Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/274

 242 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paphlagonia, first erected by Medea -, 1 and the important town tf Pantikapteon, on the European side of the Cimmerian Bosponi3, ascribed its first settlement to a son of JEetes. 2 When the return- ing ten thousand Greeks sailed along the coast, called the Jaso- nian shore, from Sinope to Herakleia, they were told that the grandson of uEetes was reigning king of the territory at the mouth of the Phasis, and the anchoring-places where the Argo had stopped were specially pointed out to them. 3 In the lofty re- gions of the Moschi, near Kolchis, stood the temple of Leukothea, founded by Phryxus, which remained both rich and respected down to the times of the kings of Pontus, and where it was an inviolable rule not to offer up a ram. 4 The town of Dioskurias, north of the river Phasis, was believed to have been hallowed by the presence of Kastor and Pollux in the Argo, and to have re- ceived from them its appellation. 5 Even the interior of Medea and Armenia was full of memorials of Jason and Medea and their son Medus, or of Armenus the son of Jason, from whom the Greeks deduced not only the name and foundation of the Medes and Armenians, but also the great operation of cutting a channel through the mountains for the efflux of the river Araxes, which they compared to that of the Peneius in Thessaly. 6 And the 1 See the historians of Hurakleia, Nymphis and Promathidas, Fragm. Orelli, pp. 99, 100-104. Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. iv. 247. Strabo, xii. p. 546. Autolykus, whom he calls companion of Jason, was, according to another legend, comrade of Herakles in his expedition against the Amazons. 2 Stephan. Byz. v. TlavTiKairaiov, Eustath. ad Dionys. Perieget. 311. 3 Xenophon, Anabas. vi. 2, 1 ; v. 7, 37. 4 Strabo, xi. p. 499. 8 Strabo, xi. p. 499, 503, 526, 531; i. p. 45-48. Justin, xlii. 3, whose statements illustrate the way in which men found a present home and appli- cation for the old fables, " Jason, primus humanorurn post Herculem et Liberum, qni reges Orientis fuisse tradnntur, cam cceli plagam domuisse dicitnr. Cum Albanis fbedus percussit, qui Herculem ex Italia ab Albano monte, cum, Geryone extincto, armenta ejus per Italiam duceret, secuti dicuntnr ; quique, memores Italioae originis, exercitum Cn. Pompeii hello Mithridatico fratres consalutavere. Itaque Jasoni totns fere Oriens, ut con- ditori, divinos honores templaqne constituit ; qnae Parmenico, dux Alexandra Magni, post multos annos dirui jussit, ne cujusquam nomen in Orientc VCHO rabilius quam Alexandri esset." The Thessalian companions of Alexander the Great, placed by his victors in possession of rich acquisitions in these regions, pleased themselves by
 * Appian, Mithridatic. c. 101.