IV. The course of the Argonauts to Colchis is well ascertained; and the
accessions to the geographical knowledge of that age, which we derive from
the accounts given of that course, are considerable. But with respect to
the route they followed on their return, there is much contradiction and
fable. All authors agree that they did not return by the same route which
they pursued in their outward voyage. According to Hesiod, they passed from
the Euxine into the Eastern Ocean; but being prevented from returning by
the same route, in consequence of the fleet of Colchis blockading the
Bosphorus, they were obliged to sail round Ethiopia, and to cross Lybia by
land, drawing their vessels after them. In this manner they arrived at the
Gulph of Syrtis, in the Mediterranean. Other ancient writers conduct the
Argonauts back by the Nile, which they supposed to communicate with the
Eastern Ocean; while, by others, they are represented as having sailed up
the Danube to the Po or the Rhine.
Amidst such obscure and evidently fictitious accounts, it may appear
useless to offer any conjecture; but there is one route by which the
Argonauts are supposed to have returned, in favour of which some
probability may be urged. All writers agree in opinion that they did not
return by the route they followed on going to the Euxine; if this be true,
the least absurd and improbable mode of getting back into the Mediterranean
is to be preferred: of those routes already mentioned, all are eminently
absurd and impossible.
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