Circê was worshipped as a goddess at Circeii (Cicero, Nat. Deor. iii. 19). Hesiod, in the Theogony, represents the two sons of Circê by Odysseus as reigning over all the warlike Tyrrhenians (Theog. 1012), an undefined western sovereignty. The great Mamilian gens at Tusculum traced their descent to Odysseus and Circê (Dionys. Hal. iv. 45).
[611] See above, p. 239. There is an opinion cited from Hekatæus in Schol. Apoll. Rhod. iv. 284. contrary to this, which is given by the same scholiast on iv. 259. But, in spite of the remarks of Klausen (ad. Fragment. Hekatæi, 187. p. 98), I think that the Schol. ad. iv. 284 has made a mistake in citing Hekatæus; the more so as the scholiast, as printed from the Codex Parisinus, cites the same opinion without mentioning Hekatæus. According to the old Homeric idea, the ocean stream flowed all round the earth, and was the source of all the principal rivers which flowed into the great internal sea, or Mediterranean (see Hekatæus, Fr. 349; Klausen, ap. Arrian. ii. 16, where he speaks of the Mediterranean as the μεγάλη θάλασσα). Retaining this old idea of the ocean-stream, Hekatæus would naturally believe that the Phasis joined it: nor can I agree with Klausen (ad Fr. 187) that this implies a degree of ignorance too gross to impute to him.
[612] Apollôn. Rhod. iv. 287; Schol. ad iv. 284; Pindar, Pyth. iv. 447, with Schol.; Strabo, i. p. 46-57; Aristot. Mirabil. Auscult. c. 105. Altars were shown in the Adriatic, which had been erected both by Jasôn and by Mêdea (ib.).
Aristotle believed in the forked course of the Ister, with one embouchure in the Euxine and another in the Adriatic: he notices certain fishes called τρίχιαι, who entered the river (like the Argonauts) from the Euxine, went up it as far as the point of bifurcation and descended into the Adriatic (Histor. Animal. viii. 15). Compare Ukert, Geographie der Griech. und Römer, vol. iii. p. 145-147, about the supposed course of the Ister.
[613] Diodôr. iv. 56; Timæus, Fragm. 53. Göller. Skymnus the geographer also adopted this opinion (Schol. Apoll. Rhod. 284-287). The pseudo-Orpheus in the poem called Argonautica seems to give a jumble of all the different stories.
[614] Diodôr. iv. 49. This was the tale both of Sophoklês and of Kallimachus (Schol. Apoll. Rhod. iv. 284).
See the Dissertation of Ukert, Beylage iv. vol. i. part 2, p. 320 of his Geographie der Griechen und Römer, which treats of the Argonautic voyage at some length; also J. H. Voss, Alte Weltkunde über die Gestalt der Erde, published in the second volume of the Kritische Blätter, pp. 162, 314-326; and Forbiger, Handbuch der Alten Geographie-Einleitung, p. 8.
[615] Strabo, i. p. 45. He speaks here of the voyage of Phryxus, as well as that of Jasôn, as having been a military undertaking (στρατεία): so again, iii. p. 149, he speaks of the military expedition of Odysseus—ἡ τοῦ Ὀδυσσέως στρατία, and ἡ Ἡρακλέους στρατία (ib.). Again xi. p. 498. Οἱ μῦθοι, αἰνιττόμενοι τὴν Ἰάσονος στρατείαν προελθόντος μέχρι καὶ Μηδίας· ἔτι δὲ πρότερον τὴν Φρίξου. Compare also Justin, xlii. 2-3; Tacit. Annal. vi. 34.
Strabo cannot speak of the old fables with literal fidelity: he unconsciously transforms them into quasi-historical incidents of his own imagination. Diodôrus gives a narrative of the same kind, with decent substitutes for the fabulous elements (iv. 40-47-56).
[616] Strabo, i. p. 48. The far-extending expeditions undertaken in the eastern regions by Dionysus and Hêraklês were constantly present to the mind of Alexander the Great as subjects of comparison with himself: he imposed upon his followers perilous and trying marches, from anxiety to equal or surpass the alleged exploits of Semiramis, Cyrus, Perseus, and Hêraklês. (Arrian, v. 2, 3; vi. 24, 3; vii. 10, 12. Strabo, iii. p. 171; xv. p. 686; xvii. p. 81).