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Updated: June 25, 2025
Between the Euxine and the Caspian, the countries of Colchos, Iberia, and Albania, are intersected in every direction by the branches of Mount Caucasus; and the two principal gates, or passes, from north to south, have been frequently confounded in the geography both of the ancients and moderns.
The siege of Archæopolis, a name imposed or corrupted by the Greeks, was raised with some loss and precipitation; but the Persians occupied the passes of Iberia: Colchos was enslaved by their forts and garrisons; they devoured the scanty sustenance of the people; and the prince of the Lazi fled into the mountains.
But to come to the matter of voyages by sea, it is euident to all the world, what voyage Iason with certaine yong Grecian Princes made to Colchos in the Oriental Countries to winne the golden Fleece, as also the trauels by Hercules performed into Libia in the West partes, to winne the Aurea Mala, or golden apples of Hesperides, which notwithstanding neither for length, daunger, nor profite, are any thing comparable to the nauigations and voyages, that of late within the space of one hundreth years haue been performed and made into the East and West Indies, whereby in a manner there is not one hauen on the sea coast, nor any point of land in the whole world, but hath in time beene sought and founde out.
The adoration of fire was introduced into Colchos by the zeal of the Magi: their intolerant spirit provoked the fervor of a Christian people; and the prejudice of nature or education was wounded by the impious practice of exposing the dead bodies of their parents, on the summit of a lofty tower, to the crows and vultures of the air.
After the fall of the Persian empire, Mithridates, king of Pontus, added Colchos to the wide circle of his dominions on the Euxine; and when the natives presumed to request that his son might reign over them, he bound the ambitious youth in chains of gold, and delegated a servant in his place.
From those walls, a shower of darts was incessantly poured on the heads of the assailants; but they were most dangerously annoyed by a fiery composition of sulphur and bitumen, which in Colchos might with some propriety be named the oil of Medea.
Beyond these limits the fortifications of Hyssus, of Apsarus, of the Phasis, of Dioscurias or Sebastopolis, and of Pityus, were guarded by sufficient detachments of horse and foot; and six princes of Colchos received their diadems from the lieutenants of Cæsar. One of these lieutenants, the eloquent and philosophic Arrian, surveyed, and has described, the Euxine coast, under the reign of Hadrian.
As the strength of the empire was gradually impaired, the Romans stationed on the Phasis were neither withdrawn nor expelled; and the tribe of the Lazi, whose posterity speak a foreign dialect, and inhabit the sea coast of Trebizond, imposed their name and dominion on the ancient kingdom of Colchos.
The sagacious monarch instantly discerned the use and importance of Colchos; and meditated a plan of conquest, which was renewed at the end of a thousand years by Shah Abbas, the wisest and most powerful of his successors.
The Argonautica follows the well-known poem of Apollonius Rhodius, but by his diffuse rhetorical treatment the author expands the story to such a length that in between five and six thousand lines he has only got as far as the escape of Jason and Medea from Colchos.
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