Chrysomallus- Greek CreatureCreature · Beast"The Golden Ram"

The Plot Against Phrixus

King Athamas of Orchomenus had two children by the cloud nymph Nephele: Phrixus and Helle. When Athamas took a second wife, the scheming Ino, she plotted to destroy her stepchildren. Ino convinced the women of the kingdom to roast the seed grain, causing crop failure. When Athamas sent to Delphi for guidance, Ino bribed the messengers to bring back a false oracle: only the sacrifice of Phrixus could end the famine. Athamas, with terrible reluctance, prepared to kill his son.

The Golden Flight

As Phrixus stood at the altar, Chrysomallus descended from the sky — sent by Nephele, or in some accounts by Hermes. The ram bore fleece of pure gold, could fly, and could speak. It told the children to climb onto its back and soared eastward, carrying them over land and sea toward Colchis at the far end of the Black Sea. But as they flew over the narrow strait between Europe and Asia, young Helle lost her grip on the ram's golden wool and plunged into the waters below. She drowned, and the strait was thereafter named the Hellespont — "Helle's Sea" — in her memory. Phrixus, grief-stricken but unable to turn back, clung to the ram and continued alone.

Sacrifice and the Fleece

Chrysomallus delivered Phrixus safely to Colchis, ruled by King Aeëtes, son of the sun god Helios. There, following the ram's own instructions, Phrixus sacrificed Chrysomallus to Zeus and gave thanks for his deliverance. He presented the golden fleece to Aeëtes, who hung it in a grove sacred to Ares, guarded by a dragon that never slept. The fleece would remain there until Jason and the Argonauts came to claim it a generation later. The ram itself was placed among the stars as the constellation Aries.