Pula and the Argonauts
A legend or a myth about the Argonauts tells us about possible founding of Pula. Since this is only a legend, there are many different versions. At the time, Danube was called Ister, so the legend could be related to understanding the etymology of the name Istria.
King Pelias ordered Jason from Thessaly to obtain the rune of the golden oxen which was located in Colchis. Jason gathers a crew and heads to Mount Argo (thus the name Argonauts). Medea, the daughter of the king of Colchis helps Jason to retrieve the golden rune. She steals the artefact with the Argonauts, and flees on a boat to Hellas. The Colchids pursue them to bring back the stolen rune. The pursuit is being led by Absyrtus, younger brother of Medea.
Pula and the Argonauts
Pula and the Argonauts
Fleeing across Danube, the Argonauts come to Istria, to islands Cres and Lošinj, where they are caught up by the Cochids and the confrontation occurs. Jason has managed to kill Absyrtus, who was being tricked to a death trap by his own sister. Jason, Medea and the Argonauts continue their escape, while the Colchids, devastated by the loss of Absyrtus decided to stay in Istria, and had founded a town of Pula. Islands Cres and Lošinj, where the battle took place, in the honor of Absyrtus, was called Apsirtidi.
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Strabo, Greek historian and geographer, who lived in 1st century BC, confirmed the thesis of the foundation of Pula, and as proof writes about the couplet from Hellenic poet Callimachus from Cyrene, who wrote it in Alexandria in the 3rd century BC:
stayed their oars in the Sea of Illyria
beside the tomb-stone of blonde Harmonia,
and there built a little city
which a Greek would call
– ‘the city of the exiles’,
but which their language has named Polae.
Photo credits: Istrapedia, Pula-Croatia.
