Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/86

 72 STRABO. was not aware how it happened that Jason, who was a Thes- salian of lolcos, should leave no descendants in the land of his nativity, but establish his son as ruler of Lemnos ? Homer then was familiar with the history of Pelias and the daughters of Pelias, of Alcestis, who was the most charming of them all, and of her son " Eumelus, whom Alcestis, praised For beauty above all her sisters fair, In Thessaly to king Admetus bore," 1 and was yet ignorant of all that befell Jason, and Argo, and the Argonauts, matters on the actual occurrence of which all the world is agreed. The tale then of their voyage in the ocean from JEeta, was a mere fiction, for which he had no authority in history. 39. If, however, the expedition to the Phasis, fitted out by Pelias, its return, and the conquest of several islands, have at the bottom any truth whatever, as all say they have, so also has the account of their wanderings, no less than those of Ulysses and Menelaus ; monuments of the actual occurrence of which remain to this day elsewhere than in the writings of Homer. The city of ^Ea, close by the Phasis, is still pointed out. -ZEetes is generally believed to have reigned in Colchis, the name is still common throughout the country, tales of the sorceress Medea are yet abroad, and the riches of the country in gold, silver, and iron, proclaim the motive of Jason's ex- pedition, as well as of that which Phrixus had formerly un- dertaken. Traces both of one and the other still remain. Such is Phrixium, 2 midway between Colchis and Iberia, and the Jasonia, or towns of Jason, which are every where met with in Armenia, Media, and the surrounding countries. Many are the witnesses to the reality of the expeditions of Jason and Phrixus at Sinope 3 and its shore, at Propontis, at the Hellespont, and even at Lemnos. Of Jason and his Colchian followers there are traces even as far as Crete, 4 Italy, and the Adriatic. Callimachus himself alludes to it where he says, ' Eumelus, whom Alcestis, divine amongst women, most beautiful in form of the daughters of Pelias, brought forth to Admetus. Iliad ii. 714. 2 Named Ideessa in the time of Strabo. Strabo, book xi. c. ii. 18. 3 Sinub. * Candia.