PART
3 – Ch.XVI.10
(‘ERAKLEOS STELAI - The
Columns of Hercules)
XVI. 10. The Argonauts pass by the Columns of Hercules,
when returning to Hellada
on
Oceanos potamos (Istru).
According to Homer’s Odyssey (v. 66-72), the expedition of the Argonautic heroes
returns to Thessaly on the big river Oceanos potamos, and for the first time
their renowned ship Argo passes successfully through the perilous crags on the
bed of this river.
“From the danger of these rocks” writes
Homer, “no human vessel, of all that tried to pass this way, escaped. Their
planks smashed and the water waves, with their violent eddies, swallowed them
together with the bodies of men. Only one sea vessel passed through this place,
Argo, the most illustrious of all, when it returned from Aetes and she
certainly would have crashed on the large rocks (megalas poti petras), but
for the goddess Juno, who helped her to pass, because she loved Jason”.
These rocks so fatal for navigation on
the so called Oceanos potamos, were the
cataracts of Istru. But the Argonautic heroes, continuing their navigation
upstream on the river Oceanos, reach with their holy ship also the Columns of
Hercules, at the strait of the Rhipaei mountains.
According to the epic poem attributed
to Orpheus, the Argonauts, returning
to Hellada with their ship and the golden fleece, pass firstly by the Scythian Archers and by the Hyperborean
shepherds, then they enter the wide valley of the Rhipaei mountains, and reach the strait of these mountains, where
there was the height called Calpis;
from here they pass in extreme fear by the whirlpools and the rocks which were
in the vicinity of the island Iernis
(Cerne), then they reach the mouth of the river Ternesos and call into the port, near the shore on which the Columns of Hercules were situated [1].
[1.
According to the poet Pindar (Pyth.
IV. v. 251), the Argonauts pass from the waters of the Ocean in “pontul rosu” (T.N. - the red bridge). But under this name has to be
understood the turn, or the wide opening of the
“Iovan
Iorgovan, arm like a mace, was walking, was taking himself,
to the
(Catana – Balade pop. p. 49)
Herodotus also mentions
an ancient tradition, communicated by the Egyptian priests, that king
Sesostris, departing with a fleet composed of long ships, had subjected the inhabitants from near ‘Erythra
thalassa, from where he could not navigate further, because of the straits. This Sesostris is one and
the same with Osyris, the great king of the Egyptians, who had reached with his
army the sources (cataracts) of Istru (Diodor,
The
Orphic poem also mentions the Erythia
strait (v. 1048) near the Caucas
mountains, or Carpathians. While at Homer and in the Orphic poem Istru, on which the Argonauts return to
Hellada, figures under the name Ocheanos potamos, the same Istru appears at Apollodorus (
Ternesos, from near the Columns of Hercules,
mentioned by the Orphic poem, is basically one and the same geographical name
which appears during the Roman epoch under the name Tierna, statio Tsiernensis,
Dierna, Zernes, Zernensium colonia,
an once important city on the territory of Orsova of today. There is though
only one difference, regarding the use of this name. Under the name of “stoma
Ternesoio” must be understood here only the mouths of the river Cerna, which flows into the
In more recent times of the antiquity,
another two famous poets, Apollonius
Rhodius and Valerius Flaccus,
had studied the legend about the taking of the Golden fleece. Both these
authors distinguished themselves with their mythological and geographical
erudition, and both admitted that the great river of the ante-Homeric
geography, Oceanos potamos, which flew in the Euxine Pontos, was none other
than Istru.
According to Apollonius Rhodius the Argonautic heroes return to Hellada with the
golden fleece on the waters of Istru, called “Istroio megas” and “megas
Okeanoio” (Argon. lib. IV. v. 302. 282). They pass first by the wild
shepherds, by the Thracians mixed
with Scythians, and by the Sigynii (Idem, lib. IV. v. 316 seqq),
who according to Herodotus, lived on
the northern side of the lower Istru.
And according to the epic poem of Valerius Flaccus, the Argonauts return
to their country also through the vast mouths of the Istru (Argon. VIII. v.
189-191).
So, the Columns of Hercules, placed by
the Orphic poem at the strait of the Rhipaei mountains, near the river named
Ternesos, were situated close to the cataracts of Istru, near Cerna.
We find another important mention about
the Columns of Hercules with the Roman grammarian Servius Maurus Honoratus (4th century a.d.), a lettered
man with extraordinary knowledge of history and mythology. In the commentaries
which he has written about Virgil’s Enaeid, he tells us the following:
“according to what we read, the Columns
of Hercules exist both in the Pontos
region, and also in Hispania” (Virgilii Maronis opera). As we see here,
Servius has added here “in Hispania also”, because this fiction had become
consecrated, during many past centuries, on the Greek geographical documents,
although the Romans, who had conquered Iberia and North Africa, had not found
there any vestige, any tradition, about the Columns of Hercules.