its barbarous inhabitants: it was the easternmost point which Grecian navigation (previous to the time of Alexander the Great) ever attained, and it was within sight of the impassable barrier of Caucasus.[607] They believed, not unnaturally, that they had here found “the house of Eôs (the morning) and the rising place of the sun,” and that the river Phasis, if they could follow it to its unknown beginning, would conduct them to the circumfluous ocean. They gave to the spot the name of Æa, and the fabulous and real title gradually became associated together into one compound appellation,—the Kolchian Æa, or Æa of Kolchis.[608] While Kolchis was thus entered on the map as a fit representative for the Homeric “house of the morning,” the narrow strait of the Thracian Bosporus attracted to itself the poetical fancy of the Symplêgades, or colliding rocks, through which the heaven-protected Argô had been the first to pass. The powerful Greek cities of Kyzikus, Hêrakleia and Sinopê, each fertile in local legends, still farther contributed to give this direction to the voyage; so that in the time of Hekatæus it had become the established belief that the Argô had started from Iôlkos and gone to Kolchis. [603] Hesiod, Theogon. 956-992; Homer, Odyss. xii. 3-69.— Νῆσον ἐς Αἰαίην, ὅθι τ᾽ Ἠοῦς ἠριγενείης Οἴκια καὶ χόροι εἰσὶ, καὶ ἀντολαὶ ἠελίοιο. [604] Mimnerm. Fragm. 10-11, Schneidewin; Athenæ. vii. p. 277.— Οὐδέ κοτ᾽ ἂν μέγα κῶας ἀνήγαγεν αὐτὸς Ἰήσων Ἐξ Αἴης τελέσας ἀλγινόεσσαν ὁδὸν, Ὑβρίστῃ Πελίῃ τελέων χαλεπῆρες ἄεθλον, Οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἐπ᾽ Ὠκεανοῦ καλὸν ἵκοντο ῥόον. · · · · · Αἰήταο πόλιν, τόθι τ᾽ ὠκέος Ἠελίοιο Ἀκτῖνες χρυσέῳ κείαται ἐν θαλάμῳ, Ὠκεανοῦ παρὰ χείλεσ᾽, ἵν᾽ ὤχετο θεῖος Ἰήσων. [605] Strabo, i. p. 45-46. Δημήτριος ὁ Σκήψιος ... πρὸς Νεάνθη τὸν Κυζικηνὸν ~φιλοτιμοτέρως~ ἀντιλέγων, εἰπόντα, ὅτι οἱ Ἀργοναῦται πλέοντες εἰς Φᾶσιν τὸν ὑφ᾽ Ὁμήρου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ὁμολογούμενον πλοῦν, ἱδρύσαντο τὰ τῆς Ἰδαίας μητρὸς ἱερὰ ἐπὶ Κύζικον ... ~ἀρχήν φησὶ μηδ᾽ εἰδέναι τὴν εἰς Φᾶσιν ἀποδημίαν τοῦ Ἰάσονος Ὅμηρον~. Again, p. 46, παραλαβὼν μάρτυρα Μίμνερμον, ὃς ἐν τῷ Ὠκεανῷ ποιήσας οἴκησιν Αἰήτου, etc. The adverb φιλοτιμοτέρως reveals to us the municipal rivalry and contention between the small town Skêpsis and its powerful neighbor Kyzikus, respecting points of comparative archæology. [606] Eumêlus, Fragm. Εὐρωπία 7, Κορινθιακὰ 2-5. pp. 63-68, Düntzer. [607] Arrian, Periplus Pont. Euxin. p. 12; ap. Geogr. Minor. vol. i. He saw the Caucasus from Dioskurias. [608] Herodot i. 2; vii. 193-197. Eurip. Mêd. 2. Valer. Flacc. v. 51.