Note 569 — Chapter XIII · ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.

This is the story of Apollodôrus (i. 9, 24), who seems to follow Pherekydês (Fr. 73, Didot). Apollônius (iv. 225-480) and Valerius Flaccus (viii. 262 seq.) give totally different circumstances respecting the death of Apsyrtus; but the narrative of Pherekydês seems the oldest: so revolting a story as that of the cutting up of the little boy cannot have been imagined in later times.

Sophoklês composed two tragedies on the adventures of Jasôn and Mêdea, both lost—the Κολχίδες and the Σκύθαι. In the former he represented the murder of the child Apsyrtus as having taken place in the house of Æêtês: in the latter he introduced the mitigating circumstance, that Apsyrtus was the son of Æêtês by a different mother from Mêdea (Schol. Apollôn Rhod. iv. 223).