17 Apollonius of Rhodes,
The Voyage of Argo the Argonautica, E.V. Rieu, trans. (Baltimore,
Maryland, 1971, repr. of 1959 ed.) Book IV.727-29, p. 167, hereafter
Argo; Hesiod, Theogony, M. L. West, trans. (Oxford,
1989) p.31. E. Tripp, The Meridian Handbook of Classical
Mythology (Baltimore, Maryland, 1974), pp.15-16, hereafter
Handbook. We use the term Aiakid to designate Aeetes, his
siblings and their descendants.
18 Argo, Book II.1118-1188,
pp. 104-5; The Odes of Pindar, R. Lattimore, trans. (Chicago,
1976), Pythia 4.159-63, p. 67, 4.241-42, p. 71; M. Grant, Folktale
and Hero-Tale Motifs in the Odes of Pindar (Lawrence,
Kansas, 1967), pp. 12, 27, 79, 94; Handbook, p. 479.
19 Homer, Odyssey,
W. Rouse, trans. (New York, 19XX, repr. of 1937 ed.), Book XII.65-72,
p. 139; The Argonauts are the theme in Pindar's Pythia 4; M. Grant,
Folktale, pp. 19, 30, 32, 35, 67-68, 93-94; Handbook,
pp. 73-95. It is not known how much of the story was known to
Homer or in what detail, and how much of Apollonius' story reflected
the image of "Colchis" in his own time. Rosters of the
crew tended to grow over time, but early lists include: Heracles,
Orpheus, the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux), Zetes and Calais, Telamon
and Peleus, Idas and Lynceus, Admetus, Periclymenu, Augeias, Argus
and Tiphys.
20 Argo, Books
III-IV.223, pp. 109-52.
21 See note 36 below.
Toumanoff, Studies, p. 58 n. 57 observes a possible connection
between the name Circe and the Circassians, a north Caucasian
people once living on the south shore of the Black Sea. N. Robertson,
"Myth, Ritual, and Livelihood in Early Greece", in Ancient
Economy in Mythology, p. 12 writes: "The Circe episode
is not integral to the story of Odysseus, but still goes back
a long way; it is generally agreed that at an earlier stage the
episode belonged to the story of the Argonauts". It is possible
that the Armenian story of Hayk is part of the Aia cycle, though
whether it relates to the birth of Aia or its destruction is not
clear to us. Unfortunately, aside from one rather "historical"
narration in the Primary History [English trans. in Moses
Khorenats'i History of the Armenians, R. W. Thomson, trans.
(London, 1978) pp. 357-68], very little of the myths about Hayk
and his offspring has survived. The Primary History describes
the migration of Hayk and his family from some southern area ("Babylon")
northward into central and eastern Asia Minor. Everywhere the
Haykids encountered settled populations which they conquered.
The Pontic area was taken by Hayk's descendant, Aram, after the
defeat of a local Titan named Paiapis Chalia. Ananikian, p. 87
believed that this may be a reference to the Urartian Khaldi,
though the name(s) may instead be a garbled reference to Aia and
Colchis. Ananikian, pp. 64-65 associated Hayk with the Phyrgian
Hyas, god of vegetation and wine and the Vedic Vayu; Armenak,
with the Armenius, father of Er in Plato's Republic, and
the Vedic Aryaman; and Ara, with Er, who visited the underworld
and returned to describe his journey, ibid. pp. 68-70.
Hayk's son, Cadmus (and his son, Harma), may be reflected in the
Greek Cadmus, a figure whose gestes have thematic ties
to the area of our interest. In the Greek tradition, Cadmus, son
of "Agenor", settles various parts of Phoenicia, Cilicia,
Thrace, and Boetia. He is credited with bringing the Phoenician
alphabet to Greece. He slays a dragon sacred to Ares, for which
he must atone. But the goddess Athena told Cadmus to sow the dragon's
teeth and kill the men who sprang up from them. Athena gave the
other portion of the dragon's teeth to Aeetes. Cadmus is described
as subduing the Hyantes and the Aones, two tribes later placed
in Boetia, but perhaps originally associated with the Hayassa
or the Hyaonians (see notes 16 and 104). Cadmus married Ares'
daughter, Harmonia, and in some accounts, the first Amazons were
their offspring. Cadmus and Harmonia, in their old age, were transported
to the Elysian Fields and transformed into snakes, Handbook,
pp. 140-42. It is a frequent phenomenon in mythology that tales
of a hero's sons actually relate to the hero himself. If this
is the case with the story of Hayk, then Hayk's personality embraces
that of Ara, god of the underworld, a circumstance which strengthens
the connection between Hayk and Aeetes.
22 Odyssey, Book
X.133-574, pp. 115-23.
23 K. Rubinson, "Mid-Second
Millennium Pontic-Aegean Connections: A Note to Chapter 12",
pp. 283-86 in Ancient Economy in Mythology.
24 Argo, Book II.1118-1188,
pp. 104-105.
25 Argo, Book IV.239-42,
302ff., 730ff., 1004ff. pp. 153, 155, 167, 174.
26 Argo, Book IV.1211ff.,
p. 180.
27 Argo, Book III.1226ff.,
pp. 141-42. The Golden Fleece, which has been interpreted variously
as a symbol of metals and commerce in cloth, may also be an early
reflection of the Iranian xvarenah or farr.
28 Argo, Book III.210ff.,
p. 115.
29 See our forthcoming
study, "Ethnobotany in Eastern Asia Minor".
30 Argo, Book III.805-1060,
1243-63, pp. 131-37, 142; M. Grant, Folktale, p. 66.
31 Argo, Book IV.142-82,
pp. 150-51.
32 Handbook, pp.
359-63.
33 Handbook, p.
449.
34 M. I. Rostovtsev, in
Iranians and Greeks in South Russia (Oxford, 1922)
p. 62 suggested that Books
X, XI, and XII of the Odyssey concerned the southeastern corner
of the Black Sea and further that "the land of the rising
sun, the Aia of Odyssey, which seems, at the same time, to be
part of the world beyond the grave, is to be placed on the Caucasian
bank of the Black Sea".
35 K. Kerenyi, Goddesses
of Sun and Moon (Irving, Texas, 1979) p. 12. An association
with the underworld is also reflected in the story of Er (Ara),
son of Armenius in Plato's Republic, see A. V. Matikian,
Aray geghets'ik (Vienna, 1930) pp. 245-304; Ananikian,
pp. 68-70.
36 Odyssey, Book
XI.69-72, p. 125: "...remember me, my prince, when you reach
Aia, for I know you will touch there on your way back from Hades";
also Book XII.1-7, p. 138: "Our ship left the stream of Ocean
and passed into the open sea. Soon it came to the island of Aia,
where Dawn has her dwelling and her dancing lawns and Helios his
place of rising".