The Argonautica

leaning into the sea, as far as waves wash an isthmus

that slopes down to the mainland; two headlands rise there,

twin, opening either way north of Aesepus' water.

The neighbors dwelling round call it the Mount of Bears;

and insolent, savage tribes possess that mountain district,

Earthborn, a mighty marvel for neighboring men to behold.

For each Earthborn lifts six overmastering hands on high,

two from strong shoulders; lower hands hung beneath,

four more are fitted close along his dreadful flanks.

The Doliones held both the isthmus and level plain;

Among those men the hero-king, Aeneus' son, held sway,

Cyzicus, whom young Aenete, noble Eusorus' daughter,

bore. Yet, for all their savagery, the monstrous Earthborn

harmed no Doliones, thanks to Poseidon's aid;

for Poseidon himself had fathered the first Dolionian race.

There Argo struck the shore, driven onward by the winds

from Thrace; Fair Harbor received her racing flight.

There they released the ship's small anchoring stone,

at Tiphys' command they left the stone beneath a spring,

the Artaeian Spring; they chose another, one well suited,

a heavy stone; Apollo's oracle foretold its future:

the Neleid Ionians later set it up in place

as a holy thing, as right, in Jasonian Athena's shrine.

The Doliones met the whole crew there in friendship,