[589] Heyne, Observ. ad Apollodôr. i. 9, 16. p. 72. “Mirum in modum fallitur, qui in his commentis certum fundum historicum vel geographicum aut exquirere studet, aut se reperisse, atque historicam vel geographicam aliquam doctrinam, systema nos dicimus, inde procudi posse, putat,” etc.
See also the observations interspersed in Burmann’s Catalogus Argonautarum, prefixed to his edition of Valerius Flaccus.
The Persian antiquarians whom Herodotus cites at the beginning of his history (i. 2-4—it is much to be regretted that Herodotus did not inform us who they were, and whether they were the same as those who said that Perseus was an Assyrian by birth and had become a Greek, vi. 54), joined together the abductions of Iô and of Eurôpê, of Mêdea and of Helen, as pairs of connected proceedings, the second injury being a retaliation for the first,—they drew up a debtor and creditor account of abductions between Asia and Europe. The Kolchian king (they said) had sent a herald to Greece to ask for his satisfaction for the wrong done to him by Jasôn and to re-demand his daughter Mêdea; but he was told in reply that the Greeks had received no satisfaction for the previous rape of Iô.
There was some ingenuity in thus binding together the old fables, so as to represent the invasions of Greece by Darius and Xerxês as retaliations for the unexpiated destruction wrought by Agamemnôn.
[590] Sophokl. ap. Strabo. vii. p. 295.—
Ὑπέρ τε πόντον πάντ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἔσχατα χθονὸς,
Νυκτός τε πηγὰς οὐρανοῦ τ᾽ ἀναπτυχὰς,
Φοίβου τε παλαιὸν κῆπον.
[591] Odyss. iv. 562. The Islands of the Blessed, in Hesiod, are near the ocean (Opp. Di. 169).
[592] Hesiod, Theogon. 275-290. Homer, Iliad, i. 423. Odyss. i. 23; ix 86-206; x 4-83; xii. 135. Mimnerm. Fragm. 13, Schneidewin.