in nowise harried, owing to the protection of Poseidon; for from him had the Doliones first sprung.  Thither Argo pressed on, driven by the winds of Thrace, and the Fair haven received her as she sped.  There they cast away their small anchorstone by the advice of Tiphys and left it beneath a fountain, the fountain of Artacie; and they took another meet for their purpose, a heavy one; but the first, according to the oracle of the Far-Darter, the Ionians, sons of Neleus, in after days laid to be a sacred stone, as was right, in the temple of Jasonian Athena.

Now the Doliones and Cyzicus himself all came together to meet them with friendliness, and when they knew of the quest and their lineage welcomed them with hospitality, and persuaded them to row further and to fasten their ship’s hawsers at the city harbour.  Here they built an altar to Ecbasian[1] Apollo and set it up on the beach, and gave heed to sacrifices.  And the king of his own bounty gave them sweet wine and sheep in their need; for he had heard a report that whenever a godlike band of heroes should come, straightway he should meet it with gentle words and should have no thought of war.  As with Jason, the soft down was just blooming on his chin, nor yet had it been his lot to rejoice in children, but still in his palace his wife was untouched by the pangs of child-birth, the daughter of Percosian Merops, fair-haired Cleite, whom lately by priceless gifts he had brought from her father’s home from the mainland opposite.  But even so he left his chamber and bridal bed and prepared a banquet among the strangers, casting all fears from his heart.  And they questioned one another in turn.  Of them would he learn the end of their voyage and the injunctions of Pelias; while they enquired about the cities of the people round and all the gulf of the wide Propontis; but further he could not tell them for all their desire to learn.  In the morning they climbed mighty Dindymum that they might themselves behold the various paths of that sea; and they brought their ship from its former anchorage to the harbour, Chytus; and the path they trod is named the path of Jason.

[Footnote 1:  i.e. god of disembarcation.]

But the Earthborn men on the other side rushed down from the mountain and with crags below blocked up the mouth of vast Chytus towards the sea, like men lying in wait for a wild beast within.  But there Heracles had been left behind with the younger heroes and he quickly bent his back-springing bow against the monsters and brought them to earth one after another; and they in their turn raised huge ragged rocks and hurled them.  For these dread monsters too, I ween, the goddess Hera, bride of Zeus, had nurtured to be a trial for Heracles.  And therewithal came the rest of the martial heroes returning to meet the foe before they reached the height of outlook, and they fell to the slaughter of the Earthborn, receiving them with arrows and spears until they slew them all