APOLLONIUS RHODIUS THE ARGONAUTICA WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY R. C. SEATON HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS LONDON, ENGLANDFirst published 1g12 LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY® fsa registered trademark ofthe President and Follows of Harvard College CONTENTS INTRODUCTION vil BIBLIOGRAPHY w ARGONAUTICA. i BOOK I 1 BOOK I 9 | BOOK 1 191 | BOOK 1v 291 | ISBN 975-0.674-99001.2 STEMMA MEDEAE 416 j INDEX ait Printed on ck fee pope aed bond by aware Brothers, nt Arbor. MichiganINTRODUCTION Mucut bas been written about the chronology of ‘Alexandrian literature and the famous Library, founded by Ptolemy Soter, but the dates of the chief writers are still matters of conjecture. The birth of Apollonius Rhodius is placed by scholars at various times between 296 and 260 nc,, while the year of his death is equally uncertain. In fact, we have very Little information on the subject. There are two “tives” of Apollonius in the Scholia, both derived from an earlier one which is lost. From these we learn that he was of Alexandria by birth,’ that he lived in the time of the Ptolemies, and was papil of Callimachus; that while still a youth he composed and recited in public his Argonautica, and that the poem was condemned, in consequence of which he retired to Rhodes; that there he revised his ' Or of Neucrats," aocording to Aelinn and Athenseus, vil