Jason
Aeson, the king of Iolcus, had a son named Jason. When Jason was a baby, his half-uncle Pelias, desiring to claim the throne, killed all of Aeson’s children and asserted himself the king of Iolcus. Jason, however, was saved and sent away to the famous centaur Chiron. In the years that followed, Pelias received a dire warning from the Oracle about a man with one sandal who would arrive from another country.
Chiron was a renowned trainer of heroes who had taught some of the most powerful and famous of the Greek heroes. As Jason matured under Chiron’s tutelage, he became a skilled fighter.
One day, Pelias hosted a festival to honor the god Poseidon, and Jason decided to return to his hometown for the festivities. During his travels, he met an old lady at the side of the river.
“Young man,” she croaked. “I need help crossing the river.”
“Don’t worry, lady,” Jason reassured her. “I’ll carry you across.”
Grateful, the old lady climbed onto Jason’s shoulders, and they journeyed across the murky water. However, with the extra weight of the lady on his shoulders, Jason’s foot got stuck in a patch of mud and one of his sandals ripped off his foot. He trudged on. Finally reaching the other side, he lowered the lady onto solid ground and caught his breath.
“Thank you, sir,” she spoke in a voice that did not suit her age.
Looking up, Jason was astonished to see the gleaming goddess Hera. He groveled at her feet.
“Thank you for this act of kindness,” Lady Hera said. “You are the rightful heir to the Iolcan throne. You helped a helpless old lady, knowing not that it was I. Pelias has forgotten to honor me, the queen of the gods. Therefore, I give you my blessing to take the throne back.”
Arriving in his hometown, Jason burst through the doors of the palace, demanding that Pelius abdicate the throne. Puzzled, Pelias began to snicker until he noticed that the stranger wore only one shoe. Pelias’s smile vanished as his face turned a ghostly white.
Then Pelius asked Jason a rather odd question: “What would you do if you had just met the man who was prophesied to kill you?”
Jason did not skip a beat and replied, “I would tell him to bring me the Golden Fleece.”
Still stunned, Pelius ordered Jason to do exactly that, promising that once Jason came back alive, he would remove himself from the throne.
Many years earlier, Athamas, King of Thessaly, was married to a cloud nymph named Nephele. They had a son Phrixus and a daughter Helle. When Nephele found out that Athamas secretly had another wife named Ino, she brought drought to the kingdom. Ino, now furious with Nephele and the two children, convinced King Athamas to sacrifice Phrixus in order to bring an end to the drought. In an effort to stop the sacrifice, Nephele appeared to Phrixus with a golden ram. The golden ram whisked Phrixus and Helle away to Colchis; however, along the way, Helle lost her balance and fell off the ram into the sea. Upon Phrixus’s arrival in Colchis, he sacrificed the ram and took its Golden Fleece, which he hung in the grove of Ares where it was protected by a sacred dragon.
Jason, anticipating a long and grueling quest to retrieve the fleece, began building an enormous ship. Helping to build the Argo were many of the greatest heroes of the time, who would later become known as the Argonauts. Some of the most famous Argonauts include Hercules, Orpheus, Polydeuces, and even the north wind god’s children, Calais and Zetes.
After the Argo was finally complete, the Argonauts set sail for Lemnos. Lemnos was an island inhabited only by women and ruled by Hypsipyle. The island had in the past offended the goddess Aphrodite, and in turn, Aphrodite had cursed the men to have an overwhelmingly bad stench. The odor was so repugnant that it drove all the women to kill their husbands. Upon arrival, the Argonauts rested on Lemnos and created a new race called the Minyans.
Departing Lemnos, the group set sail for the nearby land of Doliones, where they were received by King Cyzicus. One day, many of the Argonauts went out hunting for supplies and left the ship mostly undefended, except for Hercules and a few other men. The ship was attacked by the Earthborn, six-armed giants who inhabited Doliones. Hercules successfully defended the ship until backup arrived. Having conquered the Earthborn and happy with their supplies, the Argonauts thanked the king and sailed off.
However, strong winds in the night pushed the Argo back toward Doliones. Due to heavy fog, the Dolionians thought they were being invaded by pirates and stormed the ship. Many Dolionians were slaughtered in the raid, including King Cyzicus, who was slayed by Jason. The next morning, after the fog had lifted, the Argonauts held a funeral for the fallen king and the rest of the Dolionians.
The Argonauts made another stop in Thrace, where they encountered the blind king Phineus. As a past punishment, Zeus had decreed that Phineus would have his food stolen every day by the Harpies. Jason took pity on Phineus and set out a large feast for the Harpies to take. Once the Harpies arrived, Calais and Zetes chased the Harpies away forever. In return, Phineus told Jason the location of Colchis and how to get past the Clashing Rocks, one of the most dangerous obstacles in their journey to find the Golden Fleece. The Clashing Rocks were a set of two great cliffs that smashed together whenever something tried to pass between them. Phineus had suggested first flying a dove through the channel; if the dove made it through the pass unharmed, they could interpret it as a harbinger of good luck.
When the Argonauts arrived at the Clashing Rocks and released the dove, they watched it fly gracefully through the channel, but just as it was about to get through, the rocks crashed together, leaving only a small bloodstain on the side of the cliff. The Argonauts waited and tried again. The second dove made it through, losing only a few tail feathers on the way out. Jason knew that this was their chance, so when the rocks opened again, they raced their ship through the passage. Similar to the second dove, the Argo took only some minor damage to the stern.
When Jason and the Argonauts finally reached the shores of Colchis, they were greeted by King Aeetes. The Golden Fleece was a prized possession of King Aeetes, to whom Phrixus had gifted it many years ago. Not wanting to seem hostile yet not wanting to part with the Golden Fleece, Aeetes promised to give Jason the Golden Fleece if he could complete a few tasks that he deemed impossible. Meanwhile, Hera, whom Jason had assisted in the past, convinced Aphrodite’s son, Eros, to shoot an arrow of love at Aeetes’s daughter, Medea. In addition to being the king’s daughter, Medea was also a high priestess of the goddess Hecate and practitioner of magic and sorcery.
The first task that King Aeetes demanded of Jason was to plow an entire field using two fire-breathing bulls. Medea, who was now in love with Jason, gave him an ointment that made him resistant to the fire of the bulls. Jason’s second task was to plant dragons’ teeth in the freshly plowed field, a ritual which would produce an army of violent skeletons. Medea, who was familiar with this act, told Jason beforehand to toss a rock into their midst so that the skeletons would turn on each other. Indeed, not knowing who had thrown the rock, the skeletons began to fight amongst themselves; at the end of the day, Jason was alone in a field of scattered bones. Jason had completed all the tasks. He expected the Golden Fleece in return, but Aeetes had no intention of giving it up.
Overnight, King Aeetes gathered the finest soldiers in Colchis and ordered them to kill Jason and the Argonauts as they slept. Medea, disgusted by her father, warned Jason and led him to the sacred grove where the fleece was hung. The grove was guarded by a ruthless dragon of Ares which never slept. Once again, Medea stepped in and cast a spell that caused the dragon to take a nap. When the dragon awoke, the fleece, Jason, and Medea were all gone.
Medea was now fully committed to Jason and hopped aboard the Argo as they sailed away from the ensuing attack. They were stopped by a royal ship, which Medea recognized from the flag’s emblem as her brother’s ship. The Argonauts gave themselves up, and the brother’s crew boarded the Argo. However, Jason, Medea and the Argonauts had no intention of surrendering. They quickly slaughtered the rest of the crew, leaving only Medea’s brother. Medea slit his throat and chopped his body into hundreds of pieces. She tossed them overboard, knowing that her father would want to preserve the body for a proper funeral, which would allow them enough time to escape.
On their voyage back to Iolcus, the Argonauts encountered the mythical Sirens, nymphs whose voices caused sailors so much misery and despair that they drowned themselves. The music of Orpheus, a member of the Argonauts as well as a legendary poet and musician, drowned out the sirens and allowed the Argonauts to sail peacefully past the nymphs.
Another obstacle occurred in Crete, where they encountered Talos, the giant bronze man who watched over the island and threw boulders at passing ships and intruders. Once again, Medea helped them survive by pulling the plug that held Talos’s ichor, causing him to bleed out.
When the Argonauts finally returned to Iolcus, they found Jason’s father, Aeson, aged and withering away. Jason asked Medea to return Aeson to a youthful age. Agreeing, Medea slit Aeson’s throat and let all of his blood flow out of him; she then filled his body with a powerful elixir. Aeson awoke 40 years younger. Pelias’s daughter heard about this and asked Medea to do the same for Jason’s half-uncle, Pelias. Medea knew that power-hungry Pelias was the one who had sent Jason on the quest, so she had no interest in helping him. Medea tricked Pelias’s daughters into draining his blood, but this time, she did not restore his body with the elixir. With Pelias dead, his son Acastus became the new king of Iolcus and exiled Jason and Medea for their crimes. Jason and Medea were banished to Corinth, where Jason ended up falling in love with King Creon’s daughter, Creusa. Furious, Medea confronted Jason. She killed Creusa with a poisonous dress and in revenge also killed Mermerus and Pheres, her two sons that she shared with Jason. Medea then left Jason and flew to Athens on a serpent-drawn chariot gifted by her grandfather Helios.
Jason lost Hera’s favor after breaking his vows to Medea and spent his remaining years distraught and lonely. He was killed one night aboard his beloved ship Argo, when a ceiling beam fell from above and crushed him in his sleep.