PART
4 –
Ch.XXVI.5
Prehistoric
monuments of metallurgic art in
(Chryseion Koas – The Golden Fleece)
XXVI.5. The Argonauts
steal the golden fleece and turn towards Hellada.
The two prehistoric courses of the Istru,
one towards Adria (Adrian),
the other towards the
Euxine Pontos.
Iason
steals the golden fleece, takes Medea with him, and embarking with his
companions on the ship Argo, heads towards Hellada.
There
existed several versions in antiquity about the return of the Argonauts towards
the southern parts of the peninsula.
The
oldest tradition is that the Argonaut heroes return with Argo by navigating
westwards on the waters of the fine river Oceanos
(Pindar, Pyth. IV; Schol. of Apollonius Rhodius, IV. v.
259). They travel along the valley of the Rhipaei mountains, pass by the
perilous crags of the river Oceanos (the cataracts), onwards through the strait
of the Rhipaei mountains (Orpheus,
Argon. v. 1079, 1123), then through the Erythreus Pontos / Rusava’s bridge (Pindar, Pyth. IV. 251; Orpheus, Arg. 1048); and from Oceanos,
they transport their famous ship on their shoulders for twelve days, passing
over deserted hills, until they reach the waters of the internal sea
(Mediterranean).
According
to the second version, which we find with Apollonius
Rhodius and Valerius Flaccus,
the Argonauts return with their ship to Hellada, going up on the waters of Istru.
This is
the same tradition, only with more modernized geographical names. Oceanos potamos of the ante-Homeric
times and Istru of the historic
times, were the same gigantic river of the ancient world. Even during the
Neolithic, before the Argonaut epoch, Pelasgian tribes had followed its
waterways and valleys on their westward migration [1].
[1. According to still another version, which we find with Timaeus (Diodorus Siculus, IV. 56), the Argonauts had navigated up on the river Tanais. Tanais here is just another name under which Istru figured in ancient geography (see Ch.XIV.16)].
In the legend
about the Argonauts’ return up on the Istru, we are confronted with two
important geographical questions, about which much has been written, but which
have still remained obscured to this day.
The
second version tells us that Istru had two arms, one of which flew into the
Euxine Pontos, while the other flew towards the interior of Adria; and because king Aietes, hearing
about the abduction of his daughter, had immediately blocked the river mouths
to the Pontos, Iason, remembering how the priests of Egyptian Thebes told (Apollonius Rhodius, Argon. IV. v. 260.
282 seqq) that the river Istru had two arms one of which flew westwards, had
crossed with the ship Argo from the Euxine Pontos straight into the
We have
here only a poetic license.
This
fiction, about the connection of the Euxine Pontos with the
We shall
reproduce here the most authentic texts:
The Istru,
says the geographer Scymnus,
separating into two beds, one arm flows towards the inside of Adria, eis ton ‘
All these
texts have one and the same origin.
None of
the geographers and literati mentioned above talks about the
But in
which part of the old world was situated this region, maritime or continental,
which the Greek authors constantly name only ‘
We shall
try first to see in which part of the old European continent the big river
The
Istru, Apollonius Rhodius tells us
(Argon. IV. v. 285), as soon as it enters the domains of the Thracians and the Scythians, divides itself into two arms, one of which flows into
the
From
these precise data results therefore that the geographic region where Istru
divided into two water courses was at the straits of the Carpathians near the
cataracts and in fact, in ancient times the geographical boundaries of Thracia
on one hand, and old Scythia on the other, started right there. Even the second
arm of the
This mythological arm of Istru, which flew through the
region called Adria or Adrian, returned after a certain route to the bed of the
principal river. “The Danube” tells us Cosmographia
of Julius Honorius “springs in the Alps, and following its course divides
into two, then both these courses rejoin together to form again a single river”
(in Riese, Geographi latini minores,
p. 38).
It is therefore evident that the old texts of the geography
of Istru, which treated only the littoral and the tributaries of this great
commercial river, could not refer to the Adriatic Sea or the Ionic Sea, but to
a certain mountainous region called Adria or Adrian, whose geographical
position was in close vicinity to the boundaries of Thrace and Scythia.
And in fact, from the same vast massif, or orographic knot,
where the chain of the Carpathians touches the Istru, rises an important river
of Ardel (Transylvania) called Streiu,
in fact only a diminutive form of Istru.
It springs in the proximity of the basin of the two Jiu
rivers of
This is the enigmatic river called by the Greek geographers the second Istru, which “threw itself
inwards (or outwards) towards
The geographic reality is therefore evident. Ardel, the mountainous region north of
Lower Istru, appears in the Argonautic traditions under the name Adrian, exactly as Ardel also appears
under this constant name “Adrian” in the geography of Scymnus (see Ch.XV) and in the history of the war of Alexander the
Great with the Getae (Strabo,
lib.VII. 3. 8).
This geographic confusion about the two arms of the Danube,
one towards Adrian and the other towards the Euxine Pontos, could be formed
only on the base of an ancient topographical map of the priests of Egyptian
Thebes, a map on which the river Streiu,
or little Istru from Ardel, was shown erroneously only as a
ramification of the great Istru.