Argonauts

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Jason was 20 years old when an oracle told him to dress as a Magnesian and walk to the court of Iolcus. He arrived with only one sandal, having lost the other crossing the muddy Anauros river while carrying an old woman he did not recognize as the goddess Hera. That missing sandal was enough to put an entire kingdom on edge. King Pelias had been warned for years about a one-sandaled man who would be his undoing. What followed from that encounter was one of the most elaborate expeditions in all of Greek mythology: a voyage to the edge of the known world, crewed by some of the greatest heroes who ever lived, in pursuit of a fleece that hung from a tree in a land called Colchis, guarded by a dragon that never slept. Who were these heroes, and what drove them across uncharted seas? What dangers did they face when the gods themselves intervened, sometimes to help and sometimes to punish? And what did the voyage cost them before they ever reached home?

• 2. A Throne Stolen, A Quest Designed

  ›

  After the death of King Cretheus, a man named Pelias seized the throne of Iolcus in Thessaly, near the modern city of Volos. Pelias was Cretheus's stepson, not his heir. He had taken the throne from his own half-brother Aeson, and to secure his hold on power he put to death every prominent descendant of Aeolus he could find. Aeson he kept alive only at their mother Tyro's pleading, imprisoning him and forcing him to renounce his inheritance. When Aeson's wife Alcimede bore a son, Jason, Pelias meant to kill the baby at once. Alcimede summoned her kinswomen to weep over the child as if he were stillborn, faked a burial, and smuggled the infant to Mount Pelion, where the centaur Chiron, trainer of heroes, raised him.

  The meeting at Iolcus, then, was no accident. Hera had been angry with Pelias for years, since he had killed his stepgrandmother Sidero while she sought refuge in Hera's own temple. When Jason carried an old woman across the Anauros river, he was unknowingly earning the goddess's gratitude. And when Pelias, unable to kill his nephew in front of the assembled Aeolian kings, asked what punishment Jason would choose for a man fated to kill him, it was Hera who put the answer in Jason's mouth: send him after the Golden Fleece. The quest was a trap Pelias constructed to kill Jason. He swore before Zeus to hand over the throne if Jason returned, fully expecting the young man to die in the attempt.

• 3. The Crew of the Argo

  ›

  The ship Argo was named after its builder, Argus, son of Arestor or Polybus. The heroes who sailed aboard it took their name from the vessel itself. Scholar H. J. Rose noted that "an Argonautic ancestor was an addition to even the proudest of pedigrees," which explains why ancient sources disagree so widely about who made up the crew. No single definitive list exists; the roster was compiled from multiple ancient sources that do not always agree.

  Among the heroes who appear across the greatest number of sources are figures familiar from other myths: Heracles, son of Zeus and Alcmene; the twin warriors Castor and Pollux from Sparta; Orpheus, the musician from Thracian Pieria; and Peleus, who would later father Achilles. The helmsman Tiphys, from Thespia in Boeotia, guided the ship. Idmon, son of Apollo, served as seer despite knowing from his gift of prophecy that the voyage would cost him his life. Meleager of Calydon came aboard, as did Theseus, the Athenian hero who had killed the Minotaur, though some accounts place his participation in doubt. Laertes, father of Odysseus, also appears on several lists. Jason himself, son of Aeson and Alcimede of Iolcus, led the expedition alongside roughly forty-nine other crewmates according to various accounts.

  Atalanta of Arcadia, daughter of Schoeneus, appears on at least one list, though Apollonius records that Jason refused her on the grounds that a woman aboard an all-male crew would cause strife. The uncertainty over who actually sailed speaks to how deeply the myth had spread through the Greek world: by the classical period, almost any heroic lineage could claim a connection to the voyage.

• 4. Women of Lemnos and Lost Heroes

  ›

  Lemnos was the Argonauts' first port of call, and what they found there was not what any traveler would expect. Every man on the island had been killed. The women of Lemnos had neglected Aphrodite, and the goddess cursed them with a smell so foul that their husbands took Thracian captive women in their place. Enraged, the Lemnian women conspired to kill every father and husband on the island. The only exception was King Thoas, whose daughter Hypsipyle secretly put him on a boat; a storm carried him to the island of Taurica.

  Hypsipyle had become queen, and she welcomed the Argonauts on the advice of a councilor named Polyxo. Jason became Hypsipyle's partner, and they had sons together, Euneus and Nebrophonus or Deipylus by different accounts. The other Argonauts consorted with the Lemnian women, and their descendants were called Minyans, after an ancient tribe that had previously emigrated from Orchomenus to Iolcus. The crew lingered for many days until Heracles grew impatient and chided them into departing.

  Hylas, the young companion of Heracles, met his fate in Mysia. He had been sent to draw water when nymphs, drawn by his beauty, pulled him beneath the surface. Polyphemus heard his cry, and he and Heracles went searching while the Argo put to sea. Polyphemus never rejoined the expedition; he founded the city of Cius in Mysia and reigned as king. The historian Herodorus offered a different version entirely, claiming Heracles never sailed at all and was instead serving at the court of Omphale. Another source, Pherecydes, said the Argo herself spoke aloud and declared she could not bear Heracles' weight. Demaratus countered that Heracles did in fact reach Colchis and was even the expedition's leader. The disagreement was never resolved.

• 5. Boxing Kings and Blind Seers

  ›

  At the land of the Bebryces, King Amycus, son of Poseidon and a Bithynian nymph named Melie, had a brutal tradition: any stranger who entered his kingdom was forced to box him, and those he defeated he killed. When he challenged the Argonauts, Pollux took up the fight and killed Amycus with a blow on the elbow. The Bebryces attacked in retaliation, but the Argonauts drove them off.

  At Salmydessus in Thrace, they encountered Phineus, a seer who had received the gift of prophecy from Apollo. His blindness was variously attributed: Zeus had taken his sight because he revealed the gods' deliberations too freely; or Boreas and the Argonauts blinded him because he had blinded his own sons at their stepmother's prompting; or Poseidon, because he disclosed to the children of Phrixus how to sail from Colchis to Greece. Whatever the cause, Zeus had set the Harpies on him as punishment. These winged female creatures swooped down whenever a meal was laid before Phineus, snatching away almost all the food and fouling the rest so badly no one could eat it.

  Phineus agreed to advise the Argonauts on their route in exchange for relief from the Harpies. Zetes and Calais, the winged sons of Boreas, chased the creatures through the air with drawn swords. It had been fated that the Harpies would die if caught by the sons of Boreas, but also that those sons would die if they failed to catch a fugitive. One Harpy fell into the river Tigres in the Peloponnese, which was then renamed Harpys in her memory. The other fled to the Echinadian Islands, later called the Strophades, where she collapsed at the shore in exhaustion. Apollonius gives a different ending: the Harpies were driven to the Strophades but spared, after swearing an oath never to trouble Phineus again.

• 6. The Clashing Rocks and Colchis

  ›

  Phineus told the Argonauts about the Symplegades, enormous rocky cliffs that crashed together with such force that even birds could not pass between them. His advice was precise: release a dove first, and if it passed through safely, row hard and follow. They did as instructed. The dove lost the tip of its tail to the closing rocks. The Argonauts rowed through in the opening interval, with Hera's help, and the ship lost only the tip of its ornamented stern. From that moment, the Clashing Rocks stood still permanently, for it had been fated that they would stop moving once a ship completed the passage.

  On the far side, sorrow came quickly. While the crew gathered straw among the Mariandynians, whose king Lycus welcomed them because the Argonauts had killed his longtime enemy Amycus, the seer Idmon was gored by a wild boar and died. Then Tiphys, the helmsman from Thespia, died on the same island. Ancaeus took over the steering. Stymphalian Birds attacked them on the island of Dia, using their own feathers as weapons. Following Phineus's earlier instructions, the Argonauts clashed shields and spears to drive them away with noise, as the Curetes had done in their own time.

  At the river Phasis in the Colchian land, the sons of Phrixus guided Jason ashore. Through their mother Chalciope, who was also Medea's sister, word reached Medea herself. The source records that when Medea saw Jason, she recognized him as the man she had already loved in dreams, the recognition prompted by Hera's urging. Aeëtes, the king of Colchis and son of Helios, held the fleece because an oracle had told him his kingdom depended on keeping it at the shrine of Ares.

• 7. Medea, the Fleece, and the Price of Escape

  ›

  Aeëtes agreed to give Jason the Golden Fleece on one condition: he had to yoke two fire-breathing bulls with brazen feet, gifts from Hephaestus, plow a field with them, and sow dragon's teeth that Athena had given Aeëtes from the same supply Cadmus had used in Thebes. From those teeth, armed men would rise from the earth and had to be destroyed. Jason had no hope of surviving this task without help.

  Medea, daughter of Aeëtes and the Oceanid Idyia, was a witch. Fearing Jason's death and keeping the arrangement secret from her father, she gave Jason a drug with which he was to anoint his shield, spear, and body. For one full day after applying it, neither fire nor iron could harm him. She also told him the trick with the earthborn soldiers: throw stones from a distance into their midst, and they would turn on each other. Jason survived. He yoked the bulls, plowed the field, and killed the earthborn soldiers as they fought among themselves. Aeëtes refused to hand over the fleece anyway, planning instead to burn the Argo and kill the crew. That night, Medea led Jason to the shrine, drugged the sleepless dragon, and took the fleece herself. The Argo sailed before dawn.

  Escape from Colchis carried its own terrible cost. When Aeëtes set out in pursuit, Medea murdered her own brother Apsyrtus and dismembered his body, throwing the pieces into the sea. Aeëtes stopped to collect the scattered remains and fell behind. He named the place Tomi after the act. Zeus, furious at the murder, sent a storm that drove the Argo off course, and the ship itself spoke, telling the crew they must travel to Aeaea to be purified by the sorceress Circe before the god's anger would lift.

• 8. Talos and the Voyage Home

  ›

  Purified by Circe, the Argonauts sailed past the Sirens, whose singing drew sailors to their deaths. Orpheus countered with his own music, and most of the crew held firm. One man, Butes, broke away and swam toward the Sirens, but Aphrodite plucked him from the water and set him down at Lilybaion. After the Sirens came Charybdis, Scylla, and the Wandering Rocks, above which fire and smoke rose visibly. Hera summoned Thetis and the Nereids to steer the ship through.

  At the island of the Phaeacians, ruled by King Alcinous, the pursuing Colchians caught up. Alcinous agreed to arbitrate the dispute over Medea. He told his wife Arete privately that his judgment would rest on whether Medea was still a virgin; if she were, he would return her to Colchis. Arete warned Jason that night. He and Medea lay together in a cave. When the court convened the next day, Medea was found to be a wife, and Alcinous gave her to Jason.

  Near Crete, a bronze giant named Talos ran circuits around the island three times every day, pelting any ship that came close with stones. Some said he was a survivor of the Brazen Race; others that Hephaestus gave him to King Minos. He had a single vein running from his neck to his ankles, sealed at the end with a bronze nail. Medea brought him down, either by driving him mad with drugs or by drawing out the nail so that his ichor drained away. A third account names the archer Poeas as the one who shot him through the ankle. After a single night at Aigina, the Argonauts rowed between Euboea and Locris and returned to Iolcus. The entire voyage had taken four months.