The Voyage Of Argonauts
The Argonautica is a Greek epic poem written by Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC. The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the Argonautica tells the myth of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to retrieve the Golden Fleece from remote Colchis.
Well before the time of Jason, there lived two children, the boy Phrixos and his sister Helle, who were born of the union of King Athamas of Orchomenus and the cloud goddess Nephele. However, the King was seduced by the Queen of Thebes, Ino, and took her for his second wife. Ino, being jealous of his children, tricked Athamas into sacrificing them to the gods, as a sign of appeasement to end the long famine that was ruining their land. All of a sudden, during the sacrifice, a winged creature with a golden fleece appeared and took the two children away on its back to the far away land of Colchis. While flying over the sea, tragically Helle fell off the creature's back and drowned. The sea where Helle fell was named Hellespont after her.
The creature carried Phrixos safely to Colchis, where he later married the daughter of King Aeetes, sacrificed the creature to the gods and offered the king the Golden Fleece to give thanks for his hospitality. Sometime later, King Aeetes happened to hear a prophecy that not only foretold the loss of his kingdom to a stranger wishing to steal the Golden Fleece but also a betrayal by some member of his family. Aeetes killed Phrixos because he believed that he was the stranger man of the prophecy and nailed the Golden Fleece to a tree. He then had the tree and the Golden Fleece guarded by two fire breathing, bronze-hoofed bulls, known as the Khalkouri, and a dragon, to prevent anyone from stealing the fleece.
Greece 1935 Phrixos and Helle on the golden fleece sheep
After the death of King Cretheus, the Aeolian Pelias usurped the throne from his half-brother Aeson and became king of Iolcus in Thessaly (near the modern city of Volos). Because of this unlawful act, an oracle warned him that a descendant of Aeolus would seek revenge. Pelias put to death every prominent descendant of Aeolus he could, but spared Aeson because of the pleas of their mother Tyro. Instead, Pelias kept Aeson prisoner and forced him to renounce his inheritance. Aeson married Alcimede, who bore him a son named Jason. Pelias intended to kill the baby at once, but Alcimede summoned her kinswomen to weep over him as if he were stillborn. She faked a burial and smuggled the baby to Mount Pelion. He was raised by the centaur Chiron, the trainer of heroes.
When Jason was 20 years old, an oracle ordered him to dress as a Magnesian and head to the Iolcan court. While traveling Jason lost his sandal crossing the muddy Anauros river while helping an old woman (Hera in disguise). The goddess was angry with King Pelias for killing his stepgrandmother Sidero after she had sought refuge in Hera's temple.
Another oracle warned Pelias to be on his guard against a man with one shoe. Pelias was presiding over a sacrifice to Poseidon with several neighboring kings in attendance. Among the crowd stood a tall youth in leopard skin with only one sandal. Pelias recognized that Jason was his nephew. He could not kill him because prominent kings of the Aeolian family were present. Instead, he asked Jason: "What would you do if an oracle announced that one of your fellow-citizens were destined to kill you?" Jason replied that he would send him to go and fetch the Golden Fleece, not knowing that Hera had put those words in his mouth.
Denmark 1938 Statue of Jason with the Golden Fleece. A sculpture made by Albert Bertel Thorvaldsen Danish sculptor (1770-1844)
Greece 1958 The ship "Argo" which was built for the journey helped by Athena.
Map showing the route taken by the Argo.
Denmark 2003 Statue of Jason with the Golden Fleece. A sculpture made by Albert Bertel Thorvaldsen Danish sculptor (1770-1844)
Greece 1995 Athena with the Argonauts, the departure to Kolchis
a harpy (plural harpies, is a half-human and half-bird, often believed to be a personification of storm winds.
Greece 1995 Chasing away the Harpies by Phineas (blind seer), and god Hermes
Greece 1995 Jason tamed the bull with Medea
Greece 1995 Jason takes Golden Fleece, kills serpent with Medea’s help
Greece 1995 Jason Presenting the Golden Fleece to Pelias
Georgia 1998 Fragment of a Terracotta Dish showing Argo
Georgia 1998 Preparation for Battle
Georgia 1998 Jason being regurgitated by the dragon who keeps the Golden Fleece (center, hanging on the tree); Athena stands to the right. Red-figured kylix, c. 480–470 BC. From Cerveteri (Etruria). Vaticans Museums by Duris
Georgia 1998 Boreas, God of the north wind, storms, and winter, Phineus and the Harpies
Georgia 1998 Punishment of King Amicus .This red figure hydria from c. 425 BCE, depicts the Argonauts binding Amycus, a hostile king
The Argonauts reach a gulf in the Propontis, home to the Bebrycians, whose king Amycus demands a boxing match with the champion of these "sea-wanderers"
Georgia 1998 Argonauts in Colchis
This red figure cup by the Douris Painter, c. 480-470 BCE is one of the oldest images of Jason. It depicts a variant version of the myth, not recorded in any written source, in which Jason descends into the Dragon and returns with the aid of Athena. This piece is important evidence for popular Jason traditions ignored or altered by later Greek poets.
Liechtenstein 2010 Surrender of the Golden Fleece to Jason. ceiling frescoes by Johann Michael Rottmayr (1654-1730) Austrian painter. Liechtenstein museum.
Greece 2009 Talos and the Dioskuroi depicted on a 5th century BC krater now in the Jatta National Archaeological Museum in Ruvo di Puglia
Talos, was a giant automaton made of bronze to protect Europa in Crete from pirates and invaders. He circled the island's shores three times daily.
The connection to Jason
Talos had one vein, which went from his neck to his ankle, bound shut by only one bronze nail. The Argo, transporting Jason and the Argonauts, approached Crete after obtaining the Golden Fleece. As guardian of the island, Talos kept the Argo at bay by hurling great boulders at it. According to (pseudo-)Apollodorus, Talos was slain when Medea the sorceress either drove him mad with drugs, or deceived him into believing that she would make him immortal by removing the nail. In Argonautica, Medea hypnotized him from the Argo, driving him mad with the keres (female death-spirits) that she raised, so that he dislodged the nail, and "the ichor ran out of him like molten lead", exsanguinating and killing him. Translator Peter Green notes that the Argonautica's Talos story is somewhat reminiscent of the story of Achilles' heel
Crete 1900 Talos the Guardian of the island a silver didrachma coin from Phaistos
The coin from Phaistos Talos, nude, standing facing, wings spread, hurling stone in his right hand, holding another in his left Circa 300-270 BC
Ajman 1972 Medea before killing her children from the House of Dioscuri, Pompeii (fresco)
Greece 2000 Talos the Guardian of the island a coin from Phaistos. 100 years for the stamps of Crete.
The real fresco
Medea is the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis. In the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, she aids Jason in his search for the Golden Fleece. She later marries him, but eventually kills his children and his other bride. Medea is known in most stories as a sorceress and is often depicted as a priestess of the goddess Hecate. She first appears in Hesiod's Theogony around 700 BCE, but is best known from Euripides's tragedy Medea and Apollonius of Rhodes's epic Argonautica.
Ajman 1972 Medea contemplating the murder of her sons, from Herculaneum (fresco) now in the National News Photo Getty Images
The real fresco
Germany 1976 Friederike Caroline Neuber (1697-1760) a German actress and theatre director as Medea