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one, too, might conclude from the passage itself that Homer even here hinted at the truth, for the long time which the remains of the wreck lay under water, which Ulysses, who was all the while hanging suspended to the branches, so anxiously desired to rise, accords much better with the ebb and flow taking place but twice during the night and day instead of thrice.

      “Therefore hard

      I clench’d the boughs, till she disgorged again

      Both keel and mast. Not undesired by me

      They came, though late; for at what hour the judge,

      After decision made of numerous strifes

      Between young candidates for honour, leaves

      The forum, for refreshment’s sake at home,

      Then was it that the mast and keel emerged.”276

      Every word of this indicates a considerable length of time, especially when he prolongs it to the evening, not merely saying at that time when the judge has risen, but having adjudicated on a vast number of cases, and therefore detained longer than usual. Otherwise his account of the return of the wreck would not have appeared likely, if he had brought it back again with the return of the wave, before it had been first carried a long way off.

      37. Apollodorus, who agrees with Eratosthenes, throws much blame upon Callimachus for asserting, in spite of his character as a grammarian, that Gaudus277 and Corcyra278 were among the scenes of Ulysses’ wandering, such an opinion being altogether in defiance of Homer’s statement, and his description of the places as situated in the exterior ocean.279

      This criticism is just if we suppose the wandering to have never actually occurred, and to be merely the result of Homer’s imagination; but if it did take place, although in other regions, Apollodorus ought plainly to have stated which they were, and thus set right the mistake of Callimachus. Since, however, after such evidence as we have produced, we cannot believe the whole account to be a fiction, and since no other more likely places have as yet been named, we hold that the grammarian is absolved from blame.

      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,280 founded at Cyzicus the temples of the Idæan Mother.281 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 Lesbos282 and other districts, spared Lemnos283 and the adjoining islands, on account of his relationship with Jason and his son Euneos,284 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,285 the other of the Achæan Pthiotis,286 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,”287

      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 Æeta, 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 Æa, close by the Phasis, is still pointed out. Æetes 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,288 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 Sinope289 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,290 Italy, and the Adriatic. Callimachus himself alludes to it where he says,

      ”[The temple of] Apollo and [the Isle of] Anaphe,291

      Near to Laconian Thera.”292

      In the verses which commence,

      “I sing how the heroes from Cytæan Æeta,

      Return’d again to ancient Æmonia.”293

      And again concerning the Colchians, who,

      “Ceasing to plough with oars the Illyrian Sea,294

      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.”

      Some writers assert that Jason and his companions sailed high up the Ister, others say he sailed only so far as to be able to gain the Adriatic: the first statement results altogether from ignorance; the second, which supposes there is a second Ister having its source from the larger river of the same name, and discharging its waters into the Adriatic, is neither incredible nor even improbable.295

      40. Starting from these premises, the poet, in conformity both with general custom and his own practice, narrates some circumstances as they actually occurred, and paints others in the colours of fiction. He follows history when he tells us of Æetes and Jason also, when he talks of Argo, and on the authority of [the actual city of Æa], feigns his city of Ææa, when he settles Euneos in Lemnos, and makes that island friendly to Achilles, and when, in imitation of Medea, he makes the sorceress Circe

      “Sister by birth of the all-wise Æetes,”296

      he adds the fiction of the entrance of the Argonauts into the exterior ocean as the sequel to their wanderings on their return home. Here, supposing the previous statements admitted, the truth of the phrase “the renowned Argo,”297 is evident, since, in that case, the expedition was directed to a populous and well-known country. But if, as [Demetrius] of Skepsis asserts, on the authority of Mimnermus, Æetes dwelt by the Ocean, and Jason was sent thither far east by Pelias, to bring back the fleece,

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