B—
The Two Ascents of Mount Dindymon:
The Deaths of the Gegeneis and Cyzicus (961–1117)
Once the Argonauts make contact with the inhabitants of Oros Arkton, Cyzicus first inquires who they are;[28] for, as Apollonius tells us, he received a prophecy warning him not to engage in combat with a group characterized as an 
(970). After discovering that the Argonauts comprised such a group, Cyzicus graciously receives them and invites them to row into City Harbor.[29] At a banquet in their honor, the king
learns of their mission, and the Argonauts in turn seek information regarding the journey ahead of them. Since Cyzicus does not know what lies beyond the Propontis, the Argonauts decide to climb Mount Dindymon the next day to get more information than the king could offer about what lies before them.[30]
At dawn, Heracles and the younger men move the Argo into Chytus Harbor while Jason and the others head to the top of Mount Dindymon along what in the future will be called the Jasonian Path (a). Suddenly the Gegeneis, finding Heracles isolated from the others with only a small group of the younger Argonauts, attack from their place of ambush. In their attempt to trap the men and the ship, they throw boulders down from above. The result is the creation of Chytus—or "Heaped Up"—Harbor. Allusion to the Læstrygonians and the suitors in the previous section looked forward to such an attack. The ensuing battle, a parergon concocted for Heracles by Hera, draws the other Argonauts back from the mountain, and in the end the heroes kill all the Gegeneis (b). The Argonauts then decide to give up the idea of reclimbing Mount Dindymon and to move on instead, without a clear idea of what to expect.
The heroes leave under sail and continue until night, when suddenly the wind shifts and they are blown back to the island. Here, at the center of the central section of the episode (c), Apollonius has indicated that his model for this incident is another wellknown Odyssean episode. When Odysseus visited Æolus on his island, he and his men were entertained by the king, who inquired about their experiences; Odysseus, like the Argonauts, also asked information regarding the continuation of his journey home:
For a whole month he entertained me and asked me all sorts of
questions,
about Ilion, the ships of the Argives, and the return of the
Achsæans.
And I told him exactly how everything happened.
Then when I asked him for permission to leave and insisted
that he let me go, he did not refuse, but even assisted my departure.
This incident parallels Jason's experience on Oros Arkton at the home of Cyzicus, where host and guest likewise question each other:[31]
They asked each other questions in turn. The king learned about
the goal of their expedition and about the commands of Pelias;
the men learned about the cities of the neighboring peoples and
the
entire gulf of the wide Propontis. But he was not able to tell them
about the areas beyond the gulf, despite their desire to learn.
More significant, after a friendly reception and exchange of information, the wind blows the Argonauts back to a hostile reception on Oros Arkton:
The ship ran all day under sail. As night fell,
the current of the wind no longer remained steady, but squalls
coming from the opposite direction carried the ship by force
backwards
until they approached once again the hospitable Doliones.
This is precisely what happened to Odysseus, who also experienced an unfriendly welcome upon his return to Æolus's island home because of an unexpected blast of wind:[32]
Immediately a squall seized them and carried them out to sea
weeping, far away from their homeland.
When Odysseus returned to Æolus's island, his former host, now no longer hospitable, required him to leave at once because, in his (Æolus's) eyes, Odysseus was hated by the gods (ibid. 72–75, quoted below); when the Argonauts return, their former host, Cyzicus, unwittingly leads his army against them and tragically dies in the fray (b ). The poet, as we have seen him do so frequently, highlights an important Homeric imitation by placing it at the center of its section, and, as in this case, also at the center of the episode. The imitation of the Æolus episode not only is a subtextual reflection of the friendly and unfriendly receptions that the Argonauts encounter on Oros Arkton, but also provides the link between two unrelated stories, one about the deaths of the Gegeneis and the other about the death of Cyzicus, brought together by Apollonius almost certainly for the first time.
In the wider context of the borrowed verse in question, Æolus refused to entertain Odysseus when he showed up for a second time on his island, because in his eyes Odysseus's return was an indication that he was hated by the gods:
Depart from this island quickly, most hated of all people alive.
It is not right for me to assist or send off
a man who is hated by the blessed gods.
Depart, since you have come here hated by the immortals.
Comparison between the Odyssean and Argonautic situations suggests that in their return to Oros Arkton, the Argonauts too have somehow angered the gods. In fact, the men soon learn from the seer Mopsus that they must propitiate the mother of all the gods ( 
, 1094), identified as Rhea at 1139. The divine wrath, implicit in the need for propitiation and suggested by the Odyssean model, must result at least in part from the killing of the stone-throwing Gegeneis (cf. 994–95), who, as their name implies, are the sons of Ge, or Earth, with whom Rhea is identified.[33] It is therefore significant that when Apollonius first described the Gegeneis, he used phraseology recalling Hesiod's description of the Hecatonchires, who are likewise stone-throwing sons of Earth, in the Theogony :[34]
each had 
enormous arms above their waists:
two emanating from their powerful shoulders , four
attached 
below.
Three other sons were born from Gaia and Uranus,
huge, powerful, and indescribable:
Cottus, Briareus, and Gyes, hybristic offspring.
arms sprang from their shoulders ,
unapproachable, and they each had fifty heads
growing from their shoulders 
;
the enormous strength in their awesome presence was terrifying.
Although Apollonius nowhere says so, Rhea would seem to have been responsible for sending the winds that drove the Argonauts back to Oros Arkton, and the only apparent reason suggested by the text is the death of the Gegeneis. In turn, the Argonauts, forced to go back to Oros Arkton as a result of the first battle, must then face the second, in which Cyzicus dies. In this way the young king fulfills his destiny by dying at the hands of a 
.[35] Accordingly, Apollonius's association of these two battles through the Homeric imitation suggests to the reader a fact that Mopsus will only later recognize through the omen: the Argonauts have angered the gods.
After the battle, dawn appears—it was also at dawn that the Argonauts began their ascent of Mount Dindymon, which led to their fight with the Gegeneis—and reveals the disaster (a ). There follow three days of lamentation, with a funeral that consists of a triple procession around the body of the king, and then the solemn burial in the Leimonian Plain (1057–62). Thereafter, the king's wife, Cleite, commits suicide out of grief, and the nymphs of the region cry so profusely that their tears become an everlasting fountain, which they call Cleite after Cyzicus's hapless bride (1063–69).[36] The double tragedy instigates a fast. This ritual
fasting corresponds structurally with the banquet at the beginning of this section. The Doliones not only abstain from food; they even stop milling grain for a long time, and afterwards, when they break their fast, they eat only uncooked meals. This practice, we are told, will evolve into the annual custom of milling the grain for sacrificial cakes at public mills among the future Ionian inhabitants of Cyzicus (cf. 1071–77).[37]
Despite the apparent reconciliation with the Doliones, however, the Argonauts are not yet in the clear; they face further problems with the winds. Harsh storms keep them from leaving for twelve days. The number, I believe, is significant. Since twelve Doliones perished along with Cyzicus during the battle (cf. 1040–47), it would appear that the Argonauts must stay on the island one day for each of the warriors they killed.[38] From this, one would conclude that Rhea's anger springs from the deaths of Cyzicus and
the Doliones in addition to those of the Gegeneis.[39] Afterwards, on the thirteenth night, a halcyon, sent by the goddess Rhea, appears over Jason's head—a detail, as the scholiast ad 1.1085–87b reports (noted above), that Apollonius borrowed from a Pæan of Pindar (fr. 62 Snell). Mopsus, who is on guard duty, observes the bird and interprets its cries as a signal that the end of the storm is near. He arouses Jason from sleep and informs him both of this sign and of the need to propitiate Rhea. Mention of Rhea may at first appear surprising, even intrusive; but, as we have seen above, details in the narrative show how fitting the earth goddess's interest in the battles on Oros Arkton is. The slaughter of the Gegeneis, who are children of Earth (Ge), points to such an interpretation, as does the premature death of Cyzicus, which is reminiscent of the death of the young male associate of the earth goddess. The description of the Argonauts' celebration of Rhea, which follows in the third and final section of the episode, will thus prove to be a fitting conclusion to the events on Oros Arkton.
In response to Mopsus's interpretation of the halcyon's message, the Argonauts make a second ascent of Mount Dindymon, this time without incident. Just as in their first attempt, they move their ship to a different harbor before the climb and leave several men behind (1109–11). At this point, the Argonauts view the area that prompted their first attempt to scale the mountain. The sojourn on Oros Arkton offered the Argonauts the possibility of securing both provisions and information about the voyage ahead of them. Both needs initiate a series of violent events, including the destruction of the Gegeneis and the death of Cyzicus, which result in the foundation of the cult of Rhea on Mount Dindymon.