Jason and the Argonauts: The Argo and the Voyage to Colchis

Jason was a hero of ancient Greek myth, and the Argonauts were his companions. Around fifty of them sailed on the Argo to seek the Golden Fleece. Their destination was Colchis, an ancient land in what is now western Georgia. The Argo anchored at the mouth of the River Phasis, now the Rioni near Poti. King Pelias of Iolcus set the quest in motion: he promised Jason the throne in return for the Fleece, secretly hoping his nephew would never come back.

Who were the Argonauts?

The Argonauts were the band of heroes who sailed with Jason on the Argo to find the Golden Fleece. They took their name from the ship: “Argonauts” means “those who sail on the Argo”. The vessel had fifty oars and carried around fifty heroes, although the crew lists vary slightly between versions of the myth.

The quest was devised by Jason’s uncle, King Pelias of Iolcus. He promised to hand power over to his nephew if Jason brought him the Golden Fleece. It sounded like an honourable mission, but success seemed almost impossible: the Fleece was kept in Colchis, at the far edge of the world known to the Greeks. Our separate article on the Golden Fleece explains what it was and why it was “golden”.

The Argo, illustration

Who was Jason, and why did he seek the Fleece?

Jason was the rightful heir to the throne of Iolcus, a city in Thessaly near modern-day Volos in Greece. His father was King Aeson, but Aeson’s half-brother Pelias seized power. To protect their son, Jason’s parents secretly entrusted him as a baby to the wise centaur Chiron. Jason grew up near Mount Pelion, becoming a strong, trained warrior under the protection of the goddess Hera.

When he came of age, Jason set out for Iolcus to reclaim his father’s throne. While fording a river, he lost a sandal, so he arrived before Pelias wearing only one. The king had been warned in a prophecy to fear a man with one sandal. Rather than kill the heir openly, Pelias offered him a bargain: bring the Golden Fleece from Colchis, and the throne would be his.

The Argo and its crew

Jason’s ship was called the Argo. The shipwright Argus built it on Athena’s advice, and it was named after its builder. It had fifty oars. Its greatest marvel was a speaking timber: Athena fitted a piece of the sacred oak of Dodona into the bow, where it could speak and foretell the future.

The Argonauts, an illustration in the style of ancient vase painting

The best-known Argonauts

There is little point in listing the entire crew, since the names differ between retellings. A few heroes, however, appear in almost every version.

The Argonauts’ route from Iolcus to Colchis

The voyage from Iolcus to Colchis was long, with another trial awaiting the heroes at almost every stop. These are the main stages in Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica:

The Argonauts’ route in myth, diagram

The Symplegades were two rocks at the entrance to the Black Sea that clashed together, crushing anything that tried to pass between them. Following Phineus’ advice, the Argonauts first released a dove. It flew through, losing only the tips of its tail feathers. The rowers then pulled hard and followed it through; the rocks caught only the Argo’s stern. After that, the Symplegades stood still forever.

Jason’s trials in Colchis: fire-breathing bulls, dragon’s teeth and the guardian dragon

Jason approached Aeetes, king of Colchis, and asked for the Fleece. Unwilling to refuse his guest outright, the king set a task he believed impossible. In a single day, Jason had to:

Jason’s trial in Colchis, illustration

1. Yoke the bronze-footed, fire-breathing bulls, a gift from the god Hephaestus, to a plough and plough the field of Ares.
2. Sow the furrows with dragon’s teeth.
3. Defeat the armed warriors who sprang immediately from the teeth.

Jason could not have done it alone. But the king’s daughter Medea, a young sorceress, fell in love with him. At Hera and Athena’s request, Aphrodite sent Eros to her, and his arrow struck the princess. Medea secretly gave Jason a potion that protected his body and weapons from fire and iron for one day. She also told him how to overcome the warriors born from the dragon’s teeth: throw a stone into their midst. Unable to tell where the blow had come from, they turned on one another.

Even then, Aeetes had no intention of surrendering the Fleece. It hung in a sacred grove, guarded by a dragon that never slept. Medea used her magic to put the creature to sleep, Jason took the Fleece from the tree, and the Argonauts hurried back to their ship. Our separate article on Medea follows her later story.

Medea, illustration

The return voyage and Jason’s fate

Aeetes gave chase. To delay their pursuers, Medea took a brutal step involving the death of her younger brother Apsyrtus. The details differ between versions of the myth.

The return of the Argo, illustration

Ancient authors describe the journey home in different ways. In Apollonius of Rhodes, the Argo travels up the Ister, the Greek name for the Danube, and reaches the Adriatic by river. Pindar sends it through the river Oceanus and the deserts of Libya. On their return, the heroes encounter the Sirens, whose voices Orpheus overpowers with his song, Scylla and Charybdis, and Talos, the bronze giant of Crete. Eventually, the Argo returns to Greece.

Jason’s story had no happy ending. He and Medea came to Corinth, where their union ended in tragedy. As Medea foretells in Euripides’ play, Jason was killed by his own ship: a piece of the Argo fell on his head.

Did the voyage really happen?

The Argonauts belong to myth, but it is a very old myth. Homer’s Odyssey already refers to the Argo as a ship known to everyone. One of the earliest connected accounts of the voyage appears in Pindar’s Fourth Pythian Ode, dated to 462 BC. In the chronology of myth, the expedition took place a generation before the Trojan War: the Argonauts Peleus and Telamon were the fathers of Achilles and Ajax.

The Greeks did settle the eastern shores of the Black Sea. Greek settlements in ancient Colchis included Phasis, at the mouth of the river of the same name, Dioscurias, now Sukhumi, and Pityus, now Pitsunda. Writing around the turn of the era, the Greek geographer Strabo cited the stories of Jason’s voyage as a sign of Colchis’ ancient fame and described the region’s wealth. He also wrote that people living in the upper river valleys of the Caucasus caught gold carried by mountain streams on thick-fleeced hides, suggesting this as the origin of the Golden Fleece myth.

Why the myth is linked to Georgia, and what to see today

Colchis, the destination that brought the Greek heroes together, is a historical region in western Georgia. The mouth of the Phasis, where the Argo anchored, is the mouth of the Rioni near Poti. The journey’s mythical destination corresponds to a real place you can visit.

The mouth of the Phasis, now the Rioni, illustration

The Colchis Fountain in Kutaisi

In the Argonauts’ footsteps: places in western Georgia

The Argonauts in books and film

The fullest surviving account of the myth is Apollonius of Rhodes’ poem the Argonautica, written in the 3rd century BC. According to ancient accounts, Apollonius headed the Library of Alexandria.

The best-known screen adaptation is the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts. Ray Harryhausen’s special effects made it famous: Talos the bronze giant, the Harpies, and the skeleton warriors who grow from dragon’s teeth.

The word “argonaut” has long had a life beyond the myth. It can describe a bold traveller who undertakes a difficult journey in pursuit of a great goal.

The Argonauts in culture, illustration

Read also

• The Kingdom of Colchis
• Prometheus and Amirani
• The Colchian Lowland
• To the sources of the Rioni
• The Argo Cable Car in Batumi
• The Archaeological Museum-Reserve in Vani