Thence they put to sea and came to land at Salmydessus in Thrace, where dwelt Phineus, a seer who had lost the sight of both eyes.As to Phineus and the Harpies, see Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.176ff., with the Scholiast on 177, 178, 181; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xii.69; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. iv.422ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 19; Serv. Verg. A. 3.209; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 9ff., 124 (First Vatican Mythographer 27; Second Vatican Mythographer 142). Aeschylus and Sophocles composed tragedies on the subject of Phineus. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 83, 284ff.; , ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 311ff. The classical description of the Harpies is that of Verg. A. 3.225ff.). Compare Hes. Th. 265-269ff. In his account of the visit of the Argonauts to Phineus, the rationalistic Diod. 4.43ff. omits all mention of the Harpies. Some say he was a son of Agenor,So Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.237, 240 and Hyginus, Fab. 19. but others that he was a son of Poseidon, and he is variously alleged to have been blinded by the gods for foretelling men the future; or by Boreas and the Argonauts because he blinded his own sons at the instigation of their stepmother;See below, Apollod. 3.15.3 with note. or by Poseidon, because he revealed to the children of Phrixus how they could sail from Colchis to Greece. The gods also sent the Harpies to him. These were winged female creatures, and when a table was laid for Phineus, they flew down from the sky and snatched up most of the victuals, and what little they left stank so that nobody could touch it. When the Argonauts would have consulted him about the voyage, he said that he would advise them about it if they would rid him of the Harpies. So the Argonauts laid a table of viands beside him, and the Harpies with a shriek suddenly pounced down and snatched away the food. When Zetes and Calais, the sons of Boreas, saw that, they drew their swords and, being winged, pursued them through the air. Now it was fated that the Harpies should perish by the sons of Boreas, and that the sons of Boreas should die when they could not catch up a fugitive. So the Harpies were pursued and one of them fell into the river Tigres in Peloponnese, the river that is now called Harpys after her; some call her Nicothoe, but others Aellopus. But the other, named Ocypete or, according to others, Ocythoe ( but Hesiod calls her Ocypode)Hes. Th. 267 calls her Ocypete. fled by the Propontis till she came to the Echinadian Islands, which are now called Strophades after her; for when she came to them she turned (estraphe) and being at the shore fell for very weariness with her pursuer. But Apollonius in the Argonautica says that the Harpies were pursued to the Strophades Islands and suffered no harm, having sworn an oath that they would wrong Phineus no more.Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.284-298, who says that previously the islands were called the Floating Isles (Plotai).

Being rid of the Harpies, Phineus revealed to the Argonauts the course of their voyage, and advised them about the Clashing RocksThe Clashing Rocks are the islands which the Greeks called Symplegades. Another name for them was the Wandering Rocks (Planctae) or the Blue Rocks (Cyaneae). See Hdt. 4.85; Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.317ff.; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. iv.561ff.; Pliny, Nat. Hist. vi.32; Merry on Hom. Od. xii.61; Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “The clashing Rocks.” As to the passage of the Argo between them, see Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.317ff., 549-610; Orphica, Argonautica 683-714; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. iv.561-702; Hyginus, Fab. 19. According to the author of the Orphica, the bird which the Argonauts, or rather Athena, let fly between the Clashing Rocks was not a dove but a heron (ἐρωδιός. )The heron was specially associated with Athena. See D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, , p. 58. in the sea. These were huge cliffs, which, dashed together by the force of the winds, closed the sea passage. Thick was the mist that swept over them, and loud the crash, and it was impossible for even the birds to pass between them. So he told them to let fly a dove between the rocks, and, if they saw it pass safe through, to thread the narrows with an easy mind, but if they saw it perish, then not to force a passage. When they heard that, they put to sea, and on nearing the rocks let fly a dove from the prow, and as she flew the clash of the rocks nipped off the tip of her tail. So, waiting till the rocks had recoiled, with hard rowing and the help of Hera, they passed through, the extremity of the ship's ornamented poop being shorn away right round. Henceforth the Clashing Rocks stood still; for it was fated that, so soon as a ship had made the passage, they should come to rest completely.

The Argonauts now arrived among the Mariandynians, and there King Lycus received them kindly.Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.720ff.; Orphica, Argonautica 715ff.; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. iv.733ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 18. There died Idmon the seer of a wound inflicted by a boar;Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.815ff.; Orphica, Argonautica 725ff.; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. v.1ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 14, 18. According to Apollonius, the barrow of Idmon was surmounted by a wild olive tree, which the Nisaeans were commanded by Apollo to worship as the guardian of the city. and there too died Tiphys, and Ancaeus undertook to steer the ship.Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.851-898; Orphica, Argonautica 729ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 890; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. v.13ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 14, 18. And having sailed past the Thermodon and the Caucasus they came to the river Phasis, which is in the Colchian land.As to Jason in Colchis, and his winning of the Golden Fleece, see Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.1260ff., iii.1ff., iv.1-240; Diod. 4.48.1-5; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. v.177-viii.139; Ov. Met. 7.1-158. The adventures of Jason in Colchis were the subject of a play by Sophocles called . See , ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 15ff.; TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 204ff. When the ship was brought into port, Jason repaired to Aeetes, and setting forth the charge laid on him by Pelias invited him to give him the fleece. The other promised to give it if single-handed he would yoke the brazen-footed bulls. These were two wild bulls that he had, of enormous size, a gift of Hephaestus; they had brazen feet and puffed fire from their mouths. These creatures Aeetes ordered him to yoke and to sow dragon's teeth; for he had got from Athena half of the dragon's teeth which Cadmus sowed in Thebes.Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.401ff., 1176ff. While Jason puzzled how he could yoke the bulls, Medea conceived a passion for him; now she was a witch, daughter of Aeetes and Idyia, daughter of Ocean. And fearing lest he might be destroyed by the bulls, she, keeping the thing from her father, promised to help him to yoke the bulls and to deliver to him the fleece, if he would swear to have her to wife and would take her with him on the voyage to Greece. When Jason swore to do so, she gave him a drug with which she bade him anoint his shield, spear, and body when he was about to yoke the bulls; for she said that, anointed with it, he could for a single day be harmed neither by fire nor by iron. And she signified to him that, when the teeth were sown, armed men would spring up from the ground against him; and when he saw a knot of them he was to throw stones into their midst from a distance, and when they fought each other about that, he was taken to kill them.As to the yoking of the brazen-footed bulls, compare Pind. P. 4.224ff.; Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.1026ff. As to the drug with which Jason was to anoint himself, see further Pind. P. 4.221ff.; Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.844ff. It was extracted from a plant with a saffron-coloured flower, which was said to grow on the Caucasus from the blood of Prometheus. Compare Valerius Flaccus, Argon. vii.355ff.; Pseudo-Plutarch, De Fluviis v.4. On hearing that, Jason anointed himself with the drug,Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.1246ff. and being come to the grove of the temple he sought the bulls, and though they charged him with a flame of fire, he yoked them.Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii. 1278ff. And when he had sowed the teeth, there rose armed men from the ground; and where he saw several together, he pelted them unseen with stones, and when they fought each other he drew near and slew them.Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii. 1320-1398. But though the bulls were yoked, Aeetes did not give the fleece; for he wished to burn down the Argo and kill the crew. But before he could do so, Medea brought Jason by night to the fleece, and having lulled to sleep by her drugs the dragon that guarded it, she possessed herself of the fleece and in Jason's company came to the Argo.Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.123-182. She was attended, too, by her brother Apsyrtus.Here Apollodorus departs from the version of Apollonius Rhodius, according to whom Apsyrtus, left behind by Jason and Medea, pursued them with a band of Colchians, and, overtaking them, was treacherously slain by Jason, with the connivance of Medea, in an island of the Danube. See Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.224ff., 30( Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.223, 228). The version of Apollonius is followed by Hyginus, Fab. 23 and the Orphic poet (Ap. Rhod., Argon., 1027ff.). According to Sophocles, in his play , Apsyrtus was murdered in the palace of Aeetes (Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.228); and this account seems to have been accepted by Eur. Med. 1334. Apollodorus's version of the murder of Apsyrtus is repeated verbally by Zenobius, Cent. iv.92, but as usual without acknowledgment. And with them the Argonauts put to sea by night.

When Aeetes discovered the daring deeds done by Medea, he started off in pursuit of the ship; but when she saw him near, Medea murdered her brother and cutting him limb from limb threw the pieces into the deep. Gathering the child's limbs, Aeetes fell behind in the pursuit; wherefore he turned back, and, having buried the rescued limbs of his child, he called the place Tomi. But he sent out many of the Colchians to search for the Argo, threatening that, if they did not bring Medea to him, they should suffer the punishment due to her; so they separated and pursued the search in divers places. When the Argonauts were already sailing past the Eridanus river, Zeus sent a furious storm upon them, and drove them out of their course, because he was angry at the murder of Apsyrtus. And as they were sailing past the Apsyrtides Islands, the ship spoke, saying that the wrath of Zeus would not cease unless they journeyed to Ausonia and were purified by Circe for the murder of Apsyrtus.Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.576-591; Orphica, Argonautica 1160ff. So when they had sailed past the Ligurian and Celtic nations and had voyaged through the Sardinian Sea, they skirted Tyrrhenia and came to Aeaea, where they supplicated Circe and were purified.Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.659-717 who describes the purificatory rites. A sucking pig was waved over the homicides; then its throat was cut, and their hands were sprinkled with its blood. Similar rites of purification for homicide are represented on Greek vases. See Frazer on Paus. 2.31.8 (vol. iii. p. 277).

And as they sailed past the Sirens,About the Argonauts and the Sirens, see Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.891-921; Orphica, Argonautica 1270- 1297; Hyginus, Fab. 14. Orpheus restrained the Argonauts by chanting a counter-melody. Butes alone swam off to the Sirens, but Aphrodite carried him away and settled him in Lilybaeum. After the Sirens, the ship encountered Charybdis and Scylla and the Wandering Rocks,Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.922ff. These Wandering Rocks are supposed to be the Lipari islands, two of which are still active volcanoes. above which a great flame and smoke were seen rising. But Thetis with the Nereids steered the ship through them at the summons of Hera. Having passed by the Island of Thrinacia, where are the kine of the Sun,Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.964-979, according to whom the kine of the Sun were milk-white, with golden horns. they came to Corcyra, the island of the Phaeacians, of which Alcinous was king.About the Argonauts among the Phaeacians, see Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.982ff.; Orphica, Argonautica 1298-1354; Hyginus, Fab. 23. But when the Colchians could not find the ship, some of them settled at the Ceraunian mountains, and some journeyed to Illyria and colonized the Apsyrtides Islands. But some came to the Phaeacians, and finding the Argo there, they demanded of Alcinous that he should give up Medea. He answered, that if she already knew Jason, he would give her to him, but that if she were still a maid he would send her away to her father.Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.1106ff.; Orphica, Argonautica 1327ff. However, Arete, wife of Alcinous, anticipated matters by marrying Medea to Jason;Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.1111-1169; Orphica, Argonautica 1342ff. hence the Colchians settled down among the PhaeaciansCompare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.1206ff. and the Argonauts put to sea with Medea.

Sailing by night they encountered a violent storm, and Apollo, taking his stand on the Melantian ridges, flashed lightning down, shooting a shaft into the sea. Then they perceived an island close at hand, and anchoring there they named it Anaphe, because it had loomed up (anaphanenai) unexpectedly. So they founded an altar of Radiant Apollo, and having offered sacrifice they betook them to feasting; and twelve handmaids, whom Arete had given to Medea, jested merrily with the chiefs; whence it is still customary for the women to jest at the sacrificeCompare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.1701-1730; Orphica, Argonautica 1361-1367. From the description of Apollonius we gather that the raillery between men and women at these sacrifices was of a ribald character (αἰσχροῖς ἔπεσσιν.) Here Apollodorus again departs from Apollonius, who places the intervention of Apollo and the appearance of the island of Anaphe after the approach of the Argonauts to Crete, and their repulse by Talos. Moreover, Apollonius tells how, after leaving Phaeacia, the Argonauts were driven by a storm to Libya and the Syrtes, where they suffered much hardship (Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.1228-1628). This Libyan episode in the voyage of the Argo is noticed by Diod. 4.56.6, but entirely omitted by Apollodorus.. Putting to sea from there, they were hindered from touching at Crete by Talos.As to Talos, see Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.1639- 1693; Orphica, Argonautica 1358-1360; Agatharchides, in Photius, Bibliotheca, p. 443b, lines 22-25, ed. Bekker; Lucian, De saltatione 49; Zenobius, Cent. v.85; Suidas, s.v. Σαρδάνιος γέλως ; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xx.302, p. 1893; Scholiast on Plat. Rep. i, 337a. Talos would seem to have been a bronze image of the sun represented as a man with a bull's head. See , pp. 74ff.; A. B. Cook, , i.718ff. In his account of the death of Talos our author again differs from Apollonius Rhodius, according to whom Talos perished through grazing his ankle against a jagged rock, so that all the ichor in his body gushed out. This incident seems to have been narrated by Sophocles in one of his plays (Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.1638; , ed. A. C. Pearson, i.110ff.). The account, mentioned by Apollodorus, which referred the death of Talos to the spells of Medea, is illustrated by a magnificent vase-painting, in the finest style, which represents Talos swooning to death in presence of the Argonauts, while the enchantress Medea stands by, gazing grimly at her victim and holding in one hand a basket from which she seems to be drawing with the other the fatal herbs. See A. B. Cook, , i.721, with plate XL1. Some say that he was a man of the Brazen Race, others that he was given to Minos by Hephaestus; he was a brazen man, but some say that he was a bull. He had a single vein extending from his neck to his ankles, and a bronze nail was rammed home at the end of the vein. This Talos kept guard, running round the island thrice every day; wherefore, when he saw the Argo standing inshore, he pelted it as usual with stones. His death was brought about by the wiles of Medea, whether, as some say, she drove him mad by drugs, or, as others say, she promised to make him immortal and then drew out the nail, so that all the ichor gushed out and he died. But some say that Poeas shot him dead in the ankle. After tarrying a single night there they put in to Aegina to draw water, and a contest arose among them concerning the drawing of the water.Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.1765-1772, from whose account we gather that this story was told to explain the origin of a footrace in Aegina, in which young men ran with jars full of water on their shoulders. Thence they sailed betwixt Euboea and Locris and came to Iolcus, having completed the whole voyage in four months.

Now Pelias, despairing of the return of the Argonauts, would have killed Aeson; but he requested to be allowed to take his own life, and in offering a sacrifice drank freely of the bull's blood and died.Compare Diod. 4.50.1; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. i.777ff. The ancients believed that bull's blood was poisonous. Similarly Themistocles was popularly supposed to have killed himself by drinking bull's blood (Plut. Them. 31). And Jason's mother cursed Pelias and hanged herself,Her name was Perimede, according to Apollod. 1.9.16. Diodorus Siculus calls her Amphinome, and says that she stabbed herself after cursing Pelias (Diod. 4.50.1). leaving behind an infant son Promachus; but Pelias slew even the son whom she had left behind.Compare Diod. 4.50.1. On his return Jason surrendered the fleece, but though he longed to avenge his wrongs he bided his time. At that time he sailed with the chiefs to the Isthmus and dedicated the ship to Poseidon, but afterwards he exhorted Medea to devise how he could punish Pelias. So she repaired to the palace of Pelias and persuaded his daughters to make mince meat of their father and boil him, promising to make him young again by her drugs; and to win their confidence she cut up a ram and made it into a lamb by boiling it. So they believed her, made mince meat of their father and boiled him.With this account of the death of Pelias compare Diod. 4.51ff.; Paus. 8.11.2ff.; Zenobius, Cent. iv.92; Plaut. Ps. 868ff.; Cicero, De senectute xxiii.83; Ov. Met. 7.297-349; Hyginus, Fab. 24. The story of the fraud practised by Medea on Pelias is illustrated by Greek vase-paintings. For example, on a black-figured vase the ram is seen issuing from the boiling cauldron, while Medea and the two daughters of Pelias stand by watching it with gestures of glad surprise, and the aged white-haired king himself sits looking on expectant. See Miss J. E. Harrison, (London, 1894), plate ii; Baumeister, , ii.1201ff. with fig. 1394. According to the author of the epic , Medea in like manner restored to youth Jason's old father, Aeson; according to Pherecydes and Simonides, she applied the magical restorative with success to her husband, Jason. Again, Aeschylus wrote a play called , in which he related how Medea similarly renovated not only the nurses but their husbands by the simple process of decoction. See the Greek Argument to the Medea of Euripides, and the Scholiast on Aristophanes, Knights, 1321. (According to Ov. Met. 7.251-294, Medea restored Aeson to youth, not by boiling him, but by draining his body of his effete old blood and replacing it by a magic brew.) Again, when Pelops had been killed and served up at a banquet of the gods by his cruel father Tantalus, the deities in pity restored him to life by boiling him in a cauldron from which he emerged well and whole except for the loss of his shoulder, of which Demeter had inadvertently partaken. See Pind. O. 1.26(40)ff with the Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 152-153. For similar stories of the magical restoration of youth and life, see Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “The Renewal of Youth.” But Acastus buried his father with the help of the inhabitants of Iolcus, and he expelled Jason and Medea from Iolcus.

They went to Corinth, and lived there happily for ten years, till Creon, king of Corinth, betrothed his daughter Glauce to Jason, who married her and divorced Medea. But she invoked the gods by whom Jason had sworn, and after often upbraiding him with his ingratitude she sent the bride a robe steeped in poison, which when Glauce had put on, she was consumed with fierce fire along with her father, who went to her rescue.See Eur. Med. 1136ff. It is said that in her agony Glauce threw herself into a fountain, which was thenceforth named after her (Paus. 2.2.6). The fountain has been discovered and excavated in recent years. See G. W. Elderkin, “The Fountain of Glauce at Corinth,” , xiv. (1910), pp. 19-50. But Mermerus and Pheres, the children whom Medea had by Jason, she killed, and having got from the Sun a car drawn by winged dragons she fled on it to Athens.In this account of the tragic end of Medea's stay at Corinth our author has followed the of Euripides. Compare Diod. 4.54; Ov. Met. 7.391ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 25. According to Apuleius, Meta. i.10, Medea contrived to burn the king's palace and the king himself in it, as well as his daughter. Another tradition is that on her flight she left behind her children, who were still infants, setting them as suppliants on the altar of Hera of the Height; but the Corinthians removed them and wounded them to death.Compare Paus. 2.3.6; Ael., Var. Hist. v.21; Scholiast on Eur. Med. 9, 264. Down to a comparatively late date the Corinthians used to offer annual sacrifices and perform other rites for the sake of expiating the murder of the children. Seven boys and seven girls, clad in black and with their hair shorn, had to spend a year in the sanctuary of Hera of the Height, where the murder had been perpetrated. These customs fell into desuetude after Corinth was captured by the Romans. See Paus. 2.3.7; Scholiast on Eur. Med. 264; compare Philostratus, Her. xx.24. Medea came to Athens, and being there married to Aegeus bore him a son Medus. Afterwards, however, plotting against Theseus, she was driven a fugitive from Athens with her son.According to one account, Medea attempted to poison Theseus, but his father dashed the poison cup from his lips. See below, Apollod. E.1.5ff.; Plut. Thes. 12; Diod. 4.55.4-6; Paus. 2.3.8; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xi.741; Eustathius, Comment. on Dionysius Perieg. 1017; Ov. Met. 7.406-424. According to Ovid, the poison which Medea made use of to take off Thesus was aconite. But he conquered many barbarians and called the whole country under him Media,For the etymology, compare Diod. 4.55.5, 7, Diod. 4.56.1; Strab. 11.13.10; Paus. 2.3.8; Eustathius, Comment. on Dionysius Perieg. 1017; Hyginus, Fab. 27. and marching against the Indians he met his death. And Medea came unknown to Colchis, and finding that Aeetes had been deposed by his brother Perses, she killed Perses and restored the kingdom to her father.According to others, it was not Medea but her son Medus who killed Perses. See Diod. 4.56.1; Hyginus, Fab. 27. Cicero quotes from an otherwise unknown Latin tragedy some lines in which the deposed Aeetes is represented mourning his forlorn state in an unkingly and unmanly strain (Tusculan. Disput. iii.12.26). The narrative of Hyginus has all the appearance of being derived from a tragedy, perhaps the same tragedy from which Cicero quotes. But that tragedy itself was probably based on a Greek original; for Diodorus Siculus introduces his similar account of the assassination of the usurper with the remark that the history of Medea had been embellished and distorted by the extravagant fancies of the tragedians.