UMJOL 



ARGONAUTS. 



The principal stars in Argo are M follows : 



No. in Cauloftw 

 Chancier. of Ucalllr. 



2-291 

 r - M 

 T 2505 

 w 2720 

 f ; 

 t 173 

 R 



v 3102 



( 



MM 





 s 



4' 3639 



6* 3661 



A 3699 



No. la Catalogue 



of Brltiib 

 Association. 



MM 



2414 

 MM 



3791 



K 



M 



'' 



nn 



4051 

 4093 

 I-J12 

 4243 

 4348 



m; 

 4457 

 4461 



-IUJ4 

 2665 

 2710 



2950 



nn 

 tan 



3083 

 3126 

 3177 

 3186 

 S213 



: :..:. 

 3410 

 M M 

 3516 

 3619 



MM 



3702 



M.piltmlc. 

 1 

 3 

 4 

 3 

 4 



3-5 

 4 

 4 

 M 



4 

 3 

 4 

 4 



1 

 I 



I 

 4 

 3 

 4 



4 

 4 

 I 



I 

 2 

 3 



Owing to the extent of this constellation, it is usual to subdivide it 

 into four regions. They are named as follows : Argo, Argo in Carina 

 (in the keel), Argo in Puppi (in the stern), Argo in Velia (in the sails). 



AKOOL. [TAnTAiuc ACID.] 



ARO.oN.U'TS, a term signifying the crew of the Argo, or members 

 of the Argonautic expedition. This is one of the most remarkable ol 

 those mythological tales in which, as in the legends of the Trojan war 

 and the war of the Seven against Thebes, there is reason to believe 

 that a substratum of truth exists, though overlaid by a mass ol 

 fiction. Anterior to these events (it is placed by Newton B.C. 937, by 

 Blair B.C. 1263), the Argonautic expedition has a larger share of what 

 is purely fabulous ; the licence of the poet being of course curtailed in 

 proportion as the events which he related came nearer to his o\vn 

 times. No story has been more frequently treated by Grecian writers 

 We shall give a brief outline, and then offer a few remarks upon it 



Jason, the son of JEson, king of lolcos in Thessaly, having been 

 defrauded of his father's kingdom by his father's brother Pelias, in 

 hope of recovering his paternal inheritance, undertook to bring from 

 Colchis the golden fleece of the ram which carried Phrixus thither 

 Argus, the son of Phrixus, by the help of Athene (Minerva), built the 

 ship Argo, of fifty oars, at PagasEO, and it was manned by the most 

 celebrated heroes of Greece, in number fifty. The lists differ, for 

 every state in later times wished to include its own national hen 

 among them ; bat by general consent the most distinguished warriors 

 <M Heracles (Hercules), the ..Eacidir, the Dioscuri, Orpheus, Theseus 

 Ac., were on board the vessel, which was steered by Tiphys, the son o: 

 Agiu'ua. Embarking from lolcos (or, some say, Aphcto, departure) 

 they steered first to Lemnos; thence to Mysia, where Herculej 

 remained behind, seeking his favourite Hy las, who had been carried of 

 by the Naiades, and drowned. (See The- r. Idyll. 1 13.) They tout-In-. 

 next at Bebrycia, where Amycus, king of the country, was slain by 

 Polydeuke* (Pollux), in l>oxing with the mint, or weighted glove 

 (Theocr. ' Idyll.' 22.) A|H.||,,niu next conducts them to the coast ol 

 BithynU, where Zeties and Calais, the winged sons of Boreas, delivers 

 the seer Phineus from certain winged monsters called Harpies, and it 

 return be gave the Argonauts instruction* for the conduct of tln-ir 

 voyage. (' Ai.-ll. Kh.xl.' ii. v. 178-425.) The entrance to the Kn.xin. 

 sea was fabled to be closed up by certain rocks, called Symplfjuilit 

 f/natffn, or Plamklai (' Od.' xii. 61), or Cyantan, which floated u th 

 water, and when anything attempted to pass through, came together 

 with such velocity that not even the birds could escape. Phim-im 

 advised them to let fly a pigeon, and to venture the passage if the bin 

 K--t through safe. It passed, with only the loss of its tail ; and the 

 Argo, favoured by Juno, and impelled by the utmost effort* of its 

 heroic crew, passed also, though so narrowly that the meeting rocks 

 carried aw*y |rt f her stem-works. Thenceforward they remained fixed. 

 The exi*dition reached the river Phasis without any more adventures 



worthy of notice. .Kvim, king of Colchis, bearing from the strangers 

 the cause of their arrival, promised to give Jason the golden fleece, 

 which was suspended on a tree in the sacred grove of Ares, on con- 

 dition of his yoking two bulb with brazen feet, which breathed flames, 

 ploughing a piece of land with them, and sowing part of the teeth of 

 the serpent slain by Cadmus, which had the peculiar property of 

 producing a crop of armed men. These difficult tasks he performed 

 by the help of the celebrated sorceress Medea, daughter of ^Cetes, who 



ell in love with him, placed the fleece, which JSetes ultimately refused 

 to surrender, in his possession, and became his partner in flight. 

 II A the Argo got back to Greece, it is not easy to say ; lit 

 low or other she found her way from Colchis, at the east, in . ml of 

 the Kuxine, to the western extremity of the Mediterranean. Hero the 

 Argonauts touched at Men. the Wand ! <'irce (see ' Od.' xii 

 whu-hby Homer is placed in the westemmuet part of the Mediterranean, 

 mil l.y some later writers has been said to be the promont. 



Circeum, on the l..itian coast Hence they passed all the w It 



the western world described by Homer; the Sirens; Scylla and 

 Chnrybdis ; Trinakria (Sicilia), the isle of the sun ; and Pha>a< 

 Corcyra. Near Anaphe, one of the Sporades, they narrowly escaped 

 shipwreck, but were saved by Phccbus. They touched at Cr.-t.-. pro. 

 ceeded to AZgrnm., thence to lolcos, where Jason delivered > 

 fleece to Pelias ; after which he sailed to the Isthmus, and dedicated 

 the Argo to Poseidon, or Neptune. 



For a full account of the adventures of the Argonauts, see, I 

 the passages referred to, Pindar, ' J'ytli.' IV.; Ajiolloiiius Kliodius ; 

 the Orphic Argonautica ; Diodorus, book ir. c. 40 ; see also Hesiod. 

 ' Theog. 1 992 ; Ovid, and the Latin jioein of Valerius Flaccus, cutitli-d 

 Argonautica.' 



The reader will readily understand that it was a difficult matter to 

 get the Argo home from Colchis to Greece, by way of the Mediter- 

 ranean. Besides numerous large streams, two very great riv.-i 

 later and Tanais (Danube and Don), flowed into the Kuxine sea, from 

 the west and north-east respectively, in addition to the Phasis 

 which entered it on the east side, within the limits of Colchis. Of 

 none of these did the early Greeks know either the rise or course ; and 

 this was convenient, for they could do as they liked with them. 

 Pindar (' Pyth.' iv. 44 and 448) conducts the Argonauts into th< 

 Sea ' (probably the Indian Ocean), and by the ocean to the coast of 

 Libya, where they carried their ship over land for twelve day*, rind 

 launching her into Lake Tritonis, entered the Mediterranean. Accord- 

 ing to the tradition preserved by Herodotus (iv. 179), Jason was driven 

 off the south coast of the Peloponnesus into the shallows of the Lake 

 Tritonis, while he was on his voyage (apparently before the commence- 

 ment of the great expedition) to carry a hecatomb and a brazen tripod 

 to the god of Delphi. He only got out of the difficulty by surrcnd. r 

 ing the tripod to Triton, the god of the lake, who on no other 

 would consent to pilot him out Hecatacus of Miletus iniprv>-d <!" 

 story, by making them sail from the ocean down the Nile-, into the 

 Mediterranean. Pisander and Tiniagetes, followed by Ai>ollimiii.-< 

 Khodius, carried them up the Ister, and down one of its br.un -1, 

 which they perhaps meant the Rhone, into the Keltic or Tyrrhci 

 Tiuiicus and others took them up the Tanais to its source, from whii-h 

 they dragged the Argo to an unnamed stream, which carried tin m to 

 the ocean, and they sailed home by Gades (Cadiz), that is, the straits 

 of Gibraltar. The poet who writes under the name of Orpin a 

 them up the Phasis, down another branch of it to the 1'alus >l 

 at the head of which they entered a river, probably the Tanais, and 

 crossed the Khipican mountains to the Croman or Baltic sea. They 

 passed by the land of the Cimmerians, and the isle leniu (Ire! 

 and home by the strait of Tarteseus (Gibraltar) into the Medi- 

 terranean. 



The gross geographical ignorance involved in each of these routes 

 need not be pointed out Why later writers should have laboured to 



solve such an impossible problem it is hart! to ray. except that II r 



brings the Argonauts into the Mediterranean ( (I.I. 1 xii. 7m. and tln-y 

 may have thought themselves bound to follow him. Diodoni* however 

 takes them quickly home by the Kuxine Sea, 



The name of Minyans, which was given to the Argonauts, according 

 to the mythologisU, because most of them were descended from Minynx, 

 son of Poseidon on the maternal side, has led Mr. Keight K v ( ' M \ t h. >logy ') 

 to suggest that the expedition may have been in fact undertaken by the 

 Minyanx, an early race in Greece, probably a branch of the -Kolian tril H-, 

 who inhabited the southern ] art of Thesxaly, and whose port was lolcos, 

 and their dockyard PagasEC, and who are conjectured to have 1 

 wealthy and commercial race. (Miiller's ' Orchoinenos ; ' and Buttmanu's 

 ' Mythologus,' ap. Keightlcy.) 



Mr. Keightlcy further suggests, that the voyage may in fact have 

 been to the west, for the wool and gold of Spain, and that tl.i , \pl.,in 

 tin- universal agreement of all writers in bringing the Argonauts home 

 by the Mediterranean ; while at the same time the commodities for 

 which the voyage was undertaken might readily be mulii" i->-d into 

 the legend of the golden fleece. We prefer however the simpler 1 -lief 

 of Mitfnrd and others, that the expedition was i .1 ofratical . 

 a large scale ; in which, according to the notions of honour of the ago, 

 a iimnltfT of young men of the highest rank and spirit engaged und,T 

 one celebrated leader. Tin- notion of tl, -:\ In-inga v. 



one seems to be untenable : the I- -Id attempt of . \plonn K the Black 

 Sea, with the mingled objects of plunder, curiosity, and traffic, npjiearv 

 to be a more natural story. (See Herod, i. 2.) As to the Argonauts 

 !>cing found in the western part of the Mediterranean on their n 

 this notion arose, as we have already intimated, from the ignorance of 

 the later Greeks as to the true course and character of tl. 

 streams which enter the Kuxine ..r Black SIM on the north. When tli. 

 geographers of Strabo's time (Strabo, 'Casaub.' p. 121) could beli 

 opposition to the earlier statement of Herodotus, that the Caspian lake 



