I'm reading Robert Graves' The Greek Myths. I am aware that his analysis has been met with criticism but I am finding his perspective unique. In the section on Jason, he mentions that since the myth of the Argonauts was written there has been conflict in how to reconcile the fact that they travel to the East (Colchis) but upon their return encounter beings and geography of the West (Sirens, Libya, etc.) and that to explain this, many have gone to extremes with very liberal theories as to how the Argo ends up near Italy.
Graves however says that the oldest Minyan version of the tale almost certainly had their destination and the court of Aeetes in the Adriatic, near the River Po. Homer, for instance, mentions the Argonauts, but never Colchis, and that it was only much later versions that specified a geographic location of the fleece (added to this that Colchis as a political entity only appears in records from the 8th century BC) and made that destination in what would have been the most extreme Eastern part of the world from a Greek perspective.
My question, finally, is: does anyone have knowledge of any scholarship or academic validation regarding this theory, that the oldest version of Jason's journey were to the coast of Italy?
"Then they came upon the expanse known as the Crater of Sorrows: forty kilometres across, scarred into the wastes in a bygone age and littered with the debris of a broken skycity. Rich pickings for any who dared its rim, but such treasure hunters were few and far between for the crater was cursed by the Powers, haunted by a drake-beast that lived beneath the sands and devoured entire expeditions.
The nomads had many names for the monster, whose presence forced them to divert by a day and more on their journeys between the oases at Fourrh, Khornasa, Al Nerga and Ashadsa.
Khaane’s Serpent it was called, and the Doom of Cities. Mostly it was known in Declined legend as the Kingwyrm.
262
It was with some anxiety that the caravan crossed the ridged rock into the bowl of the crater early one Mornday. Patrol yachts and lookouts scoured the sands for any sign of the diabolic creature. At word from Lorgar they left their vehicles on rocky ground and ventured out on foot, swathed in robes and carrying thick shades against the strengthening sun.
The winds swiftly eradicated all trace of their route, but the slowly rising orb of the Powers gave them the means to navigate for the heart of the Crater of Sorrows. Some four kilometres they had traversed when there came a shout from scouts on sunstriders riding a few hundred metres ahead.
Lorgar spied it next with his immortal eyes, but it was only
moments before Kor Phaeron saw that which had raised the alarm. A ridge of sand, near ten metres high, ploughing through the dunes on a course parallel to their own. Axata called the several hundred to order, at first gathering them en masse to meet the Kingwyrm as they watched its course change, circling around them now that they had stopped. How it knew of their position was
impossible to tell.
‘No!’ Lorgar called out to them. ‘Spread out. Give it no single-
target.’
Heeding these wise words, the converts split into smaller groups,
putting several dozen metres between themselves as the bulge in the ground that was the Kingwyrm turned sharply and arrowed towards them. At the centre stood Lorgar, mace in his hands, shade discarded so that he might move freely, sweat running in thick rivers from his bald scalp. His skin was the colour of liquid gold in the low sunlight, inhuman muscles bulging beneath.
About half a kilometre distant, the hump in the sands disappeared.
263
With the progress of their foe hidden from sight, the converts started to panic, shouting
... keep reading on reddit ➡Years ago I read a book with Medea from Colchis. She was a shapeshifter/illusionist sorceress among other things and she had a scar on her right or left eye. I know the information is sparse and I may have mixed up a few things but any help would be appreciated
By "Colchis" I mean every part of it. I think they spoke Svan in Svaneti. Megrelian in Megrelia, some sort of Adyghean language in Abkhazia, and Imeretian dialect in Ajara and Guria. Also Laz in Lazica. But the question is how did they communicate? I mean that's a kingdom, they should have spoken the same language.
By "Abkhazia kingdom" I mean the kingdom that covered whole western Georgia. I don't know how they communicated, and if they communicated at all.
Kingdom of Imereti. Imeretian dialect of Georgian I guess...
Quick Note: Bold is the name of something, Italics is a tech or civic, and if you have an question about any of the civs abilities then comment down below
Leader: Maria IV Hospitaller
- Leader Ability: Velvet Empress – Can declare a special type of Alliance: Imperial Protectorate with civilizations that have fewer than half the number of cities that Colchis has settled. You join in Wars of Liberation, Wars of Reclamation, and Protectorate Wars, as well as all defensive wars, declared by the civilization with the Imperial Protectorate alliance. Does not receive relationship penalties from Leader Agendas. +1 Diplomatic Favour from Alliances per level. +100% Alliance Points from civilizations following a different majority religion to Colchis.
Nation: Colchis
- Unique National Ability: Divine Shield of Europe – Can purchase Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Walls with Gold. All units gain +3 combat strength when defending, +5 when defending in City Centers or Districts. Units are 20% cheaper to purchase with Gold and Faith and have their maintenance cost reduced by 1 gold for 10 turns after receiving a declaration of war, 50% cheaper if Colchis is the target of a Holy War.
- Unique Unit: Colchian Ravens – Colchian unique Renaissance era unit that replaces the Cavalry and is unlocked sooner (Siege Tactics). Has a Ranged Attack, Range 2. Deals full damage to cities with Renaissance walls. No Movement penalty in hills terrain. Cannot build Bombards while you have Colchian Ravens.
- Unique Infrastructure: Royal Gardens – Unlocks the Builder ability to construct a Royal Garden, unique to Colchis. Unlocked with Feudalism. +2 Food and Production. +1 Amenity +1 Science for each adjacent Encampment, Aerodrome and Campus. +1 Culture and Faith for each adjacent Holy Site, Theater Square, Entertainment Complex, and Water Park. +1 Gold for each adjacent Commercial Hub and Harbor. Can be built on Plains, Plains Hills, Grasslands, Grasslands Hills, Desert Floodplains, and adjacent to Oasis. Cannot be built on Snow, Tundra, Snow Hills, or Tundra Hills.
Intro: Stand tall, Maria Hospitaller, for you have gained the crown through right of blade and birth. Now, you must prove to the people that you will protect Europe from all that threatens her shores. Go amongst the foreign courts and find one to call Consort, for it is only within the binds of marriage, and the allies you gain, that Colchis can protect itself from those who would seek to des
... keep reading on reddit ➡I've always wondered what the reason was behind this, sure the local recruits would be closer to their primarchs but it was always planned to be a empire ruled by men, not by the primarchs. This is one of the reasons why the roman empire was so unstable, the legions tended to be more loyal to their generals then the emperor.
And we saw this in practice when it comes to the Horus Heresy, many of the terran born legionnaires stayed loyal when their own gene father rebelled and even died for the emperor instead of joining their primarch.
Besides considering the sheer population of terra this certainly wouldn't be a problem, all of the original legions came from terra and this would ensure quality control as the custodes would be there to ensure everything was going smoothly, everything from chaos cults seeping into the Word Bearers to the Night Lord's recruits all being brutal criminals and even the manpower issues of the Death Guard.
Of course for certain legions like the Thousand Sons their home world was crucial for having a psychic legion as was it for the Space Wolves due to their unique primarch, this would probably necessitate a verification process and desire on the part of the primarch for recruiting from their homeworld.
This would allow the aforementioned legions to perform at their most effective but prevent corruption coming from the roots to poison their legions, with a basic verification process the chaos taint on Colchis and the brutal society on Nostromo could easily be avoided.
Certainly the majority of legions are more or less generic and don't require any special culture or population to perform at their peak efficiency, and a verification process would allow them to still source recruits from their "not insane" homeworlds, places like Olympia Inwit Ultramar Baal and Chemos foremost among them.
Requiring a ratio of 1:1 could cause a schism within the legions and between the primarchs and their father but it would also ensure that at least more then half of the legion would be destroyed in infighting if a rebellion ever occurred. Of course this could be doled out as necessary, recruits from Ultramar Inwit specifically wouldn't need to be scrutinized as they were already morally good and civilized.
Context: Due to the size of Colchis, it’s time-keeping system has been severely adjusted so that humans can survive its ninety-hour days. Gav Thorpe describes it in detail at the start of the Lorgar novella.
> The world of Colchis is of a magnitude larger than Holy Terra, and consequently even approximations if time by the accepted nomenclature of ‘Terran standard’ are unsuccessful in conveying the very different diurnal and nocturnal cycle of its inhabitants. Before we begin, the reader should familiarize themselves with the following information.
> The orbit of Colchis around its star takes nearly five years - four point eight to be more precise. Therefore if a Colchisian refers to being six years old, they are in fact twenty-eight or twenty-nine Terran years old.
> A Colchisian solar day, that is, one complete planetary rotation, is seven point one Terran days, or one hundred and seventy point four Terran hours. Clearly even humans, as adaptable as they are, cannot survive with a ninety-hour day/night cycle, and so Colchisian culture developed a system for intermediary sleep and waking periods.
> These periods are often referred to as ‘days’ in many volumes but this can be confusing and portray an erroneous image of events. In this text I have endeavoured to achieve a more literal translation of the Colchisian terminology, which is derived from the language of the ancient desert settlers.
> ‘Day’, in the following manuscript, refers to a complete orbital turn of the planet, from sunrise to sunrise.
> This day is further divided into the following times of approximately twenty-four hours each (the exact length depends further upon seasons and locality, and chronometer on Colchis is a dedicated and difficult scientific discipline in its own right):
> Dawnaway
> Mornday
> Long Noon
> Post-noon
> Duskeve
> Coldfall
> High Night
> These sub-days are then broken down into three further periods, two of wakefulness and one of sleep, approximately eight hours each. These three periods are called wake-rise, wake-main and rest-eve, with the last being the sleep period (although frequently inhabitants may sleep less than eight hours during Mornday, Long Noon and Post-noon, and slightly longer during the darkness of the remaining time).
> One might therefore refer to wake-rise of Dawnaway, being sometime in the first eight hours of the first twenty-four-bout period of a new Colchisian day. Custom has it
... keep reading on reddit ➡As far as i know there's little to almost no information about their culture(traditions,language etc.). It is said that after countless raids and occupations lazica was supposed to be "reincarnation" of colchis but how do we know that, just because of territorial similarity? (Sorry for bad english)
Had to write this up for a comment, since I couldn't locate this anywhere, so thought it would be good to have here for people searching for this, aka the few faithful that remain who feel the WB might get more flak than is justified in comparision to the loose collection of brain-damaged, depressive or outright homicidal psychopaths who make up the rest of the traitors or even the loyalists.
Page 159/160 The First Heretic
> At last, Lorgar smiled, bleak and unamused. 'Perhaps he (the Emperor) did bring meaning. But he did not bring the meaning humanity needs. That's what matters.'
> 'Go on', Mangus said. 'Finish the thought.'
> 'Since then I have crusaded across his empire for over a century, raising icons and faith in his image - and only now he objects? After a hundred years, only now am I told that all I've done is wrong?'
> Mangus kept his silence. The doubt he felt shone through his narrowed eye.
> 'Mangus,' Lorgar smiled as he saw the emotion on his brother's face, 'only the truely divine deny their divinity. It's written thus in countless human cultures. he never denied his godhood when he first came to Colchis to take me into the stars. You were there. He witnessed weeks of celebrations in his honor, never once rebuking me for lauding him as a god. And since then? He has watched me crusade for him, never saying a word about what I've done. Only now, at Monarchia, did he bring down his wrath. When he decided my faith had to be broken, after more than a century.'
Am happy to add more of the surrounding conversation if requested, the actual written and witnessed conversations are out there in books on a shelf near you.
Hello r/totalwar. Did you ever hear the tragedy of Colchis the Greek x Armenian love child? It's a Rome 2 legend.
Colchis is a perfect example of how things were starting to fall apart. Hell, even Armenia is better than them.
"B-b-but Armenia doesn't have the same holding power!" The Eastern faction's biggest strength is their heavy cavalry. Colchis not only sacrifices some mobility for some staying power, their roster mixes Greek and Armenian armies together. Considering the game favours (heavy) infantry over (heavy) cav, on paper this gives them a slight advantage. However, the roster itself only has one unique unit. If you want to mix hoplites with eastern heavy cav, you're probably better off with Poontus or even Bacteria.
Mixing good staying power and flexible armour-piering units is always a good option, as Massalia demonstrated before them. Hoplites and shock cavalry offer more flexibility and options than pikes and shock cav; just ask Macedon. Eastern missile units offer cost effectiveness. Armenia had the best axes before the Dessert Kingdoms. What I'm trying to get at is although they have all of these things, other factions have the same options with the exception of their unique unit.
Look at Cimmeria. Step-Archers and the other nomadic units (except Young Axes in the campaign) can be recruited. Scythian Hoplites sacrifice one AP for 5 bonus vs large. The faction itself mixes strong holding power with very strong flexibility.
Look at Pergamon. Pergamenes Noble Cav is a cost efficient version of high-tier shock cav, sacrificing armour to cost less. Agema Spears make an incredible flanking force or vanguard. Even having access to Galatian Spears allows them to eliminate cav faster than other Hellenic factions.
Colchis is just a Hellenic body, a few Armenian units, and their own elite hoplite. Had it not been for the nomads they probably would be the least playable faction.
Tl:dr Colchis bad. Play if you're good at Rome 2.
Even more than that, Georgian Language is not in Indo-European linguistic family. First of all, big respect to Paradox developers, for this really rich and beautiful game. Although I have feeling that they haven’t looked into Georgian history too deeply, Even starting ruler of Iberia, Azo, he wasn’t actually ethnically Iberian or Colchisian, neither Albanian, he was random guy of unknown origin which was placed to rule central Caucasian Region by Macedonians. I won’t write to much about history, just in my humble opinion These 3 nations are in desperate need of changes, maybe even reworks. Here’s some info about first king of Iberia, Pharnavaz Which actually defeated Azo with help of Colchisian ruler Kuji. Pharnavaz
