It May, Indeed, Be Contended That Plunder Was Their
Object; But It Does Not Seem Likely That They Would Have
Ventured to such a
distance from Greece, or on a navigation which they knew to be difficult
and dangerous, as
Well as long, for the sake of plunder, when there were
means and opportunities for it so much nearer home. We must equally reject
the opinion of Suidas, that the Golden Fleece was a parchment book, made of
sheep-skin, which contained the whole secret of transmuting all metals into
gold; and the opinion of Varro, that the Argonauts went to obtain skins and
other rich furs, which Colchis furnished in abundance. And the remarks
which we have made, also apply against the opinion of Eustathius, that the
voyage of the Argonauts was at once a commercial and maritime expedition,
to open the commerce of the Euxine Sea, and to establish forts on its
shore.
Having rendered it probable, from general considerations, that the object
was the obtaining of the precious metals, we shall next proceed to
strengthen this opinion, by showing that they were the produce of the
country near the Black Sea. The gold mines to the south of Trebizond, which
are still worked with sufficient profit, were a subject of national dispute
between Justinian and Chozroes; and, as Gibbon remarks, "it is not
unreasonable to believe that a vein of precious metal may be equally
diffused through the circle of the hills." On what account these mines were
shadowed out under the appellation of a Golden Fleece, it is not easy to
explain. 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:
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