17 Apollonius of Rhodes, The Voyage of Argo the Argonautica, E.V. Rieu, trans. (Baltimore, Maryland, 1971, repr. of 1959 ed.) Book IV.727-29, p. 167, hereafter Argo; Hesiod, Theogony, M. L. West, trans. (Oxford, 1989) p.31. E. Tripp, The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology (Baltimore, Maryland, 1974), pp.15-16, hereafter Handbook. We use the term Aiakid to designate Aeetes, his siblings and their descendants.

18 Argo, Book II.1118-1188, pp. 104-5; The Odes of Pindar, R. Lattimore, trans. (Chicago, 1976), Pythia 4.159-63, p. 67, 4.241-42, p. 71; M. Grant, Folktale and Hero-Tale Motifs in the Odes of Pindar (Lawrence, Kansas, 1967), pp. 12, 27, 79, 94; Handbook, p. 479.

19 Homer, Odyssey, W. Rouse, trans. (New York, 19XX, repr. of 1937 ed.), Book XII.65-72, p. 139; The Argonauts are the theme in Pindar's Pythia 4; M. Grant, Folktale, pp. 19, 30, 32, 35, 67-68, 93-94; Handbook, pp. 73-95. It is not known how much of the story was known to Homer or in what detail, and how much of Apollonius' story reflected the image of "Colchis" in his own time. Rosters of the crew tended to grow over time, but early lists include: Heracles, Orpheus, the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux), Zetes and Calais, Telamon and Peleus, Idas and Lynceus, Admetus, Periclymenu, Augeias, Argus and Tiphys.

20 Argo, Books III-IV.223, pp. 109-52.

21 See note 36 below. Toumanoff, Studies, p. 58 n. 57 observes a possible connection between the name Circe and the Circassians, a north Caucasian people once living on the south shore of the Black Sea. N. Robertson, "Myth, Ritual, and Livelihood in Early Greece", in Ancient Economy in Mythology, p. 12 writes: "The Circe episode is not integral to the story of Odysseus, but still goes back a long way; it is generally agreed that at an earlier stage the episode belonged to the story of the Argonauts". It is possible that the Armenian story of Hayk is part of the Aia cycle, though whether it relates to the birth of Aia or its destruction is not clear to us. Unfortunately, aside from one rather "historical" narration in the Primary History [English trans. in Moses Khorenats'i History of the Armenians, R. W. Thomson, trans. (London, 1978) pp. 357-68; a recent translation of the Primary History is now available on another page of this website], very little of the myths about Hayk and his offspring has survived. The Primary History describes the migration of Hayk and his family from some southern area ("Babylon") northward into central and eastern Asia Minor. Everywhere the Haykids encountered settled populations which they conquered. The Pontic area was taken by Hayk's descendant, Aram, after the defeat of a local Titan named Paiapis Chalia. Ananikian, p. 87 believed that this may be a reference to the Urartian Khaldi, though the name(s) may instead be a garbled reference to Aia and Colchis. Ananikian, pp. 64-65 associated Hayk with the Phyrgian Hyas, god of vegetation and wine and the Vedic Vayu; Armenak, with the Armenius, father of Er in Plato's Republic, and the Vedic Aryaman; and Ara, with Er, who visited the underworld and returned to describe his journey, ibid. pp. 68-70. Hayk's son, Cadmus (and his son, Harma), may be reflected in the Greek Cadmus, a figure whose gestes have thematic ties to the area of our interest. In the Greek tradition, Cadmus, son of "Agenor", settles various parts of Phoenicia, Cilicia, Thrace, and Boetia. He is credited with bringing the Phoenician alphabet to Greece. He slays a dragon sacred to Ares, for which he must atone. But the goddess Athena told Cadmus to sow the dragon's teeth and kill the men who sprang up from them. Athena gave the other portion of the dragon's teeth to Aeetes. Cadmus is described as subduing the Hyantes and the Aones, two tribes later placed in Boetia, but perhaps originally associated with the Hayassa or the Hyaonians (see notes 16 and 104). Cadmus married Ares' daughter, Harmonia, and in some accounts, the first Amazons were their offspring. Cadmus and Harmonia, in their old age, were transported to the Elysian Fields and transformed into snakes, Handbook, pp. 140-42. It is a frequent phenomenon in mythology that tales of a hero's sons actually relate to the hero himself. If this is the case with the story of Hayk, then Hayk's personality embraces that of Ara, god of the underworld, a circumstance which strengthens the connection between Hayk and Aeetes.

22 Odyssey, Book X.133-574, pp. 115-23.

23 K. Rubinson, "Mid-Second Millennium Pontic-Aegean Connections: A Note to Chapter 12", pp. 283-86 in Ancient Economy in Mythology.

24 Argo, Book II.1118-1188, pp. 104-105.

25 Argo, Book IV.239-42, 302ff., 730ff., 1004ff. pp. 153, 155, 167, 174.

26 Argo, Book IV.1211ff., p. 180.

27 Argo, Book III.1226ff., pp. 141-42. The Golden Fleece, which has been interpreted variously as a symbol of metals and commerce in cloth, may also be an early reflection of the Iranian xvarenah or farr.

28 Argo, Book III.210ff., p. 115.

29 See our forthcoming study, "Ethnobotany in Eastern Asia Minor". [RB: The article appeared as "Soma among the Armenians" (published on the Internet, September, 2000) and is available on the Selected Writings page of this website.]

30 Argo, Book III.805-1060, 1243-63, pp. 131-37, 142; M. Grant, Folktale, p. 66.

31 Argo, Book IV.142-82, pp. 150-51.

32 Handbook, pp. 359-63.

33 Handbook, p. 449.

34 M. I. Rostovtsev, in Iranians and Greeks in South Russia (Oxford, 1922) p. 62 suggested that Books X, XI, and XII of the Odyssey concerned the southeastern corner of the Black Sea and further that "the land of the rising sun, the Aia of Odyssey, which seems, at the same time, to be part of the world beyond the grave, is to be placed on the Caucasian bank of the Black Sea".

35 K. Kerenyi, Goddesses of Sun and Moon (Irving, Texas, 1979) p. 12. An association with the underworld is also reflected in the story of Er (Ara), son of Armenius in Plato's Republic, see A. V. Matikian, Aray geghets'ik (Vienna, 1930) pp. 245-304; Ananikian, pp. 68-70.

36 Odyssey, Book XI.69-72, p. 125: "...remember me, my prince, when you reach Aia, for I know you will touch there on your way back from Hades"; also Book XII.1-7, p. 138: "Our ship left the stream of Ocean and passed into the open sea. Soon it came to the island of Aia, where Dawn has her dwelling and her dancing lawns and Helios his place of rising".

37 Other gods of horse and chariot, such as Poseidon, Helios, and Phaeton are also associated with the area of our interest. The god Poseidon is associated with eastern Asia Minor and the Caucasus by name and by attributes. Greek mythologists regard Poseidon as a foreign god whose name does not explain easily in Greek. Caucasiologists such as Mikeladze and Allen derive the root of the name Poseidon from pse ( "water" in Georgian and Circassian, Allen, "Ex Ponto V", p. 87; Mikeladze further connects Poseidon with the fish-shaped stone stelae (vishaps) found in south Caucasia); see also J. Karst, Mythologie, pp. 168-72. According to Homer and Hesiod, Poseidon was a god of earthquakes, the sea and horses. By striking his trident on a rock, Poseidon created the first horse; he gave to Pelops a flying chariot drawn by the immortal horses Balios and Xanthos; he himself was the father of two horses: the winged horse Pegasus, and the fabulously swift Arion, Heracles' mount [M. Grant, Folktale, pp. 33, 44, 75, 79, 101,105, 117n72; Handbook p. 101; W. Fox, "Greek and Roman Mythology" in Mythology of All Races (New York, 1964; repr. of 1916 ed.) vol. 1, p. 213]. He was a friend of the Centaurs, creatures with the body and legs of a horse and the torso, head, and arms of a man. Poseidon is also related to a number of mythical figures connected to eastern Asia Minor and the Caucasus. For example, he was the father of the ram with the Golden Fleece (Handbook, p. 494). The Cyclops, Polyphemus, was his son, as was Orion the hunter and the Argonauts Butes, Euphemus, Ancaeus and Erginus. Poseidon was also associated with Pasiphae, sister of Aeetes and Circe.

In Prometheus Bound Prometheus is credited with being the first to yoke horses to a chariot. Poseidon, too, as god of horses, is portrayed as riding his chariot through the waves, and giving chariots as gifts. There are, however, two other deities closely associated with the chariot, Helios (the Sun) and his son, Phaeton. Both of them also have other ties with eastern Asia Minor. Helios was conceived of as driving his four-horse chariot through the sky from his magical palace in the East to the West each day (Handbook, p. 268). As the father of Aeetes, Circe and Pasiphae, Helios sometimes took them along in his chariot. He also lent a chariot, drawn by winged dragons, to his granddaughter, Medea, Aeetes' daughter, which she used in her travels in Greece.

Phaeton was Helios' son by a goddess, Clymene, mother of Prometheus and Atlas. To learn the truth about his heritage, Phaeton traveled to Helios' palace in the East, and convinced his reluctant father to let him drive the sun-chariot for one day. Phaeton's sisters, the Heliades, yoked the horses, and the unskilled young god set out. But he was unable to control the horses, who jumped up (creating the Milky Way), then charged so close to the earth that the planet was almost consumed in flames. Seeing the danger, Zeus hurled a thunderbolt at Phaeton, killing him. In their grief, his sisters turned into poplars weeping amber by the banks of the river in which Phaeton's flaming body fell. The image of Helios and his son Phaeton was adopted by Apollonius of Rhodes in his description of Aeetes and his son, Apsyrtus. Apollonius actually uses Phaeton ("Shining One") as an epithet for Absyrtus:

"At daybreak too, Aeetes put on his breast the stiff cuirass which Ares had given him after slaying Mimas with his own hands in the field of Phlegra; and on his head he set his golden helmet with its four plates, bright as the Sun's round face when he rises fresh from Ocean Stream...Phaeton was close at hand, holding his father's swift horses and well-built chariot in readiness." (Argo, III.1225-45, p. 141-42).

38 Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, M. Griffith, ed. (Cambridge, 1983), lines 435-505; M. Grant, Folktale, pp. 37, 66, 126 n.38.

39 Hesiod, Theogony, 508-70, pp. 18-20.

40 Handbook, pp. 499-501. Prometheus' son, Deucalion, also has ties to eastern Asia Minor. Warned by his father about Zeus' plan to detroy humanity in a flood, Deucalion and his wife Pyrrah (a daughter of Pandora) board a boat full of provisions. They float on the water for nine days before landing on a mountain. Deucalion and Pyrrah then repeople the land by throwing stones behind them, over their shoulders. Men sprang up from the stones Deucalion threw, women, from Pyrrha's stones. The motif of rock-born beings is known from Hurrian and Indo-Iranian myths (see in text ). Deucalion's grandson set out from this land to occupy Greece, which was his allotted portion. M. Grant, Folktale, pp. 65, 87, p. 127 n.40; Pindar, Olympia 9.44-46; Apollodorus 1.7. 1-2; Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.318-415; Handbook, p. 199; Dalley, Myths, pp. 7-8.

41 Prometheus Bound, lines 300-308; see Griffith's commentary, ibid. pp. 160-61, 170-71, 173-74, 176, 213-14, 217-18, 228, 230-31.

42 Griffith, pp. 14-15. In Athens, both gods shared an altar in the Academy, Griffith, p. 85.

43 Homer, Iliad 1.571-608, pp. 63-64, 18.368-617, pp. 318-23, 20.73-74, p. 335, 21.328-382, pp. 353-54; Odyssey, 8.266-366, pp. 93-95; Hesiod, Theogony, 570-572,p. 20, 927-929 p. 30, 945-946, p.31; Argo, Book I.202-205, p. 41, I.850-860, p. 59.

44 Hesiod,Theogony, 570-612, pp. 20-21; Works and Days, 47-105, pp. 38-40; M. Grant, Folktale, pp. 2, 7-8, 13-14, 59-62, 78, 83, 95, 106, 111 n.12,117n.76,126n.38.

45 Pindar, Pythia 1. 15-60 pp. 46-48.

46 Hesiod, Theogony, 853-69, p. 28; Iliad, II.781-83, pp. 81-82.

47 West, Theogony, p. 67 n. 304; S. T. Eremyan, "Hayeri tseghayin miut'yune Arme-Shupria erkrum [Tribal Union of the Armenians in the land of Arme-Shupria"], Patma-banasirakan handes 3(1958) pp. 59-72. Eremyan suggested that the Arimi were the Urumi mentioned along with the Mushki and Apeshlai in the Assyrian annals, but see I. M. Diakonoff, The Pre-history of the Armenian People (Delmar, N.Y., 1984) pp. 120-21 and the same author's Phyrgian (Delmar, N.Y., 1985) pp. xi, xvii n. 9.

48 West, Theogony, p. 70 n. 860.

49 While there are conflicting traditions about the Cyclopes, they appear to have been originally outside the Olympian tradition, and only later integrated into it. They were Titans, occasionally imprisoned in Tartarus, but finally released by Zeus. They became the smiths of Zeus, constructing his thunderbolts. They also made Poseidon's trident and Hades' cap of invisibility. In Homer's Odyssey, Book IX.116-566, pp. 102-111, the Cyclopes are depicted as pastoralists living in caves on an island later equated with Sicily. Later tradition makes the Cyclopes Hephaestus' craftsmen. T'ork', a god known among the Armenians, has important parallels to the Cyclops Polyphemus, see M. Ananikian," Armenian Mythology" in Mythology of All Races, vol. 7 (New York, 1964, repr. of 1925 ed.) pp. 85-86, 98-100; N. Adontz, "Tarkhou chez les anciens armeniens", Revue des etudes armeniennes 7(1927) pp. 185-94; Toumanoff, Studies, pp. 299-303. Hephaestus was associated with Mihr (Mithra) by later Armenian tradition, Ananikian, p. 33. On Prometheus-like figures among the Georgians and Armenians see Ananikian, pp. 42-46, and the Georgian references in note 4 above. Allen, "Ex Ponto V", p. 86 suggested a connection, possibly etymological, between Hephaestus and the Circassian god of metallurgy, Tleps, known from the Sinope and Trebizond area.

50 Hesiod, Theogony, 295-332, p.12.

51 R. D. Barnett, "Ancient Oriental Influences on Archaic Greece", in The Aegean and the Near East, Saul S. Weinberg, ed. (Locust Valley, N.Y.,1956) p. 231. The mythical griffin, a favorite with Urartian metalworkers, may have influenced stories of the Arimaspi, a one-eyed people who fought with griffins for possession of the gold in their neighborhood, Herodotus 3.116, 4.13, 4.27.

52 Aeschylus, Eumenides, 685-690; Prometheus Bound, 723.

53 Herodotus 4.110-117; Pindar, Olympia 13.89-90 p. 43; M. Grant, Folktale, pp. 12,16,18,119 n.113.

54 Homer, Iliad 3.184-90, p. 89, 6.186, p. 134.

55 Argo, Book II.360-91, p. 83, II.945-1000 pp. 99-100.

56 D. J. Sobol, The Amazons of Greek Mythology (Cranbury, N.J., 1972) pp. 138-39; F. Bennett, Religious Cults Associated with the Amazons (New York, 1967, repr. of 1912 ed.).

57 J. Karst, Mythologie armeno-caucasienne et hetito-asianique (Strasbourg, 1948) p. 42.

58 See note 29 above.

59 See note 37 above.