magic wood and matriarchal islands of submission

The Adventure Begins Argus had divine sponsorship in his task, Hera having enlisted the aid of her fellow goddess Athena. This patroness of crafts secured a prow for the vessel from timber hewn at the sacred grove of Zeus at Dodona. This prow had the magical property of speaking - and prophesying - in a human voice. -- So argus who built the argos jad the gods backing them. Divine matren and the divine wisdom of God and their representatives set out to build a magical coven arcus for the journey of the heroes of teh hellenests and those of the golden fleece. The mastery of the crafts built a splended ship, but the prow or the bust or front of the ship, the ornement for it as well, though prows have purposetoo, was made of enchanted wood that was imbued with spirit of divine presence and it spoke and prophesised in human voice, the covenant of the hellenists was not only of the present and even the past but of the future too. prow 1 [prou] Show IPA noun 1. the forepart of a ship or boat; bow. 2. the front end of an airship. 3. Literary. a ship. from : http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/prow?s=t And so one bright autumn morning the Argo set out to sea, her benches crewed by lusty ranks of heroic rowers. And true to Pelias's fondest aspirations, it wasn't long before big troubles assailed the company. After stopping for better than a fortnight on an island populated exclusively by women, they put in at Salmydessus. so in fall or the end of the season or epoch the argos set sail befalling troubles, these were troubles palias fondly anticipated, as he had once experienced the ritual troo, but failed to complete it. thw troubles began after a ceremonial begining on an island completely inhabited by women, the blessing took overtwo qweeks , a forthnight. then the ship set inn on Salmydessus SALMYDESSUS SALMYDESSUS (Ἁλμυδισσὸς ἤτοι Σαιμυδησσός, Ptol. 3.11.4; Halmydessos, Plin. Nat. 4.11. s. 18; Mela, 2.2.5), a coast-town or district of Thrace, on the Euxine, about 60 miles NW. from the entrance of the Bosporus, probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of the modern Midjeh. The eastern offshoots of the Haemus here come very close to the shore, which they divide from the valley of the Hebrus. The people of Salmydessus were thus cut off from communication with the less barbarous portions of Thrace, and became notorious for their savage and inhuman character, which harmonised well with that of their country, the coast of which was extremely dangerous. Aeschylus (Prom. 726)1 describes Salmydessus as “the rugged jaw of the sea, hostile to sailors, step-mother of ships;” and Xenophon (Xen. Anab. 7.5.12, seq.) informs us, that in his time its people carried on the business of wreckers in a very systematic manner, the coast being marked out into portions by means of posts erected along it, and those to whom each portion was assigned having the exclusive right to plunder all vessels and persons cast upon it. This plan, he says, was adopted to prevent the bloodshed which had frequently been occasioned among themselves by their previous practice of indiscriminate plunder. Strabo, (vii. p. 319) describes this portion of the coast of the Euxine as “desert, rocky, destitute of harbours, and completely exposed to the north winds;” while Xenophon (l.c.) characterises the sea adjoining it as “full of shoals.” The earlier writers appear to speak of Salmydessus as a district only, but in later authors, as Apollodorus, Pliny, and Mela, it is mentioned as a town. Little is known respecting the history of this place. Herodotus (4.93) states that its inhabitants, with some neighbouring Thracian tribes, submitted without resistance to Darius when he was marching through their country towards the Danube. When the remnant of the Greeks who had followed Cyrus the Younger entered the service of Seuthes, one of the expeditions in which they were employed under Xenophon was to reduce the people of Salmydessus to obedience; a task which they seem to have accomplished without much difficulty. (Anab. l.c.) [J.R] 1 In this passage the poet, strangely enough, places. Salmydessus in Asia Minor near the Thermodon. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, illustrated by numerous engravings on wood. William Smith, LLD. London. Walton and Maberly, Upper Gower Street and Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row; John Murray, Albemarle Street. 1854. from : http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0064:entry=salmydessus-geo