ARGONAUTS AND ANCIENT COLCHIS IN “DE EXCIDIO TROJAE HISTORIA” WRITTEN IN LATE ANTIQUITY

Abstract

Two forgeries about Trojan War were written in late antiquity – “De Excidio Trojae Historia”ascribed to a certain enigmatic author Dares Phrygius and “Ephemeridos Belli Trojani”, also ascribed to another enigmatic author Dictys Cretensis. Both authors claimed to be eye-witnesses of Trojan War and thus more trustworthy that Homer himself. One of the authors – Dares Phrygius begins his Trojan story with the history of Argonauts. According to Dares, Jason unintentionally triggered the Trojan War. This version of the Troy story with the introduction about Argonauts became the basis for medieval accounts about the Argonauts and Troy. Since this source, despite being somewhat interesting from Kartvelological point of view, was not published in Georgia before, we decided to present it in this paper.