Pliny, And Some Other Writers, Suppose That The Rivers Impregnated
With Particles Of Gold Were Carefully Strained Through Sheeps-Skins, Or
Fleeces; But These Are Not The Materials That Would Be Used For Such A
Purpose:
It is more probable that, if fleeces were used, they were set
across some of the narrow parts of the streams, in order to stop and
collect the particles of gold.
III. It is said that there was an ancient law in Greece, which forbad any
ship to be navigated with more than fifty men, and that Jason was the first
who offended against this law. There can be little doubt, from all the
accounts of the ancients, that Jason's ship was larger than the Greeks at
that period were accustomed to. Diodorus and Pliny represent it as the
first ship of war which went out of the ports of Greece; that it was
comparatively large, well built and equipped, and well navigated in all
respects, must be inferred from its having accomplished such a voyage at
that era.
In their course to the Euxine Sea, they visited Lemnos, Samothrace, Troas,
Cyzicum, Bithynia, and Thrace; these wanderings must have been the result
of their ignorance of the navigation of those seas. From Thrace they
directed their course, without further wanderings, to the Euxine Sea. At
the distance of four or five leagues from the entrance to the sea, are the
Cyanean rocks; the Argonauts passed between them not without difficulty and
danger; before this expedition, the passage was deemed impracticable, and
many fables were told regarding them: their true situation and form were
first explored by the Argonauts. They now safely entered the Euxine Sea,
where they seem to have been driven about for some time, till they
discovered Mount Caucasus; this served as a land mark for their entrance
into the Phasis, when they anchored near OEa, the capital of Colchis.
IV. The course of the Argonauts to Colchis is well ascertained; and the
accessions to the geographical knowledge of that age, which we derive from
the accounts given of that course, are considerable. But with respect to
the route they followed on their return, there is much contradiction and
fable. All authors agree that they did not return by the same route which
they pursued in their outward voyage. According to Hesiod, they passed from
the Euxine into the Eastern Ocean; but being prevented from returning by
the same route, in consequence of the fleet of Colchis blockading the
Bosphorus, they were obliged to sail round Ethiopia, and to cross Lybia by
land, drawing their vessels after them. In this manner they arrived at the
Gulph of Syrtis, in the Mediterranean. Other ancient writers conduct the
Argonauts back by the Nile, which they supposed to communicate with the
Eastern Ocean; while, by others, they are represented as having sailed up
the Danube to the Po or the Rhine.
Amidst such obscure and evidently fictitious accounts, it may appear
useless to offer any conjecture; but there is one route by which the
Argonauts are supposed to have returned, in favour of which some
probability may be urged. All writers agree in opinion that they did not
return by the route they followed on going to the Euxine; if this be true,
the least absurd and improbable mode of getting back into the Mediterranean
is to be preferred: of those routes already mentioned, all are eminently
absurd and impossible. Perhaps the one we are about to describe, may, in
the opinion of some, be deemed equally so; but to us it appears to have
some plausibility. The tradition to which we allude is, that the Argonauts
sailed up some sea or river from the Euxine, till they reached the Baltic
Sea, and that they returned by the Northern Ocean through the straits of
Hercules, into the Mediterranean. The existence of an ocean from the east
end of the Gulf of Finland to the Caspian or the Euxine Sea, was firmly
believed by Pliny, and the same opinion prevailed in the eleventh century;
for Adam of Bremen says, people [could sail->could formerly sail] from the
Baltic down to Greece. Now the whole of that tract of country is flat and
level, and from the sands near Koningsberg, through the calcareous loam of
Poland and the Ukraine, evidently alluvial and of comparatively recent
formation.
If the Trojan war happened, according to the Arundelian Marbles, 1209 years
before Christ, this event must have been subsequent to the Argonautic
expedition only about fifty years: yet, in this short space of time, the
Greeks had made great advances in the art of ship building, and in
navigation. The equipment of the Argonautic expedition was regarded, at the
period it took place, as something almost miraculous; yet the ships sent
against Troy seem to have excited little astonishment, though, considering
the state of Greece at that period, they were very numerous.
It is foreign to our purpose to regard this expedition in any other light
than as it is illustrative of the maritime skill and attainments of Greece
at this era, and so far connected with our present subject. The number of
ships employed, according to Homer, amounted to 1186: Thucydides states
them at 1200; and Euripides, Virgil, and some other authors, reduce their
number to 1000. The ships of the Boeotians were the largest; they carried
120 men each; those of the Philoctetae were the smallest, each carrying
only fifty men. Agamemnon had 160 ships; the Athenians fifty; Menelaus,
king of Sparta, sixty; but some of his ships seem to have been furnished by
his allies; whereas all the Athenian vessels belonged to Athens alone. We
have already mentioned that Thucydides is contradicted by Homer, in his
assertion that the Greek ships, at the siege of Troy, had no decks;
perhaps, however, they were only half-decked, as it would appear, from the
descriptions of them, that the fore-part was open to the keel: they had a
mainsail, and were rowed by oars.
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