Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/270

 238 HISTORY OF GREECE. placed that much-desired prize on board the vessel, a.id accora panied Jason with his companions in their flight, carrying along with her the young Apsyrtus, her brother. 1 .2Eetes, profoundly exasperated at the flight of the Argonauts with his daughter, assembled his forces forthwith, and put to sea in pursuit of them. So energetic were his efforts that he shortly overtook the retreating vessel, when the Argonauts again owed their safety to the stratagem of Medea. She killed her brother Apsyrtus, cut his body in pieces and strewed the limbs round about in the sea. JEetes on reaching the spot found these sorrow- ful traces of his murdered son ; but while he tarried to collect the scattered fragments, and bestow upon the body an honorable in- terment, the Argonauts escaped. 2 The spot on which the unfor- tunate Apsyrtus was cut up received the name of Tomi. 3 This fratricide of Medea, however, so deeply provoked the indignation of Zeus, that he condemned the Argo and her crew to a trying 1 Apollodor. i. 9, 23. Apoll&n. Rhod. iv. 220. Pherekydes said that Jason killed the dragon (Fr. 74, Did.). 2 This is the story of Apollodorus (i. 9, 24), who seems to follow Phere- kydes (Fr. 73, Didot). Apollonius (iv. 225-480) and Valerius Flaccus (viii. 262 seq.) give totally different circumstances respecting the death of Apsyr- tus ; but the narrative of Pherekydes seems the oldest : so revolting a story as that of the cutting up of the little boy cannot have been imagined in later times. Sophokles composed two tragedies on the adventures of Jason and Medea, both lost the KoA^'dcf and the 2/citfcu. In the former he represented tho murder of the child Apsyrtus as having taken place in the house of JEetes : in the latter he introduced the mitigating circumstance, that Apsyrtus was the sonofyEetes by ft different mother from Medea ( Schol. Apollon Rhod. iv. 223). 3 Apollodor. i. 9, 24, rbv TOTTOV irpoaqyopevas Tfyovf. Ovid. Trist. iii. 9. The story that Apsyrtus was cut in pieces, is the etymological legend expla- natory of the name Tomi. There was however a place called Apsarus, on the southern coast of the Eaxine, west of Trapezus, where the tomb of Apsyrtus was shown, and where it was affirmed that he had been put to death. He was the eponymas of the town, which was said to have been once called Apsyrtus, and only corrupted by a barbarian pronunciation ( Arrian. Periplns, Euxin. p. 6 ; Geogr. Min. v. 1 . Compare Procop. Bell. Goth. iv. 2. Strabo connects the death of Apsyrtus with the Apsyrtides, islands off th coast of Ulyria, in the Adriatic (vii p. 315).