When they began running in that way, the enemy stood their ground no longer, but betook themselves to flight, one in one direction, one in another, and the Hellenes scaled the hill and found quarters in numerous villages which contained supplies in abundance.  Here, generally speaking, there was nothing to excite their wonderment, but the numbers of bee-hives were indeed astonishing, and so were certain properties of the honey[4].  The effect upon the soldiers who tasted the combs was, that they all went for the nonce quite off their heads, and suffered from vomiting and diarrhoea, with a total inability to stand steady on their legs.  A small dose produced a condition not unlike violent drunkenness, a large one an attack very like a fit of madness, and some dropped down, apparently at death’s door.  So they lay, hundreds of them, as if there had been a great defeat, a prey to the cruellest despondency.  But the next day, none had died; and almost at the same hour of the day at which they had eaten they recovered their senses, and on the third or fourth day got on their legs again like convalescents after a severe course of medical treatment.

[4] “Modern travellers attest the existence, in these regions, of
    honey intoxicating and poisonous. . . .  They point out the Azalea
    Pontica as the flower from which the bees imbibe this peculiar
    quality.”—­Grote, “Hist. of Greece,” vol. ix. p. 155.

From this place they marched on two stages—­seven parasangs—­and 22 reached the sea at Trapezus[5], a populous Hellenic city on the Euxine Sea, a colony of the Sinopeans, in the territory of the Colchians.  Here they halted about thirty days in the villages of the Colchians, which they used as a base of operations to ravage the whole territory of Colchis.  The men of Trapezus supplied the army with a market, entertained them, and gave them, as gifts of hospitality, oxen and wheat and wine.  Further, they negotiated with them in behalf of their neighbours the Colchians, who dwelt in the plain for the most part, and from this folk also came gifts of hospitality in the shape of cattle.  And now the Hellenes made preparation for the sacrifice which they had vowed, and a sufficient number of cattle came in for them to offer thank-offerings for safe guidance to Zeus the Saviour, and to Heracles[6], and to the other gods, according to their vows.  They instituted also a gymnastic contest on the mountain side, just where they were quartered, and chose Dracontius, a Spartan (who had been banished from home when a lad, having unintentionally slain another boy with a blow of his dagger), to superintend the course, and be president of the games

[5] Trebizond.

[6] Or, “to sacrifice to Zeus the Preserver, and to Heracles
    thank-offerings for safe guidance,” Heracles “the conductor”
    having special sympathy with wanderers.