THE BALKANS AND MACEDONIA
When Jason and Medea arrived on the ship, the Argonauts gathered around them to see the Golden Fleece and were delighted with their success.
In the palace of King Aeetes, the priests raised an alarm about the theft of the Golden Fleece and the escape of Medea with the Argonauts. The king was seized with a terrible rage and called all the Colchians to go out to the seashore. He immediately ordered an expedition to be prepared for the pursuit and threatened them with death if they did not catch the Argonauts on the open sea and if they did not win both Medea and the Golden Fleece. The Colchians prepared a warship with 50 oars and, led by the king's son Asprit, set off in pursuit.
"Argo" was already far away and there was no trace of it on the sea. For three days and three nights they sailed along the Black Sea in the direction of the setting sun and, finally, the shores of Scythia in the Balkans appeared in the distance. The Argonauts decided to sail against the flow of the Istra (Danube) River and then descend into the Adriatic Sea through one of its tributaries. This proposal was made by Heracles, who knew the middle course of the Danube, and he was supported by the Boreiids and the other descendants of the Hyperboreans who wanted to see their ancestral homeland. This part of the poem by Apollonius Rodnianus1 is important for learning about the ancient past of our region, which is connected to the described voyage of the Argonauts on the Danube and Sava.
1 Apollonius, Rhodius, Argonautica, ex rec, IV, 212-502, R. Fr. Brunckii, I-II Lipsiae, 1810-1813
When Asprit, son of Aeetes, reached the "Argo" with his warship at the mouth of the Danube, Medea used cunning. Through a messenger, she informed him that she had been forcibly taken to the temple of Artemis and asked him to release her and take the fleece. When Asprit came to the temple at night, Jason followed him and silently killed him from an ambush, then cut off his hands and feet, three times licking his blood to prevent his spirit from continuing to haunt him.
To keep their pursuers at bay, the Argonauts threw Asprit's body piece by piece into the sea, and while the Colchians collected his dismembered body, the Argonauts sailed far down the Danube and escaped the pursuit. The place where Asprit was buried by his countrymen is called Tomi - a severed piece, and it is present-day Constanta in Romania.
The voyage of the Argonauts on the Danube
The Argonauts sailed for a long time down the great river until, finally, they reached the Danube waterfalls – the Cataracts and the Pillars of Hercules. Since they could not overcome the “Ocean Current”, they dragged the ship onto land, and then sailed to Geryon’s island of Erythia. Here they disembarked to rest and to stock up on provisions for the further voyage. Hercules took the opportunity to tell them about his experiences during the theft of Geryon’s cattle.
After the rest, "Argo" continued its voyage upstream and reached Tartarus (Gjerdap). As a folk memory of Jason's stay in these areas, the hydronym of the Iese-Inita river, a left tributary of the Danube, remained. Its etymology comes from the word 'iesis' or 'iasis', which means healing and is associated with the name of the leader of the Argonauts, Jason. A little further, upstream at Lepenski Vir, the Argonauts reached another left tributary of the Danube, with the hydronym Sirina.
In mythology, the Sirens are beautiful girls, later demonic creatures, who with their song stop the winds-koshava, calm the waters and bewitch the sailors who pass by, forcing them to shipwreck and death. They were the daughters of Fork, and the goddess Aphrodite turned them into birds because, due to their youthful pride, they did not want to obey either the gods or the people. The Sirens could not fly after the Muses defeated them in a musical competition, plucked their feathers and made themselves wreaths from them, so they sat by the rivers and sang on the shore among the piles of bones left behind by the sailors who had suffered shipwrecks.
In order to successfully pass the Sirens, and at the same time not to hear their enchanting song, Jason ordered the sailors to tie him tightly to the ship's mast, and they all to cover their ears. When the Argo approached the Sirens, the water of the Danube calmed down and Jason heard them calling him with their magical song. He wanted to go to meet them, but the Argonauts tied him even more tightly and rowed faster against the current of the river. The folk memory of the legend of the Sirens and Jason is preserved in the hydronym of this river.
Orpheus' help was very important throughout the entire expedition. With his songs and music, the Argonauts overcame many difficulties and escaped the Sirens. In addition, Orpheus calmed the terrible sea storms, and even the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece, and was therefore highly valued and respected by the entire crew, but most of all by Jason.
Orpheus in the underworld of Sigea
When the "Argo" arrived at the right tributary of the Danube, the Stiga (Morava) river, Orpheus asked Jason and his companions to allow him to descend into the Underworld and bring out his beloved wife Eurydice, who had died very soon after the wedding, into the light of day. When Eurydice and her friends, the Pierides muses from Macedonia, were picking spring flowers in the green valley on the slopes of Olympus in Pieria, a poisonous snake bit her leg. At Eurydice's scream, her companions came running from all sides, but she fell into their arms and then closed her eyes and died.
Orpheus, who was then king of Macedonia and Thrace, could not get over the death of his beloved wife and therefore wanted to take the opportunity to bring her back to life. He stood for a long time on the shore of Stiga and waited for Charon's boat, which transported the souls of the dead to the Underworld, and he finally approached him. Charon arrived at the shore and Orpheus asked him to transport him, along with the souls of the dead, to the kingdom of Hades, but the cruel Charon refused.
Then, Orpheus began to play the strings of his golden lyre, which was a gift from the god Apollo, and his sad song spread along the banks of Styga. Charon was enchanted, so he received the famous singer and the boat sailed through the caves of the Homolian Mountains to the kingdom of the god Hades, while the souls of the dead, at the sound of the lyre, gathered around Orpheus.
Orpheus' song tamed the terrible dog Cerberus, and the burning wheel that had been spinning with the crucified king of the Lapiths, Ixion, whose sin was to desire Hera's love, stopped spinning. Sisyphus, the son of Aeolus, who was punished by the gods in Hades to push a huge rock up a hill, and when he reached the top, to roll back down, sat down on the stone covered in sweat and dust. Tantalus, the king of Lydia, who was sent to Hades for abusing the gods' favor and who was punished to suffer eternal hunger and thirst, forgot about his torments. Orpheus' song softened even the strict judges of the dead: Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus.
To be continued
They write: ACADEMIC A. SHKOKLEV-DONCHO AND SLAVE KATYN
