Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/265

 ARGONAUTS AT LEMNOS. 231 accompanied them as prophets, while Orpheus came to amuse their weariness and reconcile tl.eir quarrels with his harp. 1 First they touched at the island of Lemnos, in which at that time there were no men ; for the women, infuriated by jealousy and ill-treatment, had put to death their fathers, husbands and brothers. The Argonauts, after some difficulty, were received with friendship, and even admitted into the greatest intimacy. They ?iaid some months, and the subsequent population of the island was 1 Apollonius Rhodius, Apollodorus, Valerius Flaccus, the Orphic Argonau- tica, and Hyginus, have all given Catalogues of the Argonautic heroes (there was one also in the lost tragedy called A.JJ/J.VKU of Sophokles, see Welcker Gr. Trag. i. 327) : the discrepancies among them are numerous and irreconcil able. Burmann, in the Catalogus Argonautarum, prefixed to his edition of Valerius Flaccus, has discussed them copiously. I transcribe one or two of the remarks of this conscientious and laborious critic, out of many of a simi- lar tenor, on the impracticability of a fabulous chronology. Immediately before the first article, Acastus " Neque enim in aetatibus Argonautarum ullam rationem temporum constare, neque in stirpe et stemmate deducendA ordinem ipsum naturae congruere videbam. Nam et huic militise adscribi videbam Heroas, qui per nature leges et ordinem fati eo usque vitam ex- trahcre non potuere, ut aliis ab hac expeditione remotis Heroum militiis no- mina dedisse narrari deberent a Poetis et Mythologis. In idem etiam tempus avos et Nepotes conjici, consanguineos setate longe inferiores prioribus nt sequales adjungi, concoquere vix posse videtur." Art. Ancceus : " Scio objici posse, si seriem illam majorem respiciamus, hunc Ancseum simul cum proa vo suo Talao in eandem profectum fuisse expeditionem. Sed similia exem- pla in aliis occurrent, et in fabulis rationem temporum non semper accura- tam licet deducere." Art. Jas6n: "Herculi enim jam provecta aetate ad haesit Theseus juvenis, et in Amazonia expeditione socius fuit, interfuit huic expeditioni, venatui apri Calydonii, et rapuit Helenam, quae circa Trojanum helium maxime floruit : quae omnia si Theseus tot temporum intervallis distincta egit, secula duo vel tria vixisse debuit. Certe Jason Hypsipylem neptem Ariadnes, nee videre, nee Lemni cognoscere potuit." Art. Melea- ger : " Unum est quod alicui longum ordinem majorum recensenti scrupu- lum movere possit : nimis longum intervallum inter ./Eolum et Meleagmm intercedere, ut potuerit interfuisse huic expeditioni : cum nonus fere numer- etur ab JEolo, et plurimi ut Jason, Argus, et alii tertia tantum ab JEolo g^neratione distent. Sed saspe jam notavimus, frustra temporum concor- iLam in fabulis quaeri." Read also the articles Castdr and Pollux, Nest6r Peleus, Staphylus, etc. We may stand excused for keeping clear of a clironology which is fertile only in difficulties, and ends in nothing but ill :sions.