Kitap 1
2.39
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 Aea, close by the Phasis, is still pointed Out Aeetes 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 expedition, as well as of that which Phrixus had formerly undertaken. Traces both of one and the other still remain. Such is Phrixium,Named Ideessa in the time of Strabo. Strabo, book xi. c. ii. § 18. 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 SinopeSinub. 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,Candia. Italy, and the Adriatic. Callimachus himself alludes to it where he says, [The temple of] Apollo and [the Isle of] Anaphe,Hodie The Isle of Nanfio. Near to Laconian Thera.Now the Island of Callistè, founded by Theras the Lacedaemonian more than ten centuries before the Christian era. In the verses which commence, I sing how the heroes from Cytaean Aeeta, Return’d again to ancient Aemonia.A name of Thessaly. And again concerning the Colchians, who, Ceasing to plough with oars the Illyrian Sea,The Gulf of Venice. Near to the tomb of fair Harmonia, Who was transform’d into a dragon’s shape, Founded their city, which a Greek would call The Town of Fugitives, but in their tongue Is Pola named.
