In Greek mythology, the Argonauts were a legendary group of fifty heroes who accompanied Jason on his quest aboard the ship, the Argo, to obtain the Golden Fleece. This quest arose after Jason’s uncle, Pelias, seized the throne of Iolcos in Thessaly, rightfully belonging to Jason’s father, Aeson. Pelias pledged to relinquish his throne to Jason if he could successfully retrieve the Golden Fleece from the distant land of Colchis.
The story of the Golden Fleece dates back to an earlier tale involving Jason’s uncle Athamas. He had two children, Phrixus and Helle, from his first wife Nephele, a goddess associated with clouds. Athamas’ second wife, Ino, despised her stepchildren and convinced him to sacrifice Phrixus to end a devastating famine. However, Nephele intervened, providing Phrixus with a ram adorned in a golden fleece, which he and his sister attempted to escape on. Tragically, Helle fell into the sea and drowned, giving her name to the Hellespont. Phrixus safely reached Colchis, where he sacrificed the ram and hung its fleece in a sacred grove dedicated to Ares, vigilantly guarded by a sleepless dragon.
Jason, embarking on the monumental task of retrieving the fleece, summoned the finest heroes from Greece. Initially, the crew was composed of the Minyans, Jason’s kin, but soon included famous heroes such as Castor and Polydeuces among others.
Their journey led them to Lemnos, an island inhabited only by women, where they spent several months. Afterward, they navigated to the lands of the Doliones, ruled by King Cyzicus. Although warmly welcomed initially, the Argonauts were later met with hostility during a storm that forced them back, resulting in a tragic battle where Jason inadvertently killed Cyzicus. Continuing their journey, they encountered the Bebryces, where King Amycus compelled passing strangers to challenge him to a boxing match. Polydeuces bravely accepted the duel and ultimately defeated the king.
As they approached the Euxine Sea, they met Phineus, an elderly, blind king tormented by the Harpies. After being liberated by the sons of Boreas, Phineus provided crucial guidance to the Argonauts for their journey to Colchis, including how to navigate the treacherous Symplegades, two monstrous cliffs that crushed anything attempting to pass. Following Phineus’s advice, Jason sent a dove through the rocks, suffering only minor damage, allowing the Argo to glide through while the cliffs were rebounding. Henceforth, the rocks became fixed in place.
Upon reaching Colchis, Jason faced the formidable demands of King Aeëtes, who would only surrender the fleece if Jason could yoke the king’s fearsome, fire-breathing bulls to a plow and then sow the field of Ares with dragon’s teeth which would birth armed warriors. Fortunately, Medea, Aeëtes’ daughter and a powerful sorceress who had fallen for Jason, bestowed upon him a magical ointment to protect him from the bulls. She also advised him to throw a stone at the emerging warriors, inciting them to battle amongst themselves. Once Jason completed these challenges, Aeëtes still refused to yield the fleece. However, with Medea’s aid, who enchanted the dragon guarding the fleece into a deep slumber, Jason successfully claimed the fleece, along with Medea.
The homeward journey of the Argonauts is less consistently detailed, though they eventually returned to Iolcos, where the Argo was sanctified in a grove dedicated to Poseidon on the Isthmus of Corinth. This epic journey and its associated events are referenced by Homer in the “Odyssey” and recounted more fully in the “Argonautica,” an epic by Apollonius of Rhodes from the 3rd century BCE, with additional accounts emerging later in Latin poetry. In antiquity, the expedition was perceived as both a mythical narrative and a historical reality that represented the Greek expansion into the Black Sea for commerce and colonization.
