Legendary Passages #0086 -XII ARGONAUTS- The Return of the Argo, from Diodorus. Previously, the Argonauts rescued King Laomedon's daughter from the Trojan sea-monster, and suffered casualties escaping with the golden fleece. In this passage they are rescued by the sea-god Glaucus, return to King Laomedon for rewards, and Medea avenges Jason's family against King Pelias. After setting sail with the fleece, Orpheus prays for an end to the savage storms. The sea-god Glaucus guides them to safety and tells them their fortunes. When they arrive at Troy, Hercules sends some argonauts to pick up the princess and the magic mares. Naturally, King Laomedon throws them in jail, but prince Priam snuck in swords and they fought their way out. Laomedon is killed, and Priam rules as king until the Trojan War. At home in Thessaly, King Pelias kills Jason's entire family. The argonauts plot their revenge, but Medea comes up with the plan. She dresses as an old woman, tricks her way into the palace, uses magic to become young again, and says she can do the same for Pelias. He agrees, and she tricks his daughters into killing their own father. http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4C.html#11 The Return of the Argo, a Legendary Passage from, DIODORUS SICULUS, LIBRARY OF HISTORY, BOOK IV. Sections 48 - 52, trans. by C. H. OLDFATHER. [4.48.5] - [4.52.2] There were wounded among the chieftains Jason, Laërtes, Atalantê, and the sons of Thespius, as they are called. However they were all healed in a few days, they say, by Medea by means of roots and provision for themselves, set out to sea, and they had already reached the middle of the Pontic sea when they ran into a storm which put them in the greatest peril. THE ARGONAUTS AND GLAUCUS But when Orpheus, as on the former occasion, offered up prayers to the deities of Samothrace, the winds ceased and there appeared near the ship Glaucus the Sea-god, as he is called. The god accompanied the ship in its voyage without ceasing for two days and night and foretold to Heracles his Labours and immortality, and to the Tyndaridae that they should be called Dioscori (“Sons of Zeus”) and receive at the hands of all mankind honour like that offered to the gods. And, in general, he addressed all the Argonauts by name and told them that because of the prayers of Orpheus he had appeared in accordance with a Providence of the gods and was showing forth to them what was destined to take place; and he counseled them, accordingly, that so soon as they touched land they should pay their vows to the gods through the intervention of whom they had twice already been saved. After this, the account continues, Glaucus sank back beneath the deep, and the Argonauts, arriving at the mouth of the Pontus, put in to the land, the king of the country being at that time Byzas, after whom the city of Byzantium was named. There they set up altars, and when they had paid their vows to the gods they sanctified the place, which is even to this day held in honour by the sailors who pass by. HERACLES AND LAOMEDON After this they put out to sea, and after sailing through the Propontis and Hellespont they landed at the Troad. Here, when Heracles dispatched to the city his brother Iphiclus and Telamon to demand back both the mares and Hesionê, Laomedon, it is said, threw the ambassadors into prison and planned to lay an ambush for the other Argonauts and encompass their death. He had the rest of his sons as willing aids in the deed, but Priam alone opposed it; for he declared that Laomedon should observe justice in his dealings with the strangers and should deliver to them both his sister and the mares which had been promised. But when no one paid any heed to Priam, he brought two swords to the prison, they say, and gave them secretly to Telamon and his companions, and by disclosing the plan of his father he became the cause of their deliverance. For immediately Telamon and his companions slew such of the guards as offered resistance, and fle