the fire-signal concerted with the Argonauts, Jasôn and his companions burst in and possessed themselves of the town. Satisfied with having thus revenged himself, Jasôn yielded the principality of Iôlkos to Akastus, son of Pelias, and retired with Mêdea to Corinth. Thus did the goddess Hêrê gratify her ancient wrath against Pelias: she had constantly watched over Jasôn, and had carried the “all-notorious” Argô through its innumerable perils, in order that Jasôn might bring home Mêdea to accomplish the ruin of his uncle.[255] The misguided daughters of Pelias departed as voluntary exiles to Arcadia: Akastus his son celebrated splendid funeral games in honor of his deceased father.[256] [254] This incident was contained in one of the earliest dramas of Euripidês, the Πελίαδες, now lost. Moses of Chorênê (Progymnasm. ap. Maii ad Euseb. p. 43), who gives an extract from the argument, says that the poet “extremos mentiendi fines attingit.” The Ῥιζότομοι of Sophoklês seems also to have turned upon the same catastrophe (see Fragm. 479, Dindorf.). [255] The kindness of Hêrê towards Jasôn seems to be older in the legend than her displeasure against Pelias; at least it is specially noticed in the Odyssey, as the great cause of the escape of the ship Argô: Ἀλλ᾽ Ἥρη παρέπεμψεν, ἐπεὶ φίλος ἦεν Ἰήσων. (xii. 70). In the Hesiodic Theogony Pelias stands to Jasôn in the same relation as Eurystheus to Hêraklês,—a severe taskmaster as well as a wicked and insolent man,—ὑβριστὴς Πελίης καὶ ἀτάσθαλος, ὀβριμόεργος. (Theog. 995). Apollônius Rhodius keeps the wrath of Hêrê against Pelias in the foreground, i. 14; iii. 1134; iv. 242; see also Hygin, f. 13. There is great diversity in the stories given of the proximate circumstances connected with the death of Pelias: Eurip. Mêd. 491; Apollodôr. i. 9, 27; Diodôr. iv. 50-52; Ovid, Metam. vii. 162, 203, 297, 347; Pausan. viii. 11, 2; Schol. ad Lycoph. 175. In the legend of Akastus and Pêleus as recounted above, Akastus was made to perish by the hand of Pêleus. I do not take upon me to reconcile these contradictions. Pausanias mentions that he could not find in any of the poets, so far as he had read, the names of the daughters of Pelias, and that the painter Mikôn had given to them names (ὀνόματα δ᾽ αὐταῖς ποιητὴς μὲν ἔθετο οὐδεὶς, ὅσα γ᾽ ἐπελεξάμεθα ἡμεῖς, etc., Pausan. viii. 11, 1). Yet their names are given in the authors whom Diodôrus copied; and Alkêstis, at any rate, was most memorable. Mikôn gave the names Asteropeia and Antinoê, altogether different from those in Diodôrus. Both Diodôrus and Hyginus exonerate Alkêstis from all share in the death of her father (Hygin. f. 24).