Note 550 — Chapter XIII · ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.

Apollônius Rhodius, Apollodôrus, Valerius Flaccus, the Orphic Argonautica, and Hyginus, have all given Catalogues of the Argonautic heroes (there was one also in the lost tragedy called Λήμνιαι of Sophoklês, see Welcker Gr. Trag. i. 327): the discrepancies among them are numerous and irreconcilable. Burmann, in the Catalogus Argonautarum, prefixed to his edition of Valerius Flaccus, has discussed them copiously. I transcribe one or two of the remarks of this conscientious and laborious critic, out of many of a similar tenor, on the impracticability of a fabulous chronology. Immediately before the first article, Acastus—“Neque enim in ætatibus Argonautarum ullam rationem temporum constare, neque in stirpe et stemmate deducenda ordinem ipsum naturæ congruere videbam. Nam et huic militiæ adscribi videbam Heroas, qui per naturæ leges et ordinem fati eo usque vitam extrahere non potuêre, ut aliis ab hac expeditione remotis Heroum militiis nomina dedisse narrari deberent a Poetis et Mythologis. In idem etiam tempus avos et Nepotes conjici, consanguineos ætate longe inferiores prioribus ut æquales adjungi, concoquere vix posse videtur.”—Art. Ancæus: “Scio objici posse, si seriem illam majorem respiciamus, hunc Ancæum simul cum proavo suo Talao in eandem profectum fuisse expeditionem. Sed similia exempla in aliis occurrent, et in fabulis rationem temporum non semper accuratam licet deducere.”—Art. Jasôn: “Herculi enim jam provectâ ætate adhæsit Theseus juvenis, et in Amazoniâ expeditione socius fuit, interfuit huic expeditioni, venatui apri Calydonii, et rapuit Helenam, quæ circa Trojanum bellum maxime floruit: quæ omnia si Theseus tot temporum intervallis distincta egit, secula duo vel tria vixisse debuit. Certe Jason Hypsipylem neptem Ariadnes, nec videre, nec Lemni cognoscere potuit.”—Art. Meleager: “Unum est quod alicui longum ordinem majorum recensenti scrupulum movere possit: nimis longum intervallum inter Æolum et Meleagrum intercedere, ut potuerit interfuisse huic expeditioni: cum nonus fere numeretur ab Æolo, et plurimi ut Jason, Argus, et alii tertiâ tantum ab Æolo generatione distent. Sed sæpe jam notavimus, frustra temporum concordiam in fabulis quæri.”

Read also the articles Castôr and Pollux, Nestôr Pêleus, Staphylus, etc.

We may stand excused for keeping clear of a chronology which is fertile only in difficulties, and ends in nothing but illusions.