Argonauts- Greek GroupCollective"Heroes of the Argo"

The Golden Fleece

A golden ram descended from the sky to snatch the children Phrixus and Helle from their stepmother's sacrificial altar. It carried them east, but Helle lost her grip and fell into the strait that bears her name — the Hellespont. Phrixus reached Colchis safely, where King Aeetes, son of Helios, received him. He sacrificed the ram to Zeus and hung its golden fleece in the sacred grove of Ares, where a sleepless dragon coiled around the oak that held it. There the fleece remained, a treasure of divine origin at the edge of the known world, until Jason came to claim it.

Its recovery was bound to Jason's claim on the throne of Iolcus. His uncle Pelias had usurped the kingdom from Jason's father Aeson and received an oracle warning him to beware a man wearing one sandal. When Jason arrived at Iolcus having lost a sandal crossing the River Anaurus, Pelias set him the task of retrieving the fleece, certain the young man would die in the attempt.

The Ship Argo

Built by the shipwright Argus under Athena's direct supervision, the Argo was the first ship in Greek tradition designed for the open sea — Homer calls it "the ship that is in all men's minds." Athena herself fitted a beam from the sacred oak of Zeus at Dodona into the prow, giving the vessel the power of speech and prophecy. The talking prow could warn the crew of danger, advise on navigation, and declare the will of the gods. It was fifty-oared, requiring a crew of heroes to man it.

After the voyage, the Argo was dedicated to Poseidon at the Isthmus of Corinth, where it rested as a sacred relic. In a grim coda to Jason's story, the hero died when a beam from the rotting Argo fell on him as he slept beneath it in his old age. The Argo was placed among the stars as the constellation Argo Navis.

Assembly of Heroes

Jason sent heralds throughout Greece, and the response filled the Argo's fifty benches. Among them were Heracles, Orpheus — whose lyre would prove as useful as any sword — the twins Castor and Polydeuces, the winged Boreads Zetes and Calais, and Peleus and Telamon, whose sons Achilles and Ajax would outshine them at Troy. Acastus, Pelias's own son, defied his father to join.

The Voyage Out

The Argonauts launched from Pagasae in Thessaly and sailed north along the coast. Their first significant stop was the island of Lemnos, where the women had murdered their husbands after Aphrodite cursed them with a foul smell for neglecting her worship. Queen Hypsipyle welcomed the Argonauts, and the crew lingered there until Heracles shamed them into continuing the voyage.

In Mysia, the young Hylas, Heracles's beloved companion, went ashore to fetch water and was pulled into a spring by nymphs enchanted by his beauty. Heracles searched frantically through the woods, calling his name, and refused to leave. When the Argo sailed on without him — whether driven by wind or by the crew's decision, the sources disagree — the expedition lost its strongest member. Among the Bebrycians, King Amycus, a brutal son of Poseidon, challenged all visitors to a boxing match. Polydeuces accepted and killed him with a blow behind the ear, freeing travelers from his tyranny.

Phineus and the Clashing Rocks

At Salmydessus in Thrace, the Argonauts found the blind seer Phineus, a king punished by Zeus for revealing too much of the future. The Harpies, monstrous winged creatures with women's faces and vulture bodies, snatched or befouled his food at every meal, leaving him perpetually starving. The Boreads — Zetes and Calais, winged sons of the north wind — chased the Harpies across the sky until Iris, Zeus's messenger, intervened, and the creatures swore never to return.

In gratitude, Phineus revealed the route to Colchis and told the Argonauts how to pass the Symplegades — the Clashing Rocks at the entrance to the Black Sea that crushed any vessel between them. Following his advice, Jason released a dove ahead. When the rocks snapped shut and caught only the bird's tail feathers, the Argonauts rowed through with all their strength as the rocks recoiled. They passed safely, losing only the stern ornament, and the Symplegades became fixed forever, the passage open to all ships thereafter.

Colchis and the Golden Fleece

At Colchis the Argonauts sought audience with King Aeetes, who guarded the Golden Fleece in a sacred grove of Ares. Aeetes agreed to surrender it only if Jason performed seemingly impossible tasks: yoke the Khalkotauroi — fire-breathing, bronze-hooved bulls forged by Hephaestus — plow a field with them, and sow it with dragon's teeth that would sprout armed warriors.

Hera and Athena, who had guided the voyage from the start, enlisted Aphrodite's help. The love goddess sent Eros to strike Aeetes's daughter Medea — a powerful sorceress and priestess of Hecate — with passion for Jason. Medea provided Jason with a magical ointment that made him invulnerable to fire for a day. He yoked the bulls, plowed the field, and when the Spartoi warriors sprouted from the dragon's teeth, he threw a stone among them so they turned on each other — a stratagem Medea had taught him. Cadmus had used the same trick at Thebes.

Aeetes, furious and suspicious, plotted to destroy the Argonauts. But Medea led Jason to the sacred grove by night, where the Colchian Dragon, an ever-wakeful serpent, guarded the fleece. She sang the dragon to sleep with incantations, and Jason seized the Golden Fleece from the oak where it hung, its radiance lighting the night like fire.

The Return Voyage

The flight from Colchis was desperate and stained with blood. Medea fled with the Argonauts. In Apollodorus's telling, she killed her brother Absyrtus aboard ship and scattered his limbs in the sea so Aeetes would stop to gather them for burial. Apollonius has Jason ambush the boy ashore, with Medea as the lure. Either way, the murder brought divine pollution upon the crew and forced them to seek purification, altering their homeward route.

In Apollonius's telling, the Argo sailed up the Danube, across rivers to the Adriatic, south past the island of Circe — Medea's aunt — who purified Jason and Medea of blood-guilt but refused them hospitality. They passed the Sirens, whose song Orpheus drowned out with his lyre, though Butes still jumped overboard and was rescued by Aphrodite. Through the strait of Scylla and Charybdis, Thetis and the Nereids guided the ship safely. On the island of the Phaeacians, Jason and Medea married in haste to prevent Medea's extradition to the Colchian fleet.

In Libya the crew was stranded when a wave carried the Argo inland, and they had to carry the ship overland across the desert for twelve days. On Crete they encountered the bronze giant Talos, who patrolled the island by hurling boulders at ships. Medea destroyed him by removing the bronze nail that sealed his single vein of divine ichor, and the giant's life-fluid drained away.

Aftermath

The Argonauts returned to Iolcus, but Pelias refused to honor his bargain. Medea convinced Pelias's daughters that she could rejuvenate their aging father by cutting him up and boiling him in a cauldron with magic herbs — demonstrating the trick on an old ram that emerged as a lamb. When the daughters tried it on Pelias, Medea withheld the herbs, and the king died gruesomely. Jason and Medea were driven from Iolcus and settled in Corinth, where their story continued to its tragic end — the scorned sorceress murdering her own children when Jason abandoned her for a new bride.