The night after their departure, they were driven back by a storm again on the coast of Cyzicum, and the inhabitants, supposing them to be their enemies, the Pelasgi, furiously attacked them. In this nocturnal engagement the slaughter was great, and Cyzicus was killed by the hand of Jason, who, to expiate the murder he had ignorantly committed, buried him in a magnificent manner, and offered a sacrifice to the mother of the gods, to whom he built a temple on mount Dindymus. From Cyzicum they visited Bebrycia, otherwise called Bithynia, where Pollux accepted the challenge of Amycus king of the country in the combat of the cestus, and slew him. They were driven from Bebrycia by a storm to Salmydessa, on the coast of Thrace, where they delivered Phineus king of the place from the persecution of the harpies. Phineus directed their course through the Cyanean rock or the Symplegades [_See:_ Cyaneæ], and they safely entered the Euxine sea. They visited the country of the Mariandynians, where Lycus reigned, and lost two of their companions, Idmon, and Tiphys their pilot. After they had left this coast, they were driven upon the island of Arecia, where they found the children of Phryxus, whom Æetes their grandfather had sent to Greece to take possession of their father’s kingdom. From this island they at last arrived safe in Æa, the capital of Colchis. Jason explained the causes of his voyage to Æetes; but the conditions on which he was to recover the golden fleece were so hard, that the Argonauts must have perished in the attempt, had not Medea the king’s daughter fallen in love with their leader. She had a conference with Jason, and after mutual oaths of fidelity in the temple of Hecate, Medea pledged herself to deliver the Argonauts from her father’s hard conditions, if Jason married her, and carried her with him to Greece. He was to tame two bulls, which had brazen feet and horns, and which vomited clouds of fire and smoke, and to tie them to a plough made of adamant stone, and to plough a field of two acres of ground never before cultivated. After this he was to sow in the plain the teeth of a dragon, from which an armed multitude were to rise up, and to be all destroyed by his hands. This done, he was to kill an ever-watchful dragon, which was at the bottom of the tree, on which the golden fleece was suspended. All these labours were to be performed in one day; and Medea’s assistance, whose knowledge of herbs, magic, and potions was unparalleled, easily extricated Jason from all danger to the astonishment and terror of his companions, and of Æetes, and the people of Colchis, who had assembled to be spectators of this wonderful action. He tamed the bulls with ease, ploughed the field, sowed the dragon’s teeth, and when the armed men sprang from the earth, he threw a stone in the midst of them, and they immediately