Argonauts
The Argonauts were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, Argo, named after its builder, Argus. They were sometimes called Minyans, after a prehistoric tribe in the area.
Mythology
The Golden Fleece
After the death of King Cretheus, the Aeolian Pelias usurped the throne from his half-brother Aeson and became king of Iolcus in Thessaly. Because of this unlawful act, an oracle warned him that a descendant of Aeolus would seek revenge. Pelias put to death every prominent descendant of Aeolus he could, but spared Aeson because of the pleas of their mother Tyro. Instead, Pelias kept Aeson prisoner and forced him to renounce his inheritance. Aeson married Alcimede, who bore him a son named Jason. Pelias intended to kill the baby at once, but Alcimede summoned her kinswomen to weep over him as if he were stillborn. She faked a burial and smuggled the baby to Mount Pelion. He was raised by the centaur Chiron, the trainer of heroes.When Jason was 20 years old, an oracle ordered him to dress as a Magnesian and head to the Iolcan court. While traveling Jason lost his sandal crossing the muddy Anauros river while helping an old woman. The goddess was angry with King Pelias for killing his stepgrandmother Sidero after she had sought refuge in Hera's temple.
Another oracle warned Pelias to be on his guard against a man with one shoe. Pelias was presiding over a sacrifice to Poseidon with several neighboring kings in attendance. Among the crowd stood a tall youth in leopard skin with only one sandal. Pelias recognized that Jason was his nephew. He could not kill him because prominent kings of the Aeolian family were present. Instead, he asked Jason: "What would you do if an oracle announced that one of your fellow-citizens were destined to kill you?" Jason replied that he would send him to go and fetch the Golden Fleece, not knowing that Hera had put those words in his mouth.
Jason learned later that Pelias was being haunted by the ghost of Phrixus. 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. According to an oracle, Iolcus would never prosper unless his ghost was taken back in a ship, together with the golden ram's fleece. This fleece now hung from a tree in the grove of the Colchian Ares, guarded night and day by a dragon that never slept. Pelias swore before Zeus that he would give up the throne at Jason's return while expecting that Jason's attempt to steal the Golden Fleece would be a fatal enterprise. However, Hera acted in Jason's favour during the perilous journey.
The crew of ''Argo''
There is no definite list of the Argonauts. H. J. Rose explains this was because "an Argonautic ancestor was an addition to even the proudest of pedigrees." The following list is collated from several lists given in ancient sources.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:
- Amyrus, eponym of a Thessalian city, is given by Stephanus of Byzantium as "one of the Argonauts"; he is otherwise said to have been a son of Poseidon and to have given his name to the river Amyrus.
- Philammon, son of Apollo was also reported one of the Argonauts.
The journey
Women of Lemnos
The Argonauts first stopped at Lemnos where they learned that all the males had been murdered. The reason of which was as follows: for several years, the women did not honor and make offerings to Aphrodite and because of her anger, she visited them with a noisome smell. Therefore, their spouses took captive women from the neighboring country of Thrace and bedded with them. Dishonored, all the Lemnian women, except Hypsipyle, were instigated by the same goddess in conspiring to kill their fathers and husbands. They then deposed King Thoas, who should have died along with the whole tribe of men, but was secretly spared by his daughter Hypsipyle. She put Thoas on board a ship which a storm carried to the island of Taurica.In the meantime, the Argonauts sailing along, the guardian of the harbour Iphinoe saw them and announced their coming to Hypsipyle, the new queen. 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 fell in love with their captain Jason. They had sons, Euneus and Nebrophonus or Deipylus. The other Argonauts consorted with the Lemnian women, and their descendants were called Minyans, since some among them had previously emigrated from Minyan Orchomenus to Iolcus.. The Lemnian women gave the names of the Argonauts to the children they had conceived by them. Delayed many days there, they were chided by Hercules and departed.
But later, when the other women learned that Hypsipyle had spared her father, they tried to kill her. She fled from them, but pirates captured and took her to Thebes where they sold her as a slave to King Lycus. Her son Euneus later became king of Lemnos. In order to purify the island from blood guilt, he ordered that all Lemnian hearth-fires be put off for nine days and a new fire be brought on a ship from Apollo's altar in Delos.
Island of Cyzicus
After Lemnos, the Argonauts made their second stop at Bear Mountain, an island of the Propontis shaped like a bear. The locals, called the Doliones, were all descended from Poseidon. 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. During that event, the king tried to tell Jason not to go to the eastern side of the island, but he got distracted by Heracles, and forgot to tell Jason.When they had left the king and sailed a whole day, a storm that arose in the night brought them unaware to the same island. Cyzicus, thinking they were a Pelasgican army attacked them on the shore at night in mutual ignorance of each other. The Argonauts slew many, including Cyzicus, who was killed by Jason himself. On the next day, when they came near the shore and knew what they had done, the Argonauts mourned and cut off their hair. Jason gave Cyzicus a costly burial and handed over the kingdom to his sons.
Lost comrades
After the burial, the Argonauts sailed away and touched at Mysia, where they left behind Heracles and Polyphemus. Hylas, son of Thiodamas, had been sent to draw water and was ravished away by nymphs on account of his beauty. However, Polyphemus heard him cry out and gave chase, believing that he was being carried off by robbers. After informing Heracles, the ship put to sea while the two searched for Hylas. Polyphemus ended up founding the city Cius in Mysia, reigning as king while Heracles returned to Argos, though accounts differ regarding Heracles' story. Herodorus' version says that Heracles did not sail at all at that time, but was instead serving as a slave at the court of Omphale. Pherecydes' version says that he was left behind at Aphetae in Thessaly, the Argo having declared with human voice that she could not bear his weight. Nevertheless, Demaratus recorded that Heracles sailed to Colchis; for Dionysius even affirmed that he was the leader of the Argonauts.Land of the Bebryces
From Mysia, they departed to the land of the Bebryces which was ruled by King Amycus, son of Poseidon and Melie, a Bithynian nymph. Being a doughty man, he compelled the strangers who came to his kingdom to contend with him in boxing and slew the vanquished. When he challenged the best man of the crew to a boxing match, Pollux fought against him and slew him with a blow on the elbow. When the Bebryces made a rush at him, the chiefs snatched up their arms and put them to flight with great slaughter.Phineus and the Harpies
Thence, they put to sea and came to land at Salmydessus in Thrace, where Phineus dwelt. The latter was said to be the son of Agenor or of Poseidon, and a seer who was bestowed by Apollo with the gift of prophecy. Phineus had lost the sight of both eyes because of the following reasons, blinded by Zeus because he revealed the deliberations of the gods and foretold the future to men, by Boreas and the Argonauts because he blinded his own two sons by Cleopatra at the instigation of their stepmother; or by Poseidon, because he revealed to the children of Phrixus how they could sail from Colchis to Greece. Zeus then set over him the Harpies, who are called the hounds of Zeus. 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.When the Argonauts would have consulted him about the voyage, he said that he would advise them about it if they would free him from the punishment. So the Argonauts laid a table of viands beside him, and the Harpies with a shriek suddenly pounced down and snatched away the food. When Zetes and Calais, the sons of Boreas, saw that, they drew their swords and, having wings on head and feet, pursued them through the air. Now it was fated that the Harpies should perish by the sons of Boreas, and that the sons of Boreas should die when they could not catch up a fugitive. So the Harpies were pursued and one of them fell into the river Tigres in Peloponnese, the river that is now called Harpys after her; some call her Nicothoe, but others Aellopus. But the other, named Ocypete or, according to others, Ocythoe fled by the Propontis till she came to the Echinadian Islands, which are now called Strophades after her; for when she came to them she turned and being at the shore fell for very weariness with her pursuer. 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. Eventually, the Argonauts freed Phineus from the punishment.