A—
The Mysteries of Rhea on Mount Dindymon and Departure from Oros Arkton (1117–52)

The initiation of the rites in honor of Rhea (A ) structurally balances the Argonauts' initiation into the Samothracian rites on their way to Cyzicus (A).^[40] I have already mentioned several

verbal and thematic details shared by the two sections that underscore the corresponsion. In addition to these explicit points of contact, certain ritual and legendary elements of the Samothracian Mysteries that Apollonius does not describe, but that we know from other sources, resemble salient features of the Argonauts' sojourn on Oros Arkton and their celebration of Rhea on Mount Dindymon:^[41] the inhabitants of Samothrace were called Pelasgians (cf. Herodotus 2.51) » the inhabitants of Oros Arkton, whom the Argonauts meet in Deiochus's account (cf. Sad 1.987a), and the enemies of the Doliones in Apollonius's version are likewise Pelasgians (1024); the Dactyls were associated both with the Samothracian (cf. Ephorus FGrHist 70 F 104) and the Cyzicene (1126–30) Mysteries; the Samothracian initiation took place at night (cf. Val. Flacc. Arg. 2.439–42) » the Argonauts likewise celebrate a pannychis (1150–52); in both the Samothracian (cf. Nonn. D. 3.61–78) and the Cyzicene (1134–38) rites the celebrants perform an armed dance.^[42] Moreover, in Samothracian legend Dardanus, the son of Zeus and the Atlantid Electra, left the island because, in some accounts, he killed his brother Eëtion (cf. Servius ad Æn. 3.167); from there he sailed on a raft to Phrygia and established on Mount Ida a cult to Meter (cf. Diod. 5.49). This feature of Samothracian mythology might well explain the poet's association of the two cults. For as it turns out, the Argonauts' journey to Oros Arkton closely parallels that of Dardanus in that, like Dardanus, they sail from Samothrace to the region of Phrygia (cf. 937, 1139), establish a cult to Meter, identified as Rhea, and, as he is, they are held accountable for killing a young man.

Apollonius begins his account of the Argonauts' cult in honor of Meter/Rhea with mention of the cult statue that Argus makes

from a vine stump (1117). There follows a description of the sanctuary that they construct (1120–24). The men then call upon Meter Dindymië and her assistants, Titias and Cyllenus, two of the Idæan Dactyls, who were born in a cave on Mount Dicte in Crete (1125–31). Jason offers prayers and libations to the goddess while Orpheus leads an armed dance to drown out the cries of the Doliones, who are lamenting their king. This scene recalls a practice that continued among the Phrygians, who used the rhombus and tambourine instead of weapons and armor to honor Rhea (1132–39). There appear thereafter miraculous signs indicating the goddess's acceptance of the ritual: the vegetation blooms, wild animals leave their lairs and rub up tamely against the Argonauts, and a fountain suddenly appears in a place that up to that moment was dry; in the future, people will call this the Jasonian Fountain (1140–50). Finally, the men celebrate an all-night banquet and leave at dawn after the winds have died down (1151–52).

Apollonius's description of the Argonautic rite contains many striking points of contact with Callimachus's Hymn to Zeus .^[43] I summarize the relevant section of the hymn: following a humorous introductory section in which he establishes Zeus's place of birth (H. 1.1–9), Callimachus briefly describes the god's birth to Rhea and the goddess's subsequent quandary: there is no water for cleansing the blood of childbirth (ibid. 10–17). Rhea then strikes the earth, which produces the waters of Arcadia, a place that up to that time lacked water (ibid. 18–32). The nymph Neda, who will give her name to the largest river of Arcadia, carries Zeus from Arcadia to Thenae and from there to Cnossus, where he will live in a cave. He will be attended by the Dictæan Meliae and Adrasteia, suckled by Amaltheia, and protected by the war dance of the Curetes from exposing his existence to Cronus through his cries (ibid. 33–54). Accordingly, the following explicit correspondences exist between the two poems:

· Rhea is the goddess featured in both accounts.

· Rhea produces water in Arcadia and on top of Mount Dindymon, both of which up to that time lacked water.

· Both the Curetes and the Argonauts perform a war dance to drown out crying.

In addition to these, there are other, more subtle points of contact between the two poems. A. H. Griffiths observed a neat geographical trick that Callimachus played in the Hymn to Zeus .^[44] At line 42, we learn that Neda left Thenae, and in the next line the poet notes parenthetically that Thenae was near Cnossus. The location of Thenae was a matter of dispute: some placed it in Arcadia, and others on Crete. Since Neda begins her journey in Arcadia, one naturally believes that the poet locates Thenae in Arcadia. But in line 43, we are disabused of this notion with the statement  . In a similar fashion, in the Argonautic passage under consideration, Titias and Cyllenus are called in line 1128 the assistants of  , and since the Argonauts are near Phrygia, one thinks that the poet is referring to the Phrygian Mount Ida. In the very next line, however, Apollonius identifies these assistants as the  , and so he has the Cretan and not the Phrygian Ida in mind.

Other points are to be noted: the   and   attend the infant Zeus on Crete (H. 1.47) » the   attend Rhea on Mount Dindymon (Argo. 1.1129), and from the top of the mountain the Argonauts can see the   (ibid. 1116);^[45] Zeus was reared in a cave on Mount Dicte (cf. H. 1.34, 47) » the Dactyls were born in a cave on Mount Dicte (Argo. 1.1130); finally, Callimachus calls the Arcadians the grandsons of the Lycaonian Bear ( , 41) » the Argonauts initiate the rites in honor of Rhea on Bear Mountain ( , 1150).

Although the dating of these two poems is by no means secure, few would deny that the Hymn to Zeus is one of Callimachus's earliest extant poems.^[46] If, as seems most likely, this hymn antedates

the Argonautica ,^[47] and if Apollonius had this piece in mind when he wrote the Cyzicus episode (as the many points of contact lead one to believe), the question arises: Does recognition of the imitation affect or enhance in any way our understanding of the Argonautic passage?

As we have seen above, Apollonius never explicitly tells his reader why the Argonauts return to Oros Arkton or why Rhea needs to be propitiated. Rather, the reader is asked to draw implications from elements in both the text and subtext. One of these lies at the center of the episode, where the poet highlights a Homeric imitation that appears to confirm what one infers from the connection between the Gegeneis, the sons of Earth killed by the Argonauts, and Rhea, the earth goddess, who Mopsus later states requires propitiation: the Argonauts, like Odysseus, have offended a divinity who is to be seen as responsible for having them blown back to Oros Arkton. The structural connection with the Samothracian Mysteries, as I suggested above, sheds further light on the significance of the rites on Mount Dindymon. Like Dardanus, Jason and the Argonauts must atone for bloodshed by instituting a cult. Reference to the Hymn to Zeus , I posit, exerts a similar effect on our understanding of the events atop Mount Dindymon. In the Callimachean poem, Rhea needed water to cleanse the blood of childbirth, and so she caused the earth to bring forth water in Arcadia for the first time. Observing this similarity, one might well conclude that the purpose for the water is related. The Argonauts, like Rhea, can now cleanse themselves of the blood both of Cyzicus and of the Gegeneis, the latter being, like Zeus, children of the same divinity.

At the beginning of the episode, the Argonauts were initiated into the Samothracian Mysteries; and at the conclusion, following the first blood that they will shed on their mission, they are initiated into the Mysteries of Rhea on Mount Dindymon. It would appear that the experience on Oros Arkton marks an important,

almost liminal, stage in the Argonautic expedition. Before they go on to the next phase of their journey, they encounter death, and then, like Rhea in Callimachus's hymn, they undergo purification for the blood they have spilled.^[48] For the Argonauts, and for Jason in particular, Oros Arkton proves to be a crucial phase in the expedition to Colchis. They have already affirmed their commitment to the mission by refusing the tempting offer of the Lemnian women. Now they must overcome further obstacles to their advance: monsters sent by an angry stepmother and, oddly enough, a timorous young man who lives in fear of his fate. The first obstacle was sent specifically against Heracles; Jason forms a close bond with the second, both being the youthful leaders of their groups. The identification of Heracles and Jason with their victims once again sets the two heroes in vivid contrast. Moreover, as becomes clear through the structural parallelism of the two battles on Oros Arkton, their involvement in the killings parallels their divergent approaches to heroic action.

When Heracles and several of the younger men had moved the Argo into Chytus Harbor, the Gegeneis attacked, and a battle ensued (Bb). Two similes frame the battle. In the first, Apollonius compares the attempt to trap Heracles and the others within the harbor to fishermen trying to catch a sea creature (991). The incident concludes with the laying-out of the bodies of the dead monsters on the shore. Some of the monsters have their heads and chests in the water; others, their legs. The Argonauts are likened to lumberjacks who set out logs on the beach for soaking (1003–5). Each simile features the occupation of people who control some facet of nature in their profession. The similes, then, furnish apt comparisons for an armed encounter arranged by Hera against Heracles, the great monster killer and, as Burkert calls him, "Master of Animals."^[49]

In the corresponding battle with the Doliones (Bb ), once again two similes frame the conflict. In the first, the vehement attack of the combatants is likened to a swift fire that falls on dry brush

(1027–28). It is during this battle that Jason unwittingly kills Cyzicus, who thus fulfills his destiny, and that twelve other Dolionian soldiers fall at the hands of the Argonauts. Apollonius compares the surviving Doliones in their flight to doves who flee before swift hawks (1049–50). In this second battle, it was the wind, a force that can fan a fire out of control, that drove the helpless Argonauts back to Oros Arkton; and in the bloody battle that ensued the helpless Doliones, attempting a vain defense against their recently departed guest-friends, fled like doves back to the protection of their walls. Like the fire and hawks that characterize the victors, their leader can be seen as the instantiation of an uncontrollable force of destruction, lacking any feeling or rational planning for his actions because of his ignorance of the enemy he faces in an unexpected battle.

The differences between the two battles and the Argonauts associated with each are telling. When it comes to heroic feats, Heracles, like the fishermen and lumberjacks, is in complete control. It is only in matters of love and passion that he is outmatched, as will be seen in the very next episode. Moreover, in his overbearing self-confidence, Heracles will even choose to act contrary to   (1317) in the pursuit of a heroic adventure (cf. 1.122–31). Jason is quite the opposite. Although he will prove to be just as efficient in achieving his goal as Heracles, he nonetheless gives no evidence of controlling the avenues to his success. Like the fire and hawks, he turns out to be a consuming and uncaring agent of destruction, leaving in his wake the lifeless body, not of a monster, but of a newly married and childless young man. And unlike Heracles, who is forced to leave the expedition and thus to conform to  , as Glaucus will announce near the end of the book (1315–25), Jason is ever the unwitting agent of fate. On Oros Arkton, he brings about Cyzicus's   (1035), just as on Lemnos he and the Argonauts restored the male population of the island for Aphrodite, and just as ultimately he will bring about the fated death of Pelias through the agency of Medea for Hera. Of particular note in this comparison are the victims of the two battles. Since Heracles, the man of strength, is associated with violent and awesome creatures like himself, I think it fair to say that Jason is to be linked with the young man he slew on the battlefield not only in their ages and roles of leadership but also in their unfortunate marriages,

from which neither will be survived by children (on Cyzicus, cf. 973–75).

If this identification of victor and vanquished is valid, a more speculative implication of the killings on Oros Arkton suggests itself. In an episode framed with scenes of initiation and lustration, Heracles and Jason might be thought of as immolating virtual representatives of themselves. Since in Mystery religions—the cults at Samothrace and on Mount Dindymon are  —the death and rebirth of the celebrants are ritually enacted or vicariously experienced in the sacrifice as an anticipation of their future death and rebirth into a new life, it would appear that the killing of the Gegeneis and Cyzicus in some sense sanctifies Heracles and Jason, the two heroic prototypes, for their respective heroic careers, which will diverge in the next episode.^[50] Both men will go on to achieve their goals within the temporal confines of the poem: Heracles crushing Ladon and seizing the golden apples of the Hesperides through his irresistible strength, and Jason plowing the field with fire-breathing bulls, killing the offspring of the sown dragon's teeth, and taking the golden fleece from the drugged serpent through the magic of Medea, the young and unfortunate victim of Jason's irresistible charm.

THE episode of the sojourn on Oros Arkton is striking indeed. Apollonius has succeeded in creating a unified and convincing story out of many heterogeneous elements, interweaving at the same time many academic points of interest (e.g., topographical, cultural, and historical) into the fabric of the narrative. In this daring version of the Cyzicus tale, one can observe the felicitous marriage of Alexandrian scholarship and the kind of tragedy one

associates with the classical era,^[51] and in the course of this Cyzicene tragedy, Apollonius affords us another glimpse of the stark contrast between Jason and Heracles. Both are dangerous men, but for dissimilar reasons and with distinctive results.