Читать книгу The Herodotus Encyclopedia - Группа авторов - Страница 472

ANDREW NICHOLS

University of Florida

Coastal town in MAGNESIA in northern Greece, located on the Gulf of PAGASAE. XERXES stationed his fleet there after losing 400 ships in a storm near Cape SEPIAS (7.193, 196) and used it as a base of operations for his naval campaign against the Greek fleet at ARTEMISIUM in 480 BCE (8.4–12; Diod. Sic. 11.12.3), nearly 80 stades (about 9 miles) to the south. A man named SCYLLIAS was said to have deserted from the Persians by swimming the entire distance from Aphetae to Artemisium underwater (8.8).

The exact location of Aphetae is unknown, but it lay somewhere on the eastern coast of the Gulf of Pagasae, perhaps in the vicinity of Trikeri just inside the gulf’s mouth (Leake 1835, 4: 396–97) or further east on the southern coast of Magnesia facing the Artemisium Channel (Stählin 1967, 55–56; cf. BA 55 E2). According to the tradition reported by Herodotus (7.193; similarly Strabo 9.5.15/C436, Ap. Rhod. 1.591), the place takes its name from the fact that JASON and the Argonauts decided to leave (ἀϕήσειν, aphēsein) HERACLES there when they were heading out to SEA on the way to COLCHIS (cf. Steph. Byz. s.v. ’Αϕέται (A 553)). Drawing from Pherecydes, whom Herodotus may also be following, Apollodorus (Bibl. 1.9.19) reports that it was the ARGO itself who spoke to Jason in a human voice, warning him that Heracles would have been too heavy to take on board.

SEE ALSO: Etymology; Myth; Naval Warfare; Persian Wars; Thessaly