest Bird?
Our Heroes, in Gratitude for the signal Service done them by Eurypilus, made him a Present of the Tripod above mentioned. Diodorus, who also speaks of it, fays there was upon the Tripod an Inscription in very antient Characters, and adds, that it was preserved to the latest Times among the People called Hesperitans, in Cyrenaicum.
Pindar, intending to write a Panegyric upon Arcesilaus King of Cyrene, one of the Descendants of Euphemus that celebrated Argonaut mentioned elsewhere, quite forgets his Heroe, and runs out at great Length upon the Adventures that befel the Argonauts, especially in Africa, relating the History of that Clod of Earth which the Triton gave them; but he differs from Apollonius Rhodius, who wrote not till after him. The Triton, says Pindar, charmed with the Tripod given him by the Argonauts, beg'd them not to set out till he should have Time to go and fetch them the Presents which every Host is bound to make to his Guests; but those Princes, whom a favourable Wind perhaps invited to set fail, not having allowed him Time, he took a Clod of Earth and gave to Eupbemus. When the Argonauts had arrived near the Island Calisthe, the fatal Clod drop'd into the Sea, and Medea foretold Euphemus that this Incident would retard the Settlement of his Posterity in Libya.
For understanding this Prediction of Medea, we must relate here what we are told by Historians, of the Descendants of the Argonauts, and of the Women of Lemnos, whom the Antients called the Mynians. The Pelasgi, says Dionysius of Halicarnassus, having made themselves Masters of that Island, expelled them from it, in the fourth Generation after the Passage of the Argonauts. Being forced to quit their Country, they put to Sea, as we read in Herodotus (2), and passed into Laconia. The Lacedemonians perceiving them near Mount Taygetus, where they had lighted up Fires, sent a Deputation to them; and hearing that they were the Descendants of the Argonauts, who were coming in quest of their Relations, they received them into their City, upon Account of Castor and Pollux., But these new Guests having become factious, v.ere banished the City, and came most of them and settled in the Island Calisthe, named afterwards the Island of Thera.
From the Island Calisthe the Argonauts happily arrived on the Coasts of Thessaly, whence they set out. Peleus having died in the Voyage, Acastes his Son engaged his Companions before their Separation to celebrate Funeral Games in Honour of his Father; and as Pausanias gives the Description thereof, we shall here set down his Words.
"Behind the Place which represented the Palace of Amphiaraus, upon the Coffer of the Cyphelides, is to be seen a Multitude of Spectators, in the midst of whom is Hercules fitting upon a Throne. Behind him, is a Woman playing upon the Phrygian Flute, as appears from an Inscription. Petus, the Son of Perieres, (he was only his Grandson) and Asterion the Son of Cometes, each mounted on a Chariot, are urging their Steeds in the Race : Pollux, Admetus, and Euphemus are disputing for the same Prize. And we see it is the last that gains the Victory. On another side Admetus and Mopsus the Sons of Ampysus areengaged in the Gauntlet-fight between them is a Man playing upon the Flute. The wrestling Match is between Jason and Peleus; they seem to be of equal Strength. Eurybotus is in the Posture of a Man throwing a Coit. Melanion, Neotheus, Pbalareus, Argius and Iphiclus are the five who seem to have disputed the Prize of the Foot-race: Iphiclus wins the Prize, and Acastes is putting a Crown upon his Head. This Iphiclus was the Father of Protesilaus, who went to the Siege of Troy. We fee also in the fame Picture several Tripods for the Conquerors. The Daughters of Pelias join in those Games, one of whom is named in the Inscription; namely Alcestes. Jalaus the Companion of Hercules in his Labours, carries the Prize of the Chariot-race, and this closes the Funeral Games of Pelias.”
The fame Author adds, that Glaucus the Son of Sisyphus, had been trod down by his Horses in the fame Games; but he says nothing of the literary Contests that accompanied them; Acesander however, cited by Plutarch, will have it that this Sort of Match, was likewise exhibited there, wherein the Poets disputed the Prize, in reading their Tetralogia; and this no doubt, is the most antient Example that can be cited of this literary Trial, so much used afterwards in the Games of Greece.
The Argonauts before they separated, entered into a Confederacy against all who should have any Quarrel with them; and to make it the more solemn, Hercules convened them in the Plains of Elis, there to celebrate the Olympic Games, which had been interrupted for a long Time, as they likewise were afterwards. Jason consecrated in the Isthmus of Corinth to the God of the Sea, the Ship Argo, which the Poets have since placed in the Heavens, as may be seen in Hyginus, and in the first Verses of Valerius Flaccus.
Chapter IV.
The Date of This Event
As the Date of this Event may cast a great Light upon the Age whereof I am now writing the History, I shall endeavour to settle it with some Accuracy. But the Difficulty that occurs here is very great: The Learned have embraced different Opinions as to this Æra; some removing it too far from the Trojan War, for it is enough if we can determine its Distance from that Event; others again bringing it too near; that is to say, the first set it at the Distance of 96 Years from it, with Eusibius;and others only 20 Years, with Joseph Scaliger; both which are equally contrary to what I am going to demonstrate.
If the Date of Hercules's, Death, assigned by Apollodorus, who makes that Heroe to have died 53 Years before the Taking of Troy, was once fixed, and the Space of sow or five Years were to be allowed for what he did from the Expedition of die Argonauts to his Death, this Conquest would then have fallen out about 58 Years before the taking of Troy; which cannot be admitted. 'Tis true Velleius Paterculus, makes Hercules to have died only forty Years before that War, to which if we add the five Years I have mentioned, the Æra we want, would fall in the Year 44 or 45; but this Distance is still too great, and is inconsistent, tho' less than the rest, with the most incontestable Records of Antiquity with relation to the Age in Question. For in fine, how can we think otherwise of two Events, in the last of which, we find a good Number of the fame Warriors, several of their Sons, and only a few of their Grandsons, but that they were much nearer to one another than several Authors allow, namely, at the Distance of not above 34 or 35 Years; much in the same Way as we judge of the War in 1701, and that in 1734, where we have seen the same Warriors, their Sons, and some of their Grandsons. Now this is precisely the Case of the Argonauts, and the Captains in the Trojan War, according to all Antiquity, beginning with Homer.
Among the Warriors who joined in both Expeditions, I reckon first Philoctetes, who without dispute was of the Number of the Argonauts., and concurred in the Siege of Troy after Ulysses brought him from .Lemnos where he had been left, and who consequently went twice to that Island, as we have it in Valerius Flaccus. I shall even make it appear in the particular History of this Heroe, that he survived the taking of Troy a long Time. Euryalus the Son of Mecistheus, and Grandson of Talaus, the same who had been present at the Conquest of the Golden Fleece, commanded the Argives with Diomedes at the Siege of Troy: I say the same, since Homer gives him the fame Genealogy with that now mentioned.
Tho’ Nestor is named among Jason's Companions only by Valerius Flaccus, he is at least to be reckoned in the Number of their Contemporaries. He had seen his Country laid waste by Hercules, he had been at the Battle of the Centaurs, and at the Hunting of Calydon; two Events, whereof the one preceded, and the other followed soon after the Expedition of the Argonauts.
Tho' Castor and Pollux two of the principal Argonauts, were not present at the Trojan War, they may serve for the same Synchronism, since they died only at the Beginning of that War, or not long before it, and even died very young. Helen, their twin Sister, who must have been about the Age of 15 or 16 Years, when her Brothers embarked with Jason, was at the taking of that City, being then not very old, as I shall prove in her History.
We are to think the fame of Priam, who had been Witness to the Taking of Troy by Hercules, at the very Time of the Expedition of the Argonauts, and was then of Age sit to govern; for 'tis no where said that Hercules, who left him the Crown after he had put Laomedon to Death, gave him at the same Time a Tutor. Anchises had also been witness to this Expedition of Hercules; as Virgil makes him say at the Time when Æneas was advising him to leave Troy with him.
------ Satis una, superque
Vidimus excidia, & captae superavimus urbi
I find also among those who joined in both the Expeditions, Ascalaphus and Jalmenus, both Sons of Mars; for as Apollodorus reckons them in the Number of the Argonauts, so Homer, who gives them the fame Father and Mother, Mars and Astioche, tells us that they were at the Siege of Troy, where they commanded the Beotians of Aspledon and Orchomenos a City of Mynias. What is also singular in this, the fame Apollodorus reckons these two Princes in the Number of Helen's Lovers, who came to Sparta to make Proposals of Marriage to her, a new Argument that several Persons had seen both the Events now in Debate. It may be objected that these two Princes were Grandsons of the Argonaut Aclor, by their Mother Astioche; but in answer to this, it is no rare Thing for the Grandsons, especially on the side of the Daughters, to perform their first Campaigns with their Grandfathers.
Theseus, who had been of the Number of the Argonauts, or at least had joined in the War between the Centaurs and Lapithae, died indeed some time before the Siege ot Troy; but he might have been there for Age, since his Mother Æthra was at Troy when the City was taken, the Slave of Helen, from the Time that Castor and Pollux had delivered their Sister, to whole Care Theseus had committed her. Plutarch I know contradicts the Authors who assert this; but a historical Monument quoted by Pausanias, shews that this was a current Tradition. This Monument was a Picture of Polygnotus, representing the taking of Troy, wherein among several other Personages, was to be seen at Helen's Side, Æthra the Mother of Theseus, with her Head shaved, and Demophoon the Son of Theseus, who, as far as one can judge from his Attitude, was contriving how he might set her at Liberty. The Poet Lescheus, from whom the Painter had got those Facts, as Pausanias remarks, said in his Poems, that after the taking of Troy, Ætbra came into the Grecian Camp; that she was known there to Demophoon the Son of Theseus, who ask'd her Liberty from Agamemnon, and obtained it from him, with Helen's Consent. This fact, if true, is the most proper to determine the nearness of die two Events in Question; for here is the Mother of a Contemporary of the Argonauts, who outlived the Destruction of Troy. Nor is Pausanias the only one who attests this Fact, since we find it in the tragic Poets, in Lescheus, Cleon, and in the Historian Isthor.
According to Servius, here is another Argonaut who was also alive after the taking of Troy; namely, Eryx, whom Eneas saw in Sicily. In fine, if the Argonaut Peleus was not present at the Trojan War, he was however then very vigorous, and survived the taking of that City many Years, since the Chronicle of Paros observes, that seven Years after he banished his Son Teucer from his Court.
These are the Argonauts or their Contemporaries, who either were, or might have been, present at both Expeditions; thus reckoning only thirty four or thirty five Years between them, those Heroes, as yet very young at the first, will have been Fifty five or Sixty Years of Age at the End of the second, some over, some under, and this is nearly the Age that Homer gives them. As for Priam, Nestor, and some others who were older, it is because they were already Men full grown at the Time of the War of the Centaurs, and of the Expedition to Colchis, while most of the rest, as Castor and Pollux, were in the Bloom of Youth. To which purpose, 'tis proper to observe, that when the Poet now named says Nestor had seen two Ages of Men, and was then living in the third, he means that he had seen a Revolution of two Generations, that is Sixty or Sixty-fix Years; and if he was in the Middle of the third, he must have been about Seventy-five or Eighty Years.
Almost all the other Captains of the Grecian Army were either Sons of the Argonauts, or of their Contemporaries. Teucer and Ajax were the Sons of Telamon, who had embarked with the Argonauts. Schedius and Epistropius had for their Father Iphitus the Argonaut: Agapenor was the Son of the Pilote Anceus: Thespius, of Eurytus; Thoas, of Andremon: Tlepolemus, of Hercules and Astioche: Achilles, whom all the Antients allow to have been at the Siege of Troy while he was very young, was however born before the setting out of the Argonauts, to whom Chiron presented him, as has been said j and consequently we may conclude, that when Ulysses found him out in the Isle of Scyros, and brought him to Trey, he was about Thirty-five Years; which perfectly well agrees with the Age of Pyrrhus his Son, who probably was about Seventeen or Eighteen Years when he arrived at Troy, in the tenth Year of the Siege.
Podarces was the Son of the Argonaut Iphiclus: Eumeles, of Admetus, Jason's Contemporary: Polypetes, of Pirithous: Diomedes, of Tydeus: Ulysses, of Laertes likewise Contemporary with Jason; and if Glaucus was only Bellerophon's Grandson, 'tis certain that his Father Hippolochus was still alive. In fine, Calchas was the Son of the Argonaut Tester, and all these Sons were, as Homer tells us, in the Flower of their Age. I say nothing of the Grandsons, who are not above two or three, some of whose Grandfathers were even still alive. I have therefore good reason to maintain that there was between those two Expeditions but an Interval of Thirty-four or Thirty-five Years, or to speak the Language of those Times, that the last happened but one Generation after the first; and I dare challenge those who are of the contrary Opinion, to advance any thing as certain against the Synchronisms now offered. I know there are vast difficulties in reconciling the Chronology of the Age now in question ; but weighing one Difficulty against another, the Opinion I have established is loaded with fewer than all the rest.
If the Date of Hercules's, Death, assigned by Apollodorus, who makes that Heroe to have died 53 Years before the Taking of Troy, was once fixed, and the Space of sow or five Years were to be allowed for what he did from the Expedition of die Argonauts to his Death, this Conquest would then have fallen out about 58 Years before the taking of Troy; which cannot be admitted. 'Tis true Velleius Paterculus, makes Hercules to have died only forty Years before that War, to which if we add the five Years I have mentioned, the Æra we want, would fall in the Year 44 or 45; but this Distance is still too great, and is inconsistent, tho' less than the rest, with the most incontestable Records of Antiquity with relation to the Age in Question. For in fine, how can we think otherwise of two Events, in the last of which, we find a good Number of the fame Warriors, several of their Sons, and only a few of their Grandsons, but that they were much nearer to one another than several Authors allow, namely, at the Distance of not above 34 or 35 Years; much in the same Way as we judge of the War in 1701, and that in 1734, where we have seen the same Warriors, their Sons, and some of their Grandsons. Now this is precisely the Case of the Argonauts, and the Captains in the Trojan War, according to all Antiquity, beginning with Homer.
Among the Warriors who joined in both Expeditions, I reckon first Philoctetes, who without dispute was of the Number of the Argonauts., and concurred in the Siege of Troy after Ulysses brought him from .Lemnos where he had been left, and who consequently went twice to that Island, as we have it in Valerius Flaccus. I shall even make it appear in the particular History of this Heroe, that he survived the taking of Troy a long Time. Euryalus the Son of Mecistheus, and Grandson of Talaus, the same who had been present at the Conquest of the Golden Fleece, commanded the Argives with Diomedes at the Siege of Troy: I say the same, since Homer gives him the fame Genealogy with that now mentioned.
Tho’ Nestor is named among Jason's Companions only by Valerius Flaccus, he is at least to be reckoned in the Number of their Contemporaries. He had seen his Country laid waste by Hercules, he had been at the Battle of the Centaurs, and at the Hunting of Calydon; two Events, whereof the one preceded, and the other followed soon after the Expedition of the Argonauts.
Tho' Castor and Pollux two of the principal Argonauts, were not present at the Trojan War, they may serve for the same Synchronism, since they died only at the Beginning of that War, or not long before it, and even died very young. Helen, their twin Sister, who must have been about the Age of 15 or 16 Years, when her Brothers embarked with Jason, was at the taking of that City, being then not very old, as I shall prove in her History.
We are to think the fame of Priam, who had been Witness to the Taking of Troy by Hercules, at the very Time of the Expedition of the Argonauts, and was then of Age sit to govern; for 'tis no where said that Hercules, who left him the Crown after he had put Laomedon to Death, gave him at the same Time a Tutor. Anchises had also been witness to this Expedition of Hercules; as Virgil makes him say at the Time when Æneas was advising him to leave Troy with him.
------ Satis una, superque
Vidimus excidia, & captae superavimus urbi
I find also among those who joined in both the Expeditions, Ascalaphus and Jalmenus, both Sons of Mars; for as Apollodorus reckons them in the Number of the Argonauts, so Homer, who gives them the fame Father and Mother, Mars and Astioche, tells us that they were at the Siege of Troy, where they commanded the Beotians of Aspledon and Orchomenos a City of Mynias. What is also singular in this, the fame Apollodorus reckons these two Princes in the Number of Helen's Lovers, who came to Sparta to make Proposals of Marriage to her, a new Argument that several Persons had seen both the Events now in Debate. It may be objected that these two Princes were Grandsons of the Argonaut Aclor, by their Mother Astioche; but in answer to this, it is no rare Thing for the Grandsons, especially on the side of the Daughters, to perform their first Campaigns with their Grandfathers.
Theseus, who had been of the Number of the Argonauts, or at least had joined in the War between the Centaurs and Lapithae, died indeed some time before the Siege ot Troy; but he might have been there for Age, since his Mother Æthra was at Troy when the City was taken, the Slave of Helen, from the Time that Castor and Pollux had delivered their Sister, to whole Care Theseus had committed her. Plutarch I know contradicts the Authors who assert this; but a historical Monument quoted by Pausanias, shews that this was a current Tradition. This Monument was a Picture of Polygnotus, representing the taking of Troy, wherein among several other Personages, was to be seen at Helen's Side, Æthra the Mother of Theseus, with her Head shaved, and Demophoon the Son of Theseus, who, as far as one can judge from his Attitude, was contriving how he might set her at Liberty. The Poet Lescheus, from whom the Painter had got those Facts, as Pausanias remarks, said in his Poems, that after the taking of Troy, Ætbra came into the Grecian Camp; that she was known there to Demophoon the Son of Theseus, who ask'd her Liberty from Agamemnon, and obtained it from him, with Helen's Consent. This fact, if true, is the most proper to determine the nearness of die two Events in Question; for here is the Mother of a Contemporary of the Argonauts, who outlived the Destruction of Troy. Nor is Pausanias the only one who attests this Fact, since we find it in the tragic Poets, in Lescheus, Cleon, and in the Historian Isthor.
According to Servius, here is another Argonaut who was also alive after the taking of Troy; namely, Eryx, whom Eneas saw in Sicily. In fine, if the Argonaut Peleus was not present at the Trojan War, he was however then very vigorous, and survived the taking of that City many Years, since the Chronicle of Paros observes, that seven Years after he banished his Son Teucer from his Court.
These are the Argonauts or their Contemporaries, who either were, or might have been, present at both Expeditions; thus reckoning only thirty four or thirty five Years between them, those Heroes, as yet very young at the first, will have been Fifty five or Sixty Years of Age at the End of the second, some over, some under, and this is nearly the Age that Homer gives them. As for Priam, Nestor, and some others who were older, it is because they were already Men full grown at the Time of the War of the Centaurs, and of the Expedition to Colchis, while most of the rest, as Castor and Pollux, were in the Bloom of Youth. To which purpose, 'tis proper to observe, that when the Poet now named says Nestor had seen two Ages of Men, and was then living in the third, he means that he had seen a Revolution of two Generations, that is Sixty or Sixty-fix Years; and if he was in the Middle of the third, he must have been about Seventy-five or Eighty Years.
Almost all the other Captains of the Grecian Army were either Sons of the Argonauts, or of their Contemporaries. Teucer and Ajax were the Sons of Telamon, who had embarked with the Argonauts. Schedius and Epistropius had for their Father Iphitus the Argonaut: Agapenor was the Son of the Pilote Anceus: Thespius, of Eurytus; Thoas, of Andremon: Tlepolemus, of Hercules and Astioche: Achilles, whom all the Antients allow to have been at the Siege of Troy while he was very young, was however born before the setting out of the Argonauts, to whom Chiron presented him, as has been said j and consequently we may conclude, that when Ulysses found him out in the Isle of Scyros, and brought him to Trey, he was about Thirty-five Years; which perfectly well agrees with the Age of Pyrrhus his Son, who probably was about Seventeen or Eighteen Years when he arrived at Troy, in the tenth Year of the Siege.
Podarces was the Son of the Argonaut Iphiclus: Eumeles, of Admetus, Jason's Contemporary: Polypetes, of Pirithous: Diomedes, of Tydeus: Ulysses, of Laertes likewise Contemporary with Jason; and if Glaucus was only Bellerophon's Grandson, 'tis certain that his Father Hippolochus was still alive. In fine, Calchas was the Son of the Argonaut Tester, and all these Sons were, as Homer tells us, in the Flower of their Age. I say nothing of the Grandsons, who are not above two or three, some of whose Grandfathers were even still alive. I have therefore good reason to maintain that there was between those two Expeditions but an Interval of Thirty-four or Thirty-five Years, or to speak the Language of those Times, that the last happened but one Generation after the first; and I dare challenge those who are of the contrary Opinion, to advance any thing as certain against the Synchronisms now offered. I know there are vast difficulties in reconciling the Chronology of the Age now in question ; but weighing one Difficulty against another, the Opinion I have established is loaded with fewer than all the rest.
Chapter V.
The Continuation of the Adventures of Jason and Medea.
The Sequel of Jason's History is told by the Antients in so many different Ways, that ’tis not easy to establish any thing certain upon this Head, from the Return of the Argonauts; that of Medea especially, is interspersed with a Number of Fictions which destroy one another. Here she is a cruel inhuman Princess, the Murderer of her Brother and of Pelias, having obliged her own Daughters to cut his Throat under pretext of making him renew his Youth; of her Rival whom she put to a miserable Death, and of her own Children whom she sacrificed to her Jealousy. There she is a virtuous Person, whose only Crime is the Love which she had for her Spouse, who basely abandoned her, notwithstanding the Pledges he had of her Affection, to wed the Daughter of Creon; a Woman of a very different Character from Circe her Aunt, who employed the Secrets me had learned from Hecate her Mother, only in making up salutary Remedies for those who came to consult her, while Circe used only to the Purposes of her own Revenge the Knowledge (he had acquired, or in the Language of the Fable, which the Sun her Father had commucated to her.
Lastly, a Queen forsaken, persecuted, who after having had recourse in vayi to the Security of her Husband's Promises and Oaths, is obliged to wander from Court to Court, and at length to cross the Seas in quest of a Sanctuary in distant Countries: Accordingly even those who have loaded her with the greatest Number of Crimes, could not help owning, that being of a virtuous Disposition, she had only been drawn into Vice by a Kind of Fatality, and by the Wrath of the Gods, especially of Venus, who persecuted without Intermission the whole Race of the Sun, who had discovered her Intrigue with Mars. Hence these Words of Racine: O Sun whom I abhor! Hence again that fine Sentiment of Ovid; Video meliora, proboque; deleriora sequor; which one of our Poets has happily imitated in these Lines:
I see the Right, and I approve it too;
Condemn the Wrong end yet the Wrong pursue.
Garth’s Ovid. Met. 1. 7.
The antient tragic Writers are blamed, and I think justly, for having vitiated the History of this Princess, and entirely perverted her Character, as we shall see afterwards. The Pathetic is what tragic Poets aim at, and enormous Crimes, which being wrought into the odious Characters of their Personages, are susceptible of those theatrical touches, that are so apt to produce Terror and Compassion. Being authorised by Traditions that favoured their Design, tho' not so well vouched as others which would have crossed their Purpose, they greedily laid hold on them, and Without troubling themselves about the exact Truth, they have I transmitted down to us the History of Medea under the most odious Character; and the modem Poets have not been wanting to imitate them.
We may endeavour to unravel the Truth from what is Fiction, weigh Authorities, and leave the Reader at liberty to judge if this Princess was so bad as she has been represented.
To begin with the Murder of Absyrthus. I have made it appear that this Fact is differently related by the Poets; that the Story of that Prince's Members being dispersed in the Way, was a pure Chimeral and besides, here is a Fact related by Herodotus, the natural Inferences from which prove that l have reason thus to judge of it. That knowing and judicious Author says, Metes finding that those whom he had lent out against his Daughter's Ravishers, were not able to come up with them; thought it necessary, in order to do himself Justice, to send Ambassadors into Greece. These Deputies arrived there accordingly; but as the Argonauts Had taken an Oath, that before their Separation they would support one another, and as they were the stronger Party, the Ambassadors of the King of Colchis had no other Answer, but that as no Reparation had been made to the Greeks for the Rape of lo, the Daughter of Inachus, ravished, by Phenician Merchants who had come to traffick at Argos, neither were they disposed to give them any Satisfaction. It does not appear that the King of Colchis, after receiving this Answer, took any other Step for the Recovery of his Daughter. This Embassy supposes that the Prince would have been overjoyed to see his Daughter again, whom however he had reason to consider as a Monster, if she had really imbrued her Hands in the Blood of her Brother.
In the mean time, the Death of Pelias, whose Funerals had been celebrated with so much Pomp and Apparatus, left the Throne vacant, to which Jason had had a legal Title, but probably the Party of his Cousin Acastus was the stronger, and it does not appear that he shared it with him, as he ought to have done, or resigned it to him altogether, since his Father had only possessed it by Usurpation from Eson. Jason thus seeing himself deprived of his Inheritance, and not being powerful enough to obtain it by Force, imbarked with Medea, and retired to Corinth, where he had Friends, and even some Pretensions to the Crown by his Wise, as shall be said afterwards.
Diodorus Siculus says the same upon the Authority of Simonides, and contends, that it was the Corinthians themselves invited Medea to come and take Possession of a Throne which belonged to her; or at least to sharethe Authority of it with Creon, who was in Possession. Here again is a Fact attested by antient Authors, which overthrows another Calumny published against Medea, by Ovid, Apollodorus, Pausanias, and some others.
First, 'tis supposed by them that Pelias and Eson were still alive at the Return of the Argonauts, that the latter being extremely old, and hardly able to support himself, Jason had desired Medea his Wife to employ some secret Art, which she knew, some Composition capable to restore him to his Strength and Vigour; and that me had accordingly given him one so efficacious, that by means of it he became young again. This is the Substance of that miraculous Operation as it is described in Ovid: "While all Thessaly was rejoicing for the Arrival of the Argonauts, Eson alone did not join in the Festival that was celebrated on that Occasion. Oppressed with old Age, and just upon the Brink of the Grave, he could enjoy no part of the public Mirth: Jason his Son much affected to fee him in this Condition, thus bespoke Medea. I know, my dear Spouse, that you have saved my Life: The Obligations I lie under to you are inexpressibly great. But I have one Favour more to ask you; cut off some Years of my Life, and add them to those of my Father: This is what you can do, for nothing surmounts the Power of your Art. As he thus spoke, he could not refrain from Tears. Medea was touched with Jason's tender Affection for his Father; it made her call to Mind Æetes, whom she had left; but this she kept to herself. What you require of me, says she to him, is highly unjust; do you really believe, my dear Husband, that any Motives can determine me to abridge a Life which I prize so much? Were I capable of such an Action, I would pray the Goddess Hecate to prevent me from it. The Love which you bear to your Father urges a Crime which I am uncapable of committing. Your Wishes however shall be gratified, but in a Manner which you did not expect. I am going to exert all my Endeavours to prolong the Life of a Father whom you love."
Upon this she went out of the Palace; and mounting a Chariot drawn by winged Dragons, which descended from Heaven in her Sight, she traversed several Countries, and there gathered Herbs of all Kinds, of which she composed a Potion, then drew out the Blood which run in Eson's Veins, and injected in its stead the Liquor which she had prepared. So soon as the D aught had insinuated itself into the Body of the old Man, his Beard and-his gray Hairs began to darken, the Wrinkles of his Face disappeared, and he recovered his pristine Vigour and good Plight.
The Daughters of Pelias, amazed at this Prodigy, besought Medea to vouchsafe the same Remedy to their Father; and she having a mind to avenge her Father-in-law and her Husband of Pelias's Usurpation, persuaded her Cousins that the Remedy would have the fame Effect upon their Father as upon Eson. First, she took an old Ram, cut it in Pieces, which she threw into a Caldron, and after mixing certain Herbs therewith, took it out and let them fee it transformed into a young Lamb. She therefore set about making the same Experiment upon the Person of the King; she dissected him in the same Way, and threw his Body into a Caldron of boiling Water; but the perfidious Sorceress left it there till the Fire had entirely consumed it, insomuch that nothing of it remained for his Daughters to bury. This, says Pausanias, is what made those unfortunate Princesses fly into Arcadia, where they ended their Days and Were interred; while Medea, to save herself, mounted her Chariot in Haste, and flew through the Air.
The Mythologists, I know, give Explications of this Fable; some of them alledging that it refers to art Experiment of transfusing the Blood, which has sometimes been tried, but always with bad Success; while others say Medea having learned of her Mother the Knowledge of some Simples, had composed a Remedy of them which had restored her Father-in-law to his Vigour: For which I refer to Pliny, Servius and Elian. The same Mythologists add, that she mixed up with the Draught designed for Pelias, some venemous Herbs that poisoned him.
By bad Luck these Explications rest upon nothing; and this Fable, which was only invented to make Medea pass for a great Sorceress, has no Foundation in History. Eson had been forced by Pelias to drink Bull's Blood, and was dead before Jason's Arrival, as also his Wife, who had strangled herself for Grief. Pelias himself was deceased at the Return of the Argonauts, of which his Funeral Games celebrated by those Heroes are a convincing Proof. Jason joined in them with the other Argonauts; and how could he have been present there, if his Wife had been guilty, as is said, of the Murder of his Uncle? The Fact is, that after the Celebration of those Games, Jason seeing his Cousin's Party too strong, found it convenient to quit lolchos; and having embarked with Medea in a Ship named The Dragon, which gave Rise to the Fable of those winged Dragons we have mentioned, went to push his Fortune elsewhere.
Corinth presented him with a secure Retreat, and Creon, who reigned there, made no Opposition, or durst not make any to his entering that City. For, if we may believe Eumelus, a very antient Author, a Corinthian by Birth, and of the Blood-Royal, Medea, as has been said, had a Right to the Crown, since, according to this Author, the Sun, the Son of Hyperion, having had by Autiope, Æetes and Alous, divided his Dominions among them, and Corinth having fallen to the first, who went and settled in Colchis, committed that City in Trust to Bunas, to be kept until he or one of his Children should come and demand it of him. The same Eumelus added, that Medea actually reigned at Corinth jointly with Creon, which is confirmed by Simonides. Diodorus Siculus says, it was the Corinthians themselves had invited this Princess to quit Iolchos, to come and take Possession of a Crown which belonged to her.
Medea and Jason resided ten Years in that City, where they lived in perfect Harmony, and had two Children, But Jason's Perfidiousness having made him forget the Obligations he owed to his Spouse, and the Oaths which he had taken to her, he made no Scruple to violate the sacred Ties of Marriage, which were then very much regarded; and falling in love with Glauce, Creon's Daughter, divorced Medea. As antient Histories are always intermixed with Fables, it was given out that Medea, to be avenged of her Rival, has sent her a poisoned Garment, which, like the Shirt that Dejanira had given Hercules, no sooner was put on by that unfortunate Princess, than she felt a secret Flame begin to prey upon her, and died in the most exquisite Torment. They further added, that Creon's Palace was set on Fire, and he himself consumed in the Flames;and lastly, that after having torn in Pieces her two Sons, Pheres and Memercus, she retired to Thebes to Hercules, hoping that he would avenge her of Jason's Falsehood, in regard that he, with the other Argonauts, were engaged to see to his keeping the Oath which he had taken at Marriage, never to have any other Wife but her; but that not being able to procure Satisfaction from him, she had repaired to Athens. This again is another Fiction, without all Foundation. Not to insist upon what is certain, that Hercules died ten or twelve Years after the Return of the Argonauts, as I shall prove elsewhere, I have this to sayfurther; it was a current Tradition, that the Corinthians themselves had stoned them to Death, either to revenge the Death of Creon, whom Medea was said to have (lain, or to put an End to the Intrigues she was still forming for securing the Crown to her Children. It was Euripides, in his Tragedy of Medea, that propagated the Fable which I am refuting, a Mystery which it is proper to explain. The Report which had been spread on all Hands, of the Cruelty exercised by the Corinthians upon Medea's Children, had made them odious to all Greece. Therefore, being informed that Euripides was designed to bring that Subject upon the Stage, they made him a Present of five Talents, to induce him to lay to Medea'sCharge the Murder of the young Princes. They had Reason tohope that this Fable would gain Credit from the Character of the Poet who employed it, and would at length jostle out a Truth which was little to their Honour. For History bore, that these two Princes having fled for Refuge to the Temple of Juno, sirnamed Achreia, found no Protection from the Sacredness of the Race, but were assassinated even at the Feet of the Goddess. The fame History added, that some Time after, the Corinthians being distressed with the Pestilence, were apprized by the Oracle, that they would never see an End of their Calamities till they were expiated from the sacrilegious Murder whereof they were guilty. This Fact we learn from Parmeniscus, a very antient Author quoted by the Scholiast on Euripides, who added, that the Corinthians on that Occasion had instituted a Festival which was still subsisting at the Time when he wrote. The principal Ceremony of this Feast consisted in prohibiting seven young Virgins, and as many Youths, of the principal Families of Corinth, from approaching the Territory consecrated to Juno, a Prohibition which lasted a Year.
Pausanias, who is as little favourable to the Corinthians as Parmeniscus, relates the Story somewhat differently; according to him it was not the Pestilence that laid Corinth waste, but an epidemical Distemper which destroyed all the Children of the Corinthians^ until, by the Advice of the Oracle, they instituted Sacrifices in honour of Medea's Sons, and consecrated to them a Statue which represented Fear; and this Statue was still subsisting in his Time. To give the greater Solemnity to the Reparation the Corinthians thought themselves obliged to make to those unfortunate Princes, they made their Children wear Mourning, and cut off their Hair, to a certain Age. 'Tis therefore manifest, that the Corinthians alone were guilty; and I am also persuaded, that the Story of the fatal Robe which she had sent to Glauce is another Fiction, as well as the burning of Creon's Palace: For when one has a mind to render a Person odious, he takes Care to do the Work not by Halves: Thus, whatever it cost, Medea was to be made guilty of all the Crimes could be imagined. Unluckily for the Corinthians, History has unravel'd the Truth from among the Fictions wherewith Euripides and the other Tragic Poets had disguised it; and Monuments still more certain than History, Feasts, Sacrifices, and Statues, were plain and standing Proofs that reproached the Corinthians with a Crime wherewith they endeavoured to blacken Medea's Reputation: And if the Fact be as I have now related, as is exceeding probable, it makes not much for the Honour of Euripides, who allowed himself to be corrupted by the Corinthians for five Talents; but not to insist here that he may have followed other Traditions, perhaps as well vouched as that which Parmeniscus has transmitted to us; that the Subject, as he has managed it in his Tragedy of Medea, seemed to him calculated for raising Terror and Fear, and the other Emotions which the Drama requires; 'tis not so strange as may at first appear, to suppose he would prefer the present Reputation of the Corinthians, who suffered still by those Reports, to that of a Princess dead several Ages ago, wherein, probably none interested themselves.
Be that as it will, she removed to Athens, where, according to Ovid, Egeus received her, and married her some Time after. Plutarch, who relates the fame Fact, says not that Egeus married her, but that she lived with him in a shameful Intimacy, promising him that by her Drugs she would procure him Children. In the mean while Theseus, say those Authors, arrived at Athens for the first Time; and Medea hearing of his Arrival, and of the Design he had of discovering himself, had such Influence over the Mind of Egeus, grown weak with Age, and rendered fearful and suspicious by the different Factions that Prevailed in the City, as to persuade him to poison his Son, at a Feast he had provided for him as a Stranger. Theseus therefore was invited in his Name. When he was in the Hall, he thought it not proper to declare who he was; but having a Mind to give his Father an Occasion of making the first Discovery, so soon as the Meat was served up, he drew his Poinard to cut it up, and having let the Guard of his Sword be seen, on which was Egeus's Seal, that Prince knew him, and presently overturned the Cup in which was the Poison, then proposed several Questions to Theseus, and after embracing him, made him be acknowledged by all the Athenians. Medea, by mounting her flying Chariot, escaped the Punishment she deserved.
Here again is a new Crime with which the Poets thought fit to load the Memory of Medea; for this Narration can by no Means be supported. Egeus was dead long before Medea's Arrival in Greece, having thrown himself down, as has been said, from a Precipice upon the Return of his Son from Crete, which was Theseus'sfirst Expedition after his Discovery. Besides, Theseus having been of the Number of the Argonauts, how could Medea have forgot him after she had made that long Voyage with him? And how is this consistent with what Plutarch asserts, as has been already remarked, that this Prince had been in Colchis, and at the same Time that he had found Medea at her Father's Palace, at his first Departure from Trezene? These are some of the Contradictions which Compilers not very exact are apt to fall into.
After this Adventure we hear little more of Medea; only Trogus Pompeius, as we read in Justin, had wrote that she crossed the Sea, and returned to Colchis with young Medus and Jason, who was reconciled to her; that there they had re-established Æetes upon the Throne from which he had been deposed by a powerful Faction; that Jason had made War upon the Enemies of his Father-in-law, had conquered a great Part of the Lesser Asia, and at length acquired so great Glory, as to be honoured as a God, some of his Temples being still to be seen in the Time of Alexander, which Ephestion had demolished, that none might be equalled to his Master. Lastly, That after the Death of Jason, Medus had built the Town of Medea in Honour of his Mother, and had given Name to the Medes. But this whole Narration is overthrown by the Greek Traditions, which make Jason to have died in Thessaly, as we shall see by and by. Pausanias says, that Part of Asia was denominated Aria, and that the Inhabitants were from that Time called Medes, from the Name of that Princess. This Author adds further, that the Son whom she carried with her, and wham she had by Egeus, was called Medus; but that Hellanius gave him the Name of Polixenes, and made him the Son of Jason.
The Greeks, according to the same Author, had old Pieces of Poetry which they called Naupactus, from their Author Carcinus, of the City Naupactus, where it was said, that Jason, after the Death of Pelias, had quitted Iolchos to go and settle at Corcyra, and had lost there his eldest Son Memercus, who had been torn in Pieces by a Lioness, as he was diverting himself in hunting, in that Part of the Continent which is opposite to the City; but they give no Account of Pheres his other Son. There were also in Greece ancient Genealogies of one named Cinetho a Lacedemonian, where it was said that Jason had by Medea a Son Medus, and a Daughter Eriopis; but neither of these Authors said any Thing of Medea and Jason's having resided at Corinth, which was so plainly set forth in the History of Eumelus which we have mentioned; who, besides what has been said, added, that after the Death of Bunus, to whom Æetes had given in Trust his Property in the City Ephyre. Poppaeus, the Son of Aloeus, having ascended the Throne, and Corinthus, the Son of Marathon, who changed the Name of the City Ephyre to that of Corinth, having succeeded him, and having left no Male Issue, the Corinthians had sent for Medea from Iolchos, as has been said. The fame Author added that Medea had several Children by Jason, whom she carefully concealed in Juno's Temple, hoping thereby to procure them Immortality; that at length being baulked of this Expectation, and seeing that Jason, incensed against her, had returned to Iolchos, she had formed a Resolution to leave Corinth, as has been already related.
As to the last Years of Jason, all we know is that he led an unsettled Life, without any fixed Residence; and that as he was one Day resting himself upon the sea-shore, under the Shelter of the Ship Argo, which had been laid up, he was there crushed to Death by the Fall of a Beam which was loosened from it, an Event said to be foretold him by Medea, as Euripides reports.
To conclude: It is not without Reason that I have not represented Medea as criminal as Authors commonly make her; having good Vouchers for my Opinion among the Antients. I presume that I have sufficiently overthrown, and that by formal Authorities, the odious Facts that are laid to her Charge. I may further add, that the only Thing for which she can be blamed, is for having left her Father and Mother to follow a Stranger; but besides that it was a Relation she followed, who was become her Husband, we are told that her Departure was forced and involuntary, being hated both by her Father and Mother because she was of a humane beneficent Disposition. They tell us further, it was this generous Temper prompted her to befriend the Argonauts, who, but for her, must all have perished. The antient Scholiast on Euripides confirms this Opinion of Diodorus, and other Authors, when he says Medea was highly in Favour with the Corinthians, for having delivered them from a grievous Famine by Means of her Inchantments; that is, by the Resources her extensive Knowledge had found out for bringing about a good Harvest.
Ovid himself, who seems to have so little Favour for her, after he has put the most virtuous Sentiments in her Mouth, before she gave Way to her growing Inclination towards Jason, makes her utter those remarkable Words before quoted.
Lastly, a Queen forsaken, persecuted, who after having had recourse in vayi to the Security of her Husband's Promises and Oaths, is obliged to wander from Court to Court, and at length to cross the Seas in quest of a Sanctuary in distant Countries: Accordingly even those who have loaded her with the greatest Number of Crimes, could not help owning, that being of a virtuous Disposition, she had only been drawn into Vice by a Kind of Fatality, and by the Wrath of the Gods, especially of Venus, who persecuted without Intermission the whole Race of the Sun, who had discovered her Intrigue with Mars. Hence these Words of Racine: O Sun whom I abhor! Hence again that fine Sentiment of Ovid; Video meliora, proboque; deleriora sequor; which one of our Poets has happily imitated in these Lines:
I see the Right, and I approve it too;
Condemn the Wrong end yet the Wrong pursue.
Garth’s Ovid. Met. 1. 7.
The antient tragic Writers are blamed, and I think justly, for having vitiated the History of this Princess, and entirely perverted her Character, as we shall see afterwards. The Pathetic is what tragic Poets aim at, and enormous Crimes, which being wrought into the odious Characters of their Personages, are susceptible of those theatrical touches, that are so apt to produce Terror and Compassion. Being authorised by Traditions that favoured their Design, tho' not so well vouched as others which would have crossed their Purpose, they greedily laid hold on them, and Without troubling themselves about the exact Truth, they have I transmitted down to us the History of Medea under the most odious Character; and the modem Poets have not been wanting to imitate them.
We may endeavour to unravel the Truth from what is Fiction, weigh Authorities, and leave the Reader at liberty to judge if this Princess was so bad as she has been represented.
To begin with the Murder of Absyrthus. I have made it appear that this Fact is differently related by the Poets; that the Story of that Prince's Members being dispersed in the Way, was a pure Chimeral and besides, here is a Fact related by Herodotus, the natural Inferences from which prove that l have reason thus to judge of it. That knowing and judicious Author says, Metes finding that those whom he had lent out against his Daughter's Ravishers, were not able to come up with them; thought it necessary, in order to do himself Justice, to send Ambassadors into Greece. These Deputies arrived there accordingly; but as the Argonauts Had taken an Oath, that before their Separation they would support one another, and as they were the stronger Party, the Ambassadors of the King of Colchis had no other Answer, but that as no Reparation had been made to the Greeks for the Rape of lo, the Daughter of Inachus, ravished, by Phenician Merchants who had come to traffick at Argos, neither were they disposed to give them any Satisfaction. It does not appear that the King of Colchis, after receiving this Answer, took any other Step for the Recovery of his Daughter. This Embassy supposes that the Prince would have been overjoyed to see his Daughter again, whom however he had reason to consider as a Monster, if she had really imbrued her Hands in the Blood of her Brother.
In the mean time, the Death of Pelias, whose Funerals had been celebrated with so much Pomp and Apparatus, left the Throne vacant, to which Jason had had a legal Title, but probably the Party of his Cousin Acastus was the stronger, and it does not appear that he shared it with him, as he ought to have done, or resigned it to him altogether, since his Father had only possessed it by Usurpation from Eson. Jason thus seeing himself deprived of his Inheritance, and not being powerful enough to obtain it by Force, imbarked with Medea, and retired to Corinth, where he had Friends, and even some Pretensions to the Crown by his Wise, as shall be said afterwards.
Diodorus Siculus says the same upon the Authority of Simonides, and contends, that it was the Corinthians themselves invited Medea to come and take Possession of a Throne which belonged to her; or at least to sharethe Authority of it with Creon, who was in Possession. Here again is a Fact attested by antient Authors, which overthrows another Calumny published against Medea, by Ovid, Apollodorus, Pausanias, and some others.
First, 'tis supposed by them that Pelias and Eson were still alive at the Return of the Argonauts, that the latter being extremely old, and hardly able to support himself, Jason had desired Medea his Wife to employ some secret Art, which she knew, some Composition capable to restore him to his Strength and Vigour; and that me had accordingly given him one so efficacious, that by means of it he became young again. This is the Substance of that miraculous Operation as it is described in Ovid: "While all Thessaly was rejoicing for the Arrival of the Argonauts, Eson alone did not join in the Festival that was celebrated on that Occasion. Oppressed with old Age, and just upon the Brink of the Grave, he could enjoy no part of the public Mirth: Jason his Son much affected to fee him in this Condition, thus bespoke Medea. I know, my dear Spouse, that you have saved my Life: The Obligations I lie under to you are inexpressibly great. But I have one Favour more to ask you; cut off some Years of my Life, and add them to those of my Father: This is what you can do, for nothing surmounts the Power of your Art. As he thus spoke, he could not refrain from Tears. Medea was touched with Jason's tender Affection for his Father; it made her call to Mind Æetes, whom she had left; but this she kept to herself. What you require of me, says she to him, is highly unjust; do you really believe, my dear Husband, that any Motives can determine me to abridge a Life which I prize so much? Were I capable of such an Action, I would pray the Goddess Hecate to prevent me from it. The Love which you bear to your Father urges a Crime which I am uncapable of committing. Your Wishes however shall be gratified, but in a Manner which you did not expect. I am going to exert all my Endeavours to prolong the Life of a Father whom you love."
Upon this she went out of the Palace; and mounting a Chariot drawn by winged Dragons, which descended from Heaven in her Sight, she traversed several Countries, and there gathered Herbs of all Kinds, of which she composed a Potion, then drew out the Blood which run in Eson's Veins, and injected in its stead the Liquor which she had prepared. So soon as the D aught had insinuated itself into the Body of the old Man, his Beard and-his gray Hairs began to darken, the Wrinkles of his Face disappeared, and he recovered his pristine Vigour and good Plight.
The Daughters of Pelias, amazed at this Prodigy, besought Medea to vouchsafe the same Remedy to their Father; and she having a mind to avenge her Father-in-law and her Husband of Pelias's Usurpation, persuaded her Cousins that the Remedy would have the fame Effect upon their Father as upon Eson. First, she took an old Ram, cut it in Pieces, which she threw into a Caldron, and after mixing certain Herbs therewith, took it out and let them fee it transformed into a young Lamb. She therefore set about making the same Experiment upon the Person of the King; she dissected him in the same Way, and threw his Body into a Caldron of boiling Water; but the perfidious Sorceress left it there till the Fire had entirely consumed it, insomuch that nothing of it remained for his Daughters to bury. This, says Pausanias, is what made those unfortunate Princesses fly into Arcadia, where they ended their Days and Were interred; while Medea, to save herself, mounted her Chariot in Haste, and flew through the Air.
The Mythologists, I know, give Explications of this Fable; some of them alledging that it refers to art Experiment of transfusing the Blood, which has sometimes been tried, but always with bad Success; while others say Medea having learned of her Mother the Knowledge of some Simples, had composed a Remedy of them which had restored her Father-in-law to his Vigour: For which I refer to Pliny, Servius and Elian. The same Mythologists add, that she mixed up with the Draught designed for Pelias, some venemous Herbs that poisoned him.
By bad Luck these Explications rest upon nothing; and this Fable, which was only invented to make Medea pass for a great Sorceress, has no Foundation in History. Eson had been forced by Pelias to drink Bull's Blood, and was dead before Jason's Arrival, as also his Wife, who had strangled herself for Grief. Pelias himself was deceased at the Return of the Argonauts, of which his Funeral Games celebrated by those Heroes are a convincing Proof. Jason joined in them with the other Argonauts; and how could he have been present there, if his Wife had been guilty, as is said, of the Murder of his Uncle? The Fact is, that after the Celebration of those Games, Jason seeing his Cousin's Party too strong, found it convenient to quit lolchos; and having embarked with Medea in a Ship named The Dragon, which gave Rise to the Fable of those winged Dragons we have mentioned, went to push his Fortune elsewhere.
Corinth presented him with a secure Retreat, and Creon, who reigned there, made no Opposition, or durst not make any to his entering that City. For, if we may believe Eumelus, a very antient Author, a Corinthian by Birth, and of the Blood-Royal, Medea, as has been said, had a Right to the Crown, since, according to this Author, the Sun, the Son of Hyperion, having had by Autiope, Æetes and Alous, divided his Dominions among them, and Corinth having fallen to the first, who went and settled in Colchis, committed that City in Trust to Bunas, to be kept until he or one of his Children should come and demand it of him. The same Eumelus added, that Medea actually reigned at Corinth jointly with Creon, which is confirmed by Simonides. Diodorus Siculus says, it was the Corinthians themselves had invited this Princess to quit Iolchos, to come and take Possession of a Crown which belonged to her.
Medea and Jason resided ten Years in that City, where they lived in perfect Harmony, and had two Children, But Jason's Perfidiousness having made him forget the Obligations he owed to his Spouse, and the Oaths which he had taken to her, he made no Scruple to violate the sacred Ties of Marriage, which were then very much regarded; and falling in love with Glauce, Creon's Daughter, divorced Medea. As antient Histories are always intermixed with Fables, it was given out that Medea, to be avenged of her Rival, has sent her a poisoned Garment, which, like the Shirt that Dejanira had given Hercules, no sooner was put on by that unfortunate Princess, than she felt a secret Flame begin to prey upon her, and died in the most exquisite Torment. They further added, that Creon's Palace was set on Fire, and he himself consumed in the Flames;and lastly, that after having torn in Pieces her two Sons, Pheres and Memercus, she retired to Thebes to Hercules, hoping that he would avenge her of Jason's Falsehood, in regard that he, with the other Argonauts, were engaged to see to his keeping the Oath which he had taken at Marriage, never to have any other Wife but her; but that not being able to procure Satisfaction from him, she had repaired to Athens. This again is another Fiction, without all Foundation. Not to insist upon what is certain, that Hercules died ten or twelve Years after the Return of the Argonauts, as I shall prove elsewhere, I have this to sayfurther; it was a current Tradition, that the Corinthians themselves had stoned them to Death, either to revenge the Death of Creon, whom Medea was said to have (lain, or to put an End to the Intrigues she was still forming for securing the Crown to her Children. It was Euripides, in his Tragedy of Medea, that propagated the Fable which I am refuting, a Mystery which it is proper to explain. The Report which had been spread on all Hands, of the Cruelty exercised by the Corinthians upon Medea's Children, had made them odious to all Greece. Therefore, being informed that Euripides was designed to bring that Subject upon the Stage, they made him a Present of five Talents, to induce him to lay to Medea'sCharge the Murder of the young Princes. They had Reason tohope that this Fable would gain Credit from the Character of the Poet who employed it, and would at length jostle out a Truth which was little to their Honour. For History bore, that these two Princes having fled for Refuge to the Temple of Juno, sirnamed Achreia, found no Protection from the Sacredness of the Race, but were assassinated even at the Feet of the Goddess. The fame History added, that some Time after, the Corinthians being distressed with the Pestilence, were apprized by the Oracle, that they would never see an End of their Calamities till they were expiated from the sacrilegious Murder whereof they were guilty. This Fact we learn from Parmeniscus, a very antient Author quoted by the Scholiast on Euripides, who added, that the Corinthians on that Occasion had instituted a Festival which was still subsisting at the Time when he wrote. The principal Ceremony of this Feast consisted in prohibiting seven young Virgins, and as many Youths, of the principal Families of Corinth, from approaching the Territory consecrated to Juno, a Prohibition which lasted a Year.
Pausanias, who is as little favourable to the Corinthians as Parmeniscus, relates the Story somewhat differently; according to him it was not the Pestilence that laid Corinth waste, but an epidemical Distemper which destroyed all the Children of the Corinthians^ until, by the Advice of the Oracle, they instituted Sacrifices in honour of Medea's Sons, and consecrated to them a Statue which represented Fear; and this Statue was still subsisting in his Time. To give the greater Solemnity to the Reparation the Corinthians thought themselves obliged to make to those unfortunate Princes, they made their Children wear Mourning, and cut off their Hair, to a certain Age. 'Tis therefore manifest, that the Corinthians alone were guilty; and I am also persuaded, that the Story of the fatal Robe which she had sent to Glauce is another Fiction, as well as the burning of Creon's Palace: For when one has a mind to render a Person odious, he takes Care to do the Work not by Halves: Thus, whatever it cost, Medea was to be made guilty of all the Crimes could be imagined. Unluckily for the Corinthians, History has unravel'd the Truth from among the Fictions wherewith Euripides and the other Tragic Poets had disguised it; and Monuments still more certain than History, Feasts, Sacrifices, and Statues, were plain and standing Proofs that reproached the Corinthians with a Crime wherewith they endeavoured to blacken Medea's Reputation: And if the Fact be as I have now related, as is exceeding probable, it makes not much for the Honour of Euripides, who allowed himself to be corrupted by the Corinthians for five Talents; but not to insist here that he may have followed other Traditions, perhaps as well vouched as that which Parmeniscus has transmitted to us; that the Subject, as he has managed it in his Tragedy of Medea, seemed to him calculated for raising Terror and Fear, and the other Emotions which the Drama requires; 'tis not so strange as may at first appear, to suppose he would prefer the present Reputation of the Corinthians, who suffered still by those Reports, to that of a Princess dead several Ages ago, wherein, probably none interested themselves.
Be that as it will, she removed to Athens, where, according to Ovid, Egeus received her, and married her some Time after. Plutarch, who relates the fame Fact, says not that Egeus married her, but that she lived with him in a shameful Intimacy, promising him that by her Drugs she would procure him Children. In the mean while Theseus, say those Authors, arrived at Athens for the first Time; and Medea hearing of his Arrival, and of the Design he had of discovering himself, had such Influence over the Mind of Egeus, grown weak with Age, and rendered fearful and suspicious by the different Factions that Prevailed in the City, as to persuade him to poison his Son, at a Feast he had provided for him as a Stranger. Theseus therefore was invited in his Name. When he was in the Hall, he thought it not proper to declare who he was; but having a Mind to give his Father an Occasion of making the first Discovery, so soon as the Meat was served up, he drew his Poinard to cut it up, and having let the Guard of his Sword be seen, on which was Egeus's Seal, that Prince knew him, and presently overturned the Cup in which was the Poison, then proposed several Questions to Theseus, and after embracing him, made him be acknowledged by all the Athenians. Medea, by mounting her flying Chariot, escaped the Punishment she deserved.
Here again is a new Crime with which the Poets thought fit to load the Memory of Medea; for this Narration can by no Means be supported. Egeus was dead long before Medea's Arrival in Greece, having thrown himself down, as has been said, from a Precipice upon the Return of his Son from Crete, which was Theseus'sfirst Expedition after his Discovery. Besides, Theseus having been of the Number of the Argonauts, how could Medea have forgot him after she had made that long Voyage with him? And how is this consistent with what Plutarch asserts, as has been already remarked, that this Prince had been in Colchis, and at the same Time that he had found Medea at her Father's Palace, at his first Departure from Trezene? These are some of the Contradictions which Compilers not very exact are apt to fall into.
After this Adventure we hear little more of Medea; only Trogus Pompeius, as we read in Justin, had wrote that she crossed the Sea, and returned to Colchis with young Medus and Jason, who was reconciled to her; that there they had re-established Æetes upon the Throne from which he had been deposed by a powerful Faction; that Jason had made War upon the Enemies of his Father-in-law, had conquered a great Part of the Lesser Asia, and at length acquired so great Glory, as to be honoured as a God, some of his Temples being still to be seen in the Time of Alexander, which Ephestion had demolished, that none might be equalled to his Master. Lastly, That after the Death of Jason, Medus had built the Town of Medea in Honour of his Mother, and had given Name to the Medes. But this whole Narration is overthrown by the Greek Traditions, which make Jason to have died in Thessaly, as we shall see by and by. Pausanias says, that Part of Asia was denominated Aria, and that the Inhabitants were from that Time called Medes, from the Name of that Princess. This Author adds further, that the Son whom she carried with her, and wham she had by Egeus, was called Medus; but that Hellanius gave him the Name of Polixenes, and made him the Son of Jason.
The Greeks, according to the same Author, had old Pieces of Poetry which they called Naupactus, from their Author Carcinus, of the City Naupactus, where it was said, that Jason, after the Death of Pelias, had quitted Iolchos to go and settle at Corcyra, and had lost there his eldest Son Memercus, who had been torn in Pieces by a Lioness, as he was diverting himself in hunting, in that Part of the Continent which is opposite to the City; but they give no Account of Pheres his other Son. There were also in Greece ancient Genealogies of one named Cinetho a Lacedemonian, where it was said that Jason had by Medea a Son Medus, and a Daughter Eriopis; but neither of these Authors said any Thing of Medea and Jason's having resided at Corinth, which was so plainly set forth in the History of Eumelus which we have mentioned; who, besides what has been said, added, that after the Death of Bunus, to whom Æetes had given in Trust his Property in the City Ephyre. Poppaeus, the Son of Aloeus, having ascended the Throne, and Corinthus, the Son of Marathon, who changed the Name of the City Ephyre to that of Corinth, having succeeded him, and having left no Male Issue, the Corinthians had sent for Medea from Iolchos, as has been said. The fame Author added that Medea had several Children by Jason, whom she carefully concealed in Juno's Temple, hoping thereby to procure them Immortality; that at length being baulked of this Expectation, and seeing that Jason, incensed against her, had returned to Iolchos, she had formed a Resolution to leave Corinth, as has been already related.
As to the last Years of Jason, all we know is that he led an unsettled Life, without any fixed Residence; and that as he was one Day resting himself upon the sea-shore, under the Shelter of the Ship Argo, which had been laid up, he was there crushed to Death by the Fall of a Beam which was loosened from it, an Event said to be foretold him by Medea, as Euripides reports.
To conclude: It is not without Reason that I have not represented Medea as criminal as Authors commonly make her; having good Vouchers for my Opinion among the Antients. I presume that I have sufficiently overthrown, and that by formal Authorities, the odious Facts that are laid to her Charge. I may further add, that the only Thing for which she can be blamed, is for having left her Father and Mother to follow a Stranger; but besides that it was a Relation she followed, who was become her Husband, we are told that her Departure was forced and involuntary, being hated both by her Father and Mother because she was of a humane beneficent Disposition. They tell us further, it was this generous Temper prompted her to befriend the Argonauts, who, but for her, must all have perished. The antient Scholiast on Euripides confirms this Opinion of Diodorus, and other Authors, when he says Medea was highly in Favour with the Corinthians, for having delivered them from a grievous Famine by Means of her Inchantments; that is, by the Resources her extensive Knowledge had found out for bringing about a good Harvest.
Ovid himself, who seems to have so little Favour for her, after he has put the most virtuous Sentiments in her Mouth, before she gave Way to her growing Inclination towards Jason, makes her utter those remarkable Words before quoted.
Source: Abbe Banier, The Mythology and Fables of the Ancients, Explained from History (London: A. Millar, 1740).
Note: Some footnotes have been omitted, and some Greek language text has been transliterated.