Colchis

And the Trapezuntians supplied a market for the army, received the Greeks kindly, and gave them oxen, barley-meal, and wine as gifts of hospitality.

From there they marched two stages, seven parasangs, and reached the sea at Trapezus, an inhabited Greek city on the Euxine Sea, a colony of the Sinopeans in the territory of Colchis.

They likewise took part in negotiations with the Greeks in behalf of the near-by Colchians, who dwelt for the most part on the plain, and from these people also the Greeks received hospitable gifts of oxen.

For Medea would not have slain her children had she not been angered, nor would she have been angered had she not been jealous, nor this, had she not loved, nor this, had not Jason sailed to Colchis, nor this, had not the Argo been built, nor this, had not the timbers been cut from Pelion.

would to Heaven the good ship Argo ne’er had sped its course to the Colchian land through the misty blue Symplegades, nor ever in the glens of Pelion the pine been felled to furnish with oars the chieftain’s hands, who went to fetch the golden fleece for Pelias;

They sailed in a long ship to Aea, a city of the Colchians, and to the river Phasis:

When the Colchian king sent a herald to demand reparation for the robbery and restitution of his daughter, the Greeks replied that, as they had been refused reparation for the abduction of the Argive Io, they would not make any to the Colchians.

And then the Argonauts came to Phasis, where they clashed with the dark-faced Colchians in the realm of Aeetes himself.

But when Aeetes placed in their midst the adamantine plough and the oxen, who breathed the flame of burning fire from their golden jaws and stamped at the earth in turn with their bronze hoofs, he led them along and single-handedly brought them under the yoke.