Kitap 1
2.38
Demetrius of Skepsis is also wrong, and, in fact, the cause of some of the mistakes of Apollodorus. He eagerly objects to the statement of Neanthes of Cyzicus, that the Argonauts, when they sailed to the Phasis,A river of Colchis, hodie Fasz or Rion. founded at Cyzicus the temples of the Idaean Mother.Cybele, so named because she had a temple on Mount Ida. Though their voyage is attested both by Homer and other writers, he denies that Homer had any knowledge whatever of the departure of Jason to the Phasis. In so doing, he not only contradicts the very words of Homer, but even his own assertions. The poet informs us that Achilles, having ravaged LesbosAn island in the Aegaean, now Meteline. and other districts, spared LemnosHodie Lemno or Stalimene. and the adjoining islands, on account of his relationship with Jason and his son Euneos,Euneos was the eldest of the children which Hypsipele, daughter of Thoas, king of Lemnos, had by Jason during his stay in that island. who then had possession of the island. How should he know of a relationship, identity of race, or other connexion existing between Achilles and Jason, which, after all, was nothing else than that they were both Thessalians, one being of Iolcos,A town situated at the bottom of the Pelasgic Gulf, hodie Volo. the other of the Achaean Pthiotis,A country of Thessaly, which received its designation of Achaean from the same sovereign who left his name to Achaia in Peloponnesus. and yet was not aware how it happened that Jason, who was a Thessalian of Iolcos, 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,Eumelus, whom Alcestis, divine amongst women, most beautiful in form of the daughters of Pelias, brought forth to Admetus.Iliad ii. 714.Iliad ii. 714. 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 Aeeta, was a mere fiction, for which he had no authority in history.
