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If that is not why you honour Orestes and Pylades, do tell me, Toxaris, what other benefit have they done you to bring it about that although formerly you deemed them anything but gods, now, on the contrary, you have made them pass for gods by sacrificing to them, and you now bring victims to men who at that time very nearly became victims? This conduct, you know, might be thought ridiculous and inconsistent with that of former times.
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TOXARIS As a matter of fact, Mnesippus, even these actions that you have described evince nobility in those men. That two should dare so bold a deed; that they should sail so far from their own country as to cruise out into the Pontus (still unexplored by any of the Greeks except the force that fared upon the Argo to Colchis) undismayed either by the fables regarding it or by its name through any terror inspired by the fact that it was called ‘ Inhospitable” (I suppose because savage peoples dwelt all about it);According to Apollodorus (Strabo, VII, 298-299) the Pontus was at first called Azeinos (“Inhospitable”) because of its storminess and the ferocity of the tribes that surrounded it; later, after the Ionian settlements on its coast, it was called Huxeinos (“Hospitable”). Pindar knows both names (Pyth., IV, 203; Nem. IV, 49). that after their capture they faced the situation so courageously, and were not content simply to make their escape but punished the king for his insolence and took Artemis with them when they sailed away—why is not all this admirable and worthy of divine honour in some sort from all who praise manhood? Yet that is not what we see in Orestes and Pylades, to treat them as heroes.
