THE GOLDEN FLEECE? -
- 1970 - The Sciences - Wiley Online Library
No abstract is available for this article.Michael Wood discovers a story of heroism, treachery, love and tragedy that would make Hollywood proud.
The Greek tale of Jason and the Golden Fleece has been told for 3,000 years. It's a classic hero's quest tale - a sort of ancient Greek mission impossible - in which the hero embarks on a sea voyage into an unknown land, with a great task to achieve. He is in search of a magical ram's fleece, which he has to find in order to reclaim his father's kingdom of Iolkos from the usurper King Pelias.
The Greeks have retold and reinterpreted it many times since, changing it as their knowledge of the physical world increased.
The story is a set a generation before the time of the Trojan War, around 1300 BC, but the first known written mention of it comes six centuries later, in the age of Homer (800 BC). The tale came out of the region of Thessaly, in Greece, where early epic poetry developed. The Greeks have retold and reinterpreted it many times since, changing it as their knowledge of the physical world increased.
No one knows for sure where the earliest poets set the adventure, but by 700 BC the poet Eumelos set the tale of the Golden Fleece in the kingdom of Aia, a land that at the time was thought to be at the eastern edge of the world. At this point the Jason story becomes fixed as an expedition to the Black Sea. The most famous version, penned by Apollonius of Rhodes, who was head of the library at Alexandria, was composed in the third century BC, after the invasion of Asia by Alexander the Great.
Since the 1870s a series of excavations at Mycenae, Knossos, Troy and elsewhere has brought the Greek Heroic Age - the imaginary time when the great myths were set - to life. The archaeologists' discoveries of Bronze Age ( BC) artefacts made it clear that the Greek myths and epic poems preserve the traditions of a Bronze Age society, and may refer to actual events of that time. The story could also perhaps represent an age of Greek colonisation around the shores of the Black Sea.
Jason's task
Village in Svaneti region of north west Georgia. Here people still pan for gold using the fleece of a sheep
According to the legend, Jason was deprived of his expectation of the throne of Iolkos (a real kingdom situated in the locale of present day Volos) by his uncle, King Pelias, who usurped the throne. Jason was taken from his parents, and was brought up on Mount Pelion, in Thessaly, by a centaur named Cheiron. Meantime his uncle lived in dread of an oracle's prophecy, which said he should fear the 'man with one shoe'.
His task would take him beyond the known world to acquire the fleece of a magical ram that once belonged to Zeus, the king of the gods.
At the age of 20 Jason set off to return to Iolkos - on his journey losing a sandal in the river while helping Hera, Queen of the Gods, who was in disguise as an old woman. On arriving before King Pelias, Jason revealed who he was and made a claim to the kingdom. The king replied, 'If I am to give you the kingdom, first you must bring me the Fleece of the Golden Ram'.
And this was the hero's quest. His task would take him beyond the known world to acquire the fleece of a magical ram that once belonged to Zeus, the king of the gods. Jason's ancestor Phrixus had flown east from Greece to the land of Cochlis (modern day Georgia) on the back of this ram. King Aietes, son of Helios the sun god, had then sacrificed the ram and hung its fleece in a sacred grove guarded by a dragon. An oracle foretold that Aietes would lose his kingdom if he lost the fleece, and it was from Aietes that Jason had to retrieve it.
Why a fleece? Fleeces are connected with magic in many folk traditions. For the ancient Etruscans a gold coloured fleece was a prophecy of future prosperity for the clan. Recent discoveries about the Hittite Empire in Bronze Age Anatolia show celebrations where fleeces were hung to renew royal power. This can offer insight into Jason's search for the fleece and Aietes' reluctance to relinquish it. The fleece represented kinship and prosperity.
Black Sea colonisation
Ships in the old Turkish harbour at Lemnos, Greece. Legend has it that Lemnos was populated entirely with women
Jason's ship, the Argo, began its journey with a crew of 50 (which swelled to 100, including Hercules, in subsequent retellings of the myth) - known as the 'Argonauts'. The Greek claim that the Argo was the first ship ever built can not be true, but Jason's journey was seen by the ancient Greeks as the first long-distance voyage ever undertaken.
Indeed, the voyage can be seen as a metaphor for the opening up of the Black Sea coast. Historically, once the Greeks learned to sail into the Black Sea they embarked on a period of colonisation lasting some 3,000 years - but the time they first arrived in the region is still controversial.
Lemnos, an island in the north-eastern Aegean was Jason's first stop. This was a place inhabited by women who had murdered their husbands after being cursed by Aphrodite. Next the Argo sailed to Samothrace, where the Argonauts were initiated into the Kabeiroi, a cult of 'great gods' who were not Greek and who offered protection to seafarers. From Samothrace the adventurers passed the city of Troy by night, and entered the Sea of Marmara the next day.
The Jason tale is a founding myth for many towns along this shore.
The Jason tale is a founding myth for many towns along this shore. It is, however, most likely that local accounts of events have arisen out of the story itself, rather than being based on historic facts that themselves became the basis of the myth.
It is along this stretch of coast that the Argonauts rescue a blind prophet, Phineus, by chasing away the Harpies - the ugly winged females Zeus had sent to torment Phineus. In return Phineus prophesies that Jason will be the first mariner to sail through the 'clashing rocks' that guard the entrance to the Black Sea. The myth arose when Greek sailors were first able to negotiate their way up the powerful currents of the Bosphorus to enter the Black Sea beyond. In time the sea was transformed in Greek eyes from Axeinos Pontus, the 'hostile sea' to Euxeinos Pontus, the 'welcoming sea'.
City of Aia
A bull fight near Trabzon, Turkey.
Bullfighting is still popular in regions of Turkey where the ancient Greeks founded colonies
The story continues with the Argonauts finally reaching the land of Colchis, and the first part of their quest is achieved. The heroes land and hold council, deciding to walk up to the city of Aia. Along the way they see bodies wrapped in hides and hung in trees, a sight that travellers in Georgia recount right up to the 17th century.
The ancient Greeks speak of Aia as a real city on the River Phasis (the modern River Rhion). Archaeologists have yet to find it, although in 1876 gold treasure was found in this region at an ancient site near the town of Vani, and it was suggested that this might be the city of the Argonaut legend. Heinrich Schlieman, the excavator of Troy and Mycenae, proposed to dig here but was not given permission.
This suggests that some parts of the myth depict the culture of the historical Iron Age rather than the earlier Bronze Age of Jason.
Then in 1947 excavations revealed that between 600 and 400 BC (the time the Jason legend took its final shape) Vani was indeed an important Colchin city. The city was not inhabited during the Heroic Age (when the Jason story is set), but it was the Colchin 'capital' at the time the Greek poets located the myth here. This suggests that some parts of the myth depict the culture of the historical Iron Age rather than the earlier Bronze Age of Jason.
The story continues
Site of Medea's shrine, near Corinth
In the myth, once in Colchis Jason asks King Aietes to return the Golden Fleece. Aietes agrees to do so if Jason can perform a series of superhuman tasks. He has to yoke fire-breathing bulls, plough and sow a field with dragons' teeth, and overcome phantom warriors. In the meantime Aphrodite (the goddess of love) makes Medea, daughter of King Aietes, fall in love with Jason. Medea offers to help Jason with his tasks if he marries her in return. He agrees, and is enabled to complete the tasks.
Thus the classic triangle of hero, dark power and female helper is formed, to be repeated in stories all the way down to Hollywood.
Thus the classic triangle of hero, dark power and female helper is formed, to be repeated in stories all the way down to Hollywood. And it seems possible that this theme was based on an even earlier myth. An excavation of the 1920s and 30s, at Boghaz Koy, in central Turkey, uncovered Indo-European tablets from a Hittite civilisation dating to the 14th century BC. One of these has an account on it of a story similar to that of Jason and Medea, and may reveal the prehistory of the myth.
It is not known at what date the Greeks borrowed it, but it very possibly happened in the ninth or eighth century BC. This was the time when many themes were taken from the east and incorporated into Greek poetry.
To continue the story. King Aietes organises a banquet, but confides to Medea that he will kill Jason and the Argonauts rather than surrender the Golden Fleece. Medea tells Jason, and helps him retrieve the Fleece. From here the Argonauts flee home, encountering further epic adventures. The ancient storytellers give several versions of the route Jason took back to Greece, reflecting changes in Greek ideas about the geography of the world.
On the final leg of their journey, the Argonauts are caught in a storm, and after they pray to Apollo an island appears to them. The inhabitants of modern-day Anafi, 'the one which was revealed', and which is said to be the island in question, continue to celebrate their part in the story to this day. They regularly hold a festival inside an ancient temple to Apollo, built on the spot where legend says Jason gave thanks to the god for his rescue.
Dénouement
Map showing the ancient Greek view of how Jason might have returned home
On his return to Iolkos Jason discovers that King Pelias has killed his father, and his mother has died of grief. Medea tricks Pelias by offering to rejuvenate him, and then kills him. Jason and Medea go into exile in Corinth, where Jason betrays Medea by marrying the king's daughter. Medea takes revenge by killing her own children by Jason.
Pausanias, in his first-century guidebook to Greece, describes a shrine to the murdered children next to a temple to Hera, queen of gods, at Corinth.
Pausanias, in his first-century guidebook to Greece, describes a shrine to the murdered children next to a temple to Hera, queen of gods, at Corinth. Centuries later, in the 1930s, a British excavation at Perachora uncovered an eighth-century BC temple to Hera, supposedly dedicated by Medea, near an oracle site with pilgrimage offerings left by women devotees over many centuries - perhaps there's a historic basis to the myth?
In the end, Jason becomes a wanderer once more, and eventually returns to beached hull of the Argo. Here the beam of the ship (which was said to speak and was named Dodona) falls on him and kills him. His story has come full circle - as in all Greek myths, the hero's destiny is in the hands of the gods.
We know the story of Jason, but not exactly when it was first told. By classical times the myth had spread across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and it continues to fascinate us in our own day, informing archaeological investigations and bearing continued retellings - a testimony to the perennial appeal of the tale of the hero's quest.
Find out more
Jason and the Golden Fleece (The Argonautica) by Richard Hunter (Oxford World's Classics, 1998)
The Voyage of the Argo by David Slavitt (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999)
Pindar's Mythmaking: The Fourth Pythian Ode by Charles Segal (Princetown University Press, 1986)
Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, vol. 1 by T Gantz (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993)
Medea edited by JJ Clauss and S Johnson (Princeton University Press, 1997)
Ritual Myth and Drama in the Ancient Near East by T Gaster Thespis (Gordian Press, 1961)
Structure and History in Greek Mythology by W Burkert (University of California Press, 1983)
The Greeks in the Black Sea by Mariama Koromila (Aristide D Caratzas Publishing, 1991)
The Greek Myths by Robert Graves (Penguin, 1992)
Greek Gods and Heroes by Robert Graves (Random House, 1965)
The Jason Voyageby Tim Severin (Simon and Schuster, 1986)
About the author
Michael Wood is the writer and presenter of many critically acclaimed television series, including In the Footsteps of...series. Born and educated in Manchester, Michael did postgraduate research on Anglo-Saxon history at Oxford. Since then he has made over 60 documentary films and written several best selling books. His films have centred on history, but have also included travel, politics and cultural history.
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Jason and the Golden Fleece
The legend in brief
Jason was the son of King Aeson, whose throne was usurped by his brother. To
saveJason, he sent him for fostering to another King. He was to return when
he was old enough to be able to retrieve a special sword and sandals from under
a heavy rock. When he did return to claim his inheritance from his uncle,, the
uncle agreed to hand over the kingdom, but only if he could successfully retrieve
a Golden Fleece that was guarded by a fire-breathing dragon in Colchis (modern
Georgia, at the eastern end of the Black Sea). Jason accepted the challenge.
He built a large boat called the Argo, and collected a crew of about 50, among
whom Theseus is sometimes mentioned, as are some of the Greek heroes of the
Trojan War including Nestor. After many adventures, the Argonauts arrived at
One of the en route adventures is particularly interesting, as we shall
discuss later. In the Dardanelles, there were two floating islands called the
Blue Rocks, which clashed together when a ship tried to pass between them. Jason
was advised to send a dove between them. When they clashed together, catching
the dove's tail feathers, Jason steered the Argo through on the rebound, just
making it between the two islands before they crashed together again.
When they reached Colchis, Jason asked the King for the Golden Fleece. The
King did not refuse, but imposed some conditions. Jason had to yoke a pair of
fire-breathing bulls with brass feet, and use them to plough a field which he
would then sow with dragon's teeth. Everyone knew that these teeth would immediately
grow into warriors that would turn on whoever seeded them. So there was a dual
challenge, a triple one if one includes the guardian dragon.
Jason had attracted the attention of Medea, the daughter of King Ae&tes
of Colchis. She helped him by magic, having made him promise to marry her and
take her to Greece. With the help of her magic, he was able to tame the bulls
and plough the field. When the dragon's teeth grew into hostile warriors, he
threw a magic stone among them, so that they turned against each other and fought
until they were all dead. Then Medea fed the dragon a sleeping potion so that
Jason could retrieve the fleece.
When the Argonauts fled from Colchis, Medea took along her young brother, but
murdered him to slow the pursuit by throwing his body parts into the sea for
her father to find. This evil deed caused the gods to send the Argonauts on
a geographically confusing trip around Italy and various other places. One of
the adventures happened off Crete, where they were prevented from landing by
Talos, a robot created by Hephaestus--the god of fire and the forge. Talos went
around the island and threw enormous rocks at approaching ships, but Medea was
able magically to kill him, allowing the Argonauts to disembark for the night.
But after setting sail the next day, they were enveloped by a thick cloud. Appollo
heard Jason's prayer and sent a flash of lightning, which revealed a small island
on which they could beach the ship, after which the Argonauts were allowed to
sail home to Iolkos. They called the island Anafi (meaning Revelation). Anafi
is about 20 kilometers east of Thera.
Archaeo-historical background
Much of this legend is explicable if we assume the usual transformations of
natural phenomena into the acts of gods or other magical figures. There is a
problem, however, in the crew of the ship. If
was an Athenian leader around the time of the Theran explosion. he could not
have crewed along with a young Nestor, who fought in the Trojan War perhaps
400 years later. Several elements of the story seem to be linked with the Theran
explosion, so it seems natural to link the tale to that time, rather than to
the tempting later time of a generation or so before the Trojan war. Perhaps
the legend is a conflation of stories from different time, as other legends
of Classical Greece seem to be, including the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Mycenean Trade
Minoan and Byblos trading areas. The red star indicates the location
of Thera. Mycenae is approximately at the top-left corner of this map.
Before the Theran explosion of 1650 BC, most of the trade in the Aegean and
the eastern Mediterranean was dominated by the two great trading powers of Byblos
and Minoan Crete. But their area of dominance extended only to the southern
coast of Anatolia and the southern Aegean. In the northern Aegean and the Black
sea, recent evidence suggests that there was Mycenean trade (Toronto Star, 28
July 2001). Mycenean sea trade, however, developed largely after the abrupt
end of the Minoan empire. I do not know whether there is evidence of Minoan
trade to the Black Sea while the Minoans were active
The nature of the legend suggests that the trip to Colchis was something special,
not one expedition among many to that area. .. The trading
distance from even northern Greeece to Colchis at the east end of the Black
Sea is considerably longer than from even Byblos to Athens. It would have taken
well practied seamen to plan and execute such a voyage. Could the Myceneans
before 1650 BC have done it? Other seafaring nations certainly could, so perhaps
they could as well.
The Argo is described as being a particularly large ship, with a crew of 50.
By Minoan standards, this was not a large ship. The so-called &Marine Festival&
fresco from Akrotiri shows several ships with 50 and 60 oars, which look as
if they were going from Thera to Knossos. The Argo may have been unusually big
for a Mycenean ship, the Myceneans not being great sea traders in the Minoan-dominated
area, but at 50 oars, it was a match for the smaller of the big Minoan ships.
But it was a long voyage, longer than any of the normal Minoan trading routes,
and perhaps it was a voyage to get gold from a region not normally visited by
Mycenean ships, and known to them only by runour.
Thera and other volcanos
The relation of Thera, Crete, and Anafi. Anafi would not have been
a good place to be during the ashfall, which went largely east to northeast
from Thera.
If we suggest that this legend has some basis in fact, part of that fact must
be the Theran explosion. The description of huge rocks being thrown at the ship
when it was near Crete, followed the next day by a thick cloud, in which a lightning
flash allowed them to see the island of Anafi, is too precise to correspond
to any other event in Aegean history. That is exactly what mariners near Thera
might have seen, though if they had done so, it is unlikely that they would
have landed in Crete after the end of the rock shower and the very next day
have been in the ash cloud at Anafi without having been swamped by the tsunami
while the ship was beached.
What is more likely is that the volcano erupted with a rock shower that ceased
some time before the final cataclysm, and that the Argonauts had been at sea
for a couple of days when the lightning-filled ash cloud filled the air, at
the same time as the tsunami passed on its way to devastate the Cretan palaces.
A ship at sea is hardly affected by a even a very large tsunami, which only
builds its height as it approaches shallow water, although one would guess that
it would not have been very pleasant to be on a ship near the edge of the kilometer
deep hole in the sea when the caldera collapsed!
The floating islands also suggest a volcanic explosion, though it does not
seem reasonable that pumice from Thera would be floating in the mouth of the
Dardanelles, so far to the north. Also, that adventure is said to have occurred
near the start of the voyage, whereas the near encounter with the Theran explosion
occurred at the end of the trip. There is, however, a possible explanation that
does not require much forcing.
Archaeological evidence suggests that there was a series of eruptions of the
Theran volcano before the final explosion, over a period of several years, and
that these were sufficiently violent to cause most of the population to leave
permanently before their island actually disappeared. At least one of these
precursor eruptions involved a substantial ashfall, and such an explosion may
well have created pumice islands that could have impeded shipping. Such islands
would be unlikely to have been in the Dardanelles, but they could have drifted
into the path of shipping between Mycenean ports and the Dardanelles. This seems
to me to be a natural phenomenon that is reasonably likely to have happened,
as well as being reasonably likely to have been incorporated into the legend--if
we take the legend to be derived from any real events.
Volcanos may be relevant to the Colchis part of the story, as well. The translation
of a fire-spewing volcano into a fire-breathing animal is very common as a story-telling
device. If the &Golden Fleece& was indeed a representation of the
way gold was panned from the rivers in Northern Anatolia and Colchis, the area
has many volcanoes, some of which may have been active at the time. It could
have been dangerous to go too high up the slopes, tempting the &sleeping
dragon& to wake. Jason's harnessing of the fire-breathing bulls could be
a representation of his having been able to acquire gold between eruptions.
Interpretation of the legend
There is nowhere near as much circumstantial detail in the Jason legend pointing
to specific times and places as there is for some of the other legends. There
are, however, elements in the story that are clearly factual, notably the accurate
description of the state of affairs around the exploding Theran volcano. The
legend suggests that there were some days of volcanism in which large rocks
were ejected to considerable heights and distances, followed by some days of
calm before the final cataclysmic explosion. This is a normal sequence for an
exploding volcano. The fact that they landed on Anafi in the middle of the ash
cloud also jibes with the basically easterly drift of the cloud from Thera.
The clashing floating islands also suggest a factual basis for the story, becaues
such islands are most unusual, but do occur after a volcano explodes in the
If the legend has two probably factual elements, should we give credence to
the other components of the story? It may well be that some other elements are
factual, but that the story, like so many others based on oral tradition over
a thousand year span, is formed of an amalgam of several disparate events. The
sailors who were close to the exploding Thera might not be the ones that made
the trip to Colchis for the Golden Fleece. If Theseus was on the boat, and was
the Theseus who &slew the Minotaur& then Nestor who fought in the
Trojan War could not have been there. Could we guess that Theseus was on the
ship that was perilously close to Thera, but that Nestor was on a voyage with
Jason to Colchis about 400 years later?
Whether the legend deals with one voyage or many confabulated by the storytellers
is immaterial. We can treat the events in Colchis the same in either case. If
the &Golden Fleece& represented the method of getting gold from the
rivers, then it might represent not an actual fleece, but gold that the Argonauts
were able to drag using fleeces from the rivers near one or more active volcanos
that were streaming lava both before and after their extraction of the gold.
The sowing of the dragon's teeth cannot be literal, but if the &dragon&
was a volcano from which Jason &ploughed& gold, the hostile warriors
might well represent local bandits or even official troops who attempted to
take the gold for themselves, but who quarrelled among themselves, allowing
the Argonauts to escape wiht the loot.
I do not have an explanation for the Medea part of the story, including her
muder of her brother so that she could scatter his body parts on the sea to
delay her father's pursuit.