Argonauts

'Argo sailors') were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC)[1] accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece.

While traveling Jason lost his sandal crossing the muddy Anauros river while helping an old woman (Hera in disguise).

Phrixus had fled from Orchomenus riding on a divine ram to avoid being sacrificed and took refuge in Colchis where he was later denied proper burial.

[3][4][5][6][7] In Pindar's Pythian Odes, the following heroes are either named or implied as part of the Argonauts: Jason, Heracles, Castor, Polydeuces, Euphemus, Periclymenus, Echion, Erytus, Orpheus, Zetes, Calais and Mopsus.

Several more names are discoverable from other sources: Jason, along with his other 49 crew-mates, sailed off from Iolcus to Colchis to fetch the golden fleece.

Polyxo who by virtue of her middle age, gave advice that she should put them under obligation to the gods of hospitality and invite them to a friendly reception.

(Hypsipyle reappeared years later, when the Argives marching against Thebes learned from her the way to a spring in Nemea, where she served as nurse to King Lycurgus' son Opheltes.)

Their king Cyzicus, son of Eusorus, who had just gotten married, received the Argonauts with generous hospitality and decided to have a huge party with them.

Cyzicus, thinking they were a Pelasgican army (for they were constantly harassed by these enemies) attacked them on the shore at night in mutual ignorance of each other.

[45] From Mysia, they departed to the land of the Bebryces which was ruled by King Amycus, son of Poseidon and Melie, a Bithynian nymph.

These were winged female creatures, and when a table was laid for Phineus, they flew down from the sky and snatched up most of the victuals from his lips, and what little they left stank so that nobody could touch it.

But Apollonius in the Argonautica says that the Harpies were pursued to the Strophades Islands and suffered no harm, having sworn an oath that they would wrong Phineus no more.

So he told them to let fly a dove between the rocks, and, if they saw it pass safe through, to thread the narrows with an easy mind, but if they saw it perish, then not to force a passage.

So, waiting till the rocks had recoiled, with hard rowing and the help of Hera, they passed through, the extremity of the ship's ornamented poop being shorn away right round.

[48] When the Argonauts entered the sea called Euxine through the Cyanean Cliffs (i.e. Clashing Rocks of the Symplegades), they arrived among the Mariandynians.

While the Argonauts were staying with Lycus and went out to gather straw, the seer Idmon, son of Apollo, was wounded by a wild boar and died.

[51] An oracle told Aeëtes, son of Helios, that he would keep his kingdom as long as the fleece which Phrixus had dedicated remained at the shrine of Ares.

When the ship was brought into port, Jason repaired to Aeëtes, and setting forth the charge laid on him by Pelias invited him to give him the fleece.

These were two wild bulls of enormous size that he had got as a gift of Hephaestus; they had brazen feet and puffed flames from their mouths and nostrils.

She signified to him that when the teeth were sown, armed men would spring up from the ground against him; and when he saw a knot of them he was to throw stones into their midst from a distance.

Then, when he had sown the teeth, armed men rose from the ground; and where he saw several together, he pelted them unseen with stones, and when they fought each other, he drew near and slew them.

When the Argonauts were already sailing past the Eridanus river, Zeus, in his anger at the murder of Apsyrtus, sent a furious storm upon them which drove them out of their course.

And, as they were sailing past the Apsyrtides Islands, the ship spoke, saying that the wrath of Zeus would not cease unless they journeyed to Ausonia and were purified by Circe for the murder of Apsyrtus.

So when they had sailed past the Ligurian and Celtic nations and had voyaged through the Sardinian Sea, they skirted Tyrrhenia and came to Aeaea, where they supplicated Circe and were purified.

[53] Sailing by night, the Argonauts encountered a violent storm, and Apollo, taking his stand on the Melantian ridges, flashed lightning down, shooting a shaft into the sea.

This Talos kept guard, running round the island thrice every day; wherefore, when he saw the Argo standing inshore, he pelted it as usual with stones.

His death was brought about by the wiles of Medea, whether, as some say, she drove him mad by drugs, or, as others say, she promised to make him immortal and then drew out the nail, so that all the ichor gushed out and he died.

Sozomen wrote that when the Argonauts left from the Aeëtes, they returned from a different route, crossed the sea of Scythia, sailed through some of the rivers there, and when they were near the shores of Italy, they built a city in order to stay at the winter, which they called Emona (Ancient Greek: Ἤμονα), part of modern-day Ljubljana in Slovenia.

At summer, with the assistance of the locals, they dragged the Argo to the Aquilis river (Ancient Greek: Ἄκυλιν ποταμὸν), which falls into the Eridanus.

[56] The Porto Ferraio on the island of Elba, was known in ancient times as the portus Argous (Ἀργῶος λιμήν), because it was believed that the Argonauts landed there on their return voyage, while sailing in quest of Circe.