Golden Fleece

The Golden Fleece was the fleece of a flying golden ram that carried the children Phrixus and Helle away from death in Greece. It was given to Aeetes, king of Colchis, who nailed it to an oak in a sacred grove guarded by a sleepless dragon. Jason sailed with the Argonauts to win it, and succeeded only with the help of Aeetes’ daughter, the sorceress Medea.

The Golden Ram

Athamas, who ruled Boeotia, had a son Phrixus and a daughter Helle by the goddess Nephele. He later married Ino, who plotted against the children of Nephele. She persuaded the women to parch the seed wheat so that the crops failed, and then bribed the messengers sent to Delphi to report that the land would recover if Phrixus were sacrificed to Zeus. When the people forced Athamas to bring Phrixus to the altar, Nephele snatched up her son and daughter and gave them a ram with a golden fleece, which she had received from Hermes (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.1). Apollonius agrees that Hermes made the ram golden (Argonautica 2.1144–1145), while a tale reported by Pausanias says that Zeus sent the ram (Pausanias 9.34.5).

The ram flew over land and sea. As they crossed the water between Sigeum and the Chersonese, Helle slipped from its back and drowned, and the sea was named the Hellespont after her (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.1).

The Fleece in Colchis

Phrixus came to Colchis, whose king Aeetes was a son of the Sun and brother of Circe and Pasiphae. Aeetes welcomed him and gave him his daughter Chalciope, by whom Phrixus had four sons, Argus, Melas, Phrontis and Cytisorus. Phrixus sacrificed the ram to Zeus, the god of escape (Phyxios), and gave the fleece to Aeetes, who nailed it to an oak in a grove sacred to Ares (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.1; Apollonius, Argonautica 2.1141–1156). There it hung guarded by a dragon that never slept (Library 1.9.16). In Apollonius it gleamed like a cloud reddened by the rays of the rising sun (Argonautica 4.123–126), and he compares its size to the hide of a young ox, thick with golden wool that lit up the ground as Jason walked (4.174–178).

Jason’s Quest

Pelias, king of Iolcus, had been warned by an oracle to beware of a man wearing one sandal. When Jason arrived at a sacrifice having lost a sandal crossing a river, Pelias asked him what he would do if he were told that a citizen would murder him. Jason answered that he would send that man to fetch the Golden Fleece, and Pelias sent him on that very quest (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.16). Pindar adds that the ghost of Phrixus was demanding to be brought home from Colchis, together with the thick-fleeced ram skin that had saved him from his stepmother (Pythian 4.159–162). Jason had the ship Argo built, and gathered the heroes known as the Argonauts, who are told on their own page. After a long voyage the Argo reached the river Phasis in Colchis (Library 1.9.23).

Winning the Fleece

Jason asked Aeetes for the fleece, and the king agreed to give it if Jason yoked his two fire-breathing bulls with bronze feet, plowed the field of Ares with them, and sowed it with dragon’s teeth (Library 1.9.23; Apollonius, Argonautica 3.401–421). Armed men would grow from the teeth. Medea fell in love with Jason and, after he swore to marry her and take her to Greece, gave him a drug that protected him from fire and iron for a day, and told him to throw a stone among the armed men so that they would fight each other. Jason did all this, but Aeetes still refused to give up the fleece and planned to burn the Argo.

That night Medea led Jason to the grove. In Apollodorus she lulled the dragon to sleep with her drugs, and Jason seized the fleece and returned to the ship with her and her brother Apsyrtus (Library 1.9.23). In Apollonius, Medea calls on Sleep and charms the serpent with a song and drops of a potion, and Jason takes the fleece from the oak (Argonautica 4.123–166). Other poets disagree about the dragon. In Euripides, Medea herself reminds Jason that she killed the sleepless dragon that guarded the fleece (Medea 480–482), and in Pindar, Jason kills the dragon by craft, as large as a fifty-oared ship, and carries off Medea (Pythian 4.241–250).

After the Fleece

Pursued by Aeetes, Medea killed Apsyrtus and scattered his body in the sea to delay her father. Zeus was angry and sent a storm, and the Argonauts were purified of the murder by Circe. After other adventures, including a passage past the Sirens and the Wandering Rocks, they came to Iolcus (Library 1.9.24–26). Jason gave the fleece to Pelias, but Pelias had mistreated his family, and Medea later brought about his death through his own daughters (Library 1.9.27). Jason dedicated the Argo to Poseidon at the Isthmus of Corinth. The ancient accounts give the fleece no magical power; it is the prize that sets the voyage in motion.

An Ancient Explanation of the Myth

The geographer Strabo reports that in the country of the Soanes in Colchis, winter torrents were said to carry down gold, which the local people collected in troughs lined with fleeces. He notes that this is where the story of the Golden Fleece is said to have come from (Strabo, Geography 11.2.19).