Note 598 — Chapter XIII · ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.

Strabo, iii. p. 150-157. Οὐ γὰρ μόνον οἱ κατὰ τὴν Ἰταλίαν καὶ Σικελίαν τόποι καὶ ἄλλοι τινὲς τῶν τοιούτων σημεῖα ὑπογράφουσιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τῇ Ἰβηρίᾳ Ὀδύσσεια πόλις δείκνυται, καὶ Ἀθηνᾶς ἱερὸν, καὶ ἄλλα μύρια ἴχνη τῆς τε ἐκείνου πλάνης, καὶ ἄλλων τῶν ἐκ τοῦ Τρωϊκοῦ πολέμου περιγενομένων (I adopt Grosskurd’s correction of the text from γενομένων to περιγενομένων, in the note to his German translation of Strabo).

Asklepiadês (of Myrlea in Bithynia, about 170 B. C.) resided some time in Turditania, the south-western region of Spain along the Guadalquivir, as a teacher of Greek literature (παιδεύσας τὰ γραμματικὰ), and composed a periegesis of the Iberian tribes, which unfortunately has not been preserved. He made various discoveries in archæology, and successfully connected his old legends with several portions of the territory before him. His discoveries were,—1. In the temple of Athênê, at this Iberian town of Odysseia, there were shields and beaks of ships affixed to the walls, monuments of the visit of Odysseus himself. 2. Among the Kallæki, in the northern part of Portugal, several of the companions of Teukros had settled and left descendants: there were in that region two Grecian cities, one called Hellenês, the other called Amphilochi; for Amphilochus also, the son of Amphiaraus, had died in Iberia, and many of his soldiers had taken up their permanent residence in the interior. 3. Many new inhabitants had come into Iberia with the expedition of Hêraklês; some also after the conquest of Messênê by the Lacedæmonians. 4. In Cantabria, on the north. coast of Spain, there was a town and region of Lacedæmonian colonists. 5. In the same portion of the country there was the town of Opsikella, founded by Opsikellas, one of the companions of Antenôr in his emigration from Troy (Strabo, iii. p. 157).

This is a specimen of the manner in which the seeds of Grecian mythus came to be distributed over so large a surface. To an ordinary Greek reader, these legendary discoveries of Asklepiadês would probably be more interesting than the positive facts which he communicated respecting the Iberian tribes; and his Turditanian auditors would be delighted to hear—while he was reciting and explaining to them the animated passage of the Iliad, in which Agamemnôn extols the inestimable value of the bow of Teukros (viii. 281)—that the heroic archer and his companions had actually set foot in the Iberian peninsula.