Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/271

 ARGONAUTS IN LIBYA. 239 voyage, full of hardship and privation, before she was permitted to reach home. The returning heroes traversed an immeasurable length both of sea and of river : first up the river Phasis into the ocean which flows round the earth then following the course of that circumfluous stream until its junction with the Nile, 1 they came down the Nile into Egypt, from whence they carried the Argo on their shoulders by a fatiguing land-journey to the lake Tritonis in Libya. Here they were rescued from the extremity of want and exhaustion by the kindness of the local god Triton, who treated them hospitably, and even presented to Euphemus a clod of earth, as a symbolical promise that his descendants should one day found a city on the Libyan shore. The promise was amply redeemed by the flourishing and powerful city of Kyrene, 2 whose princes the Battiads boasted themselves as lineal descend- ants of Euphemus. Refreshed by the hospitality of Triton, the Argonauts found themselves again on the waters of the Mediterranean in their way homeward. But before they arrived at lolkos they visited Circe, at the island of -ZEaea, where Medea was purified for the murder of Apsyrtus : they also stopped at Korkyra, then called Drepan*, where Alkinous received and protected them. The cave in that island where the marriage of Medea with Jason was consum- mated, was still shown in the time of the historian Timaeus, as well as the altars to Apollo which she had erected, and the rites 1 The original narrative was, that the Argo returned by navigating the circumfluous ocean. This would be almost certain, even without positive testimony, from the early ideas entertained by the Greeks respecting geog- raphy ; but we know further that it was the representation of the Hesiodic poems, as well as of Mimnermus, Hekatseas and Pindar, and even of Anti- machns. Schol. Parisina Ap. Khod. iv. 254. 'Eicaraiof 6e 6 'MiTi.^aicf 6i& TOV $aai6of avsh&elv tyrjalv avToiJf elf rbv 'i2/ceavov did. derov 'fiKcavoo elv elf rbv NeiTiov eK 6e TOV NetAov elf rrjv /cai?' rjfio.f tiu^aoacv. 61 nal Ilivdapof iv Hvdioviicaif nal 'Avn'yUa^oc ev Attiy 6ia rot) 'Qiteavov tyaalv eh-delv avToiJf elf TT/V AI^VTJV elra /Jaoracravraf TTJV 'Apyu elf rb f/fiETepov uiK(r&ai TreAayof. Compare the Schol. Edit, ad iv. 259. The tripod of Jason was preserved by the Euesperitac in Libya, Diod. iv, 56 : but the legend, connecting the Argonauts with the lake Tritonis in Libya; is given with some considerable differences in Herodotus, iv. 179.
 * See the fourth Pythian Ode of Pindar, and Apollon. Ehod. iv. 1551-1756.