Argonautæ

, a name given to those ancient heroes who went with Jason on board the ship Argo to Colchis, about 79 years before the taking of Troy, or 1263 B.C. The causes of this expedition arose from the following circumstance:—Athamas king of Thebes had married Ino the daughter of Cadmus, whom he divorced to marry Nephele, by whom he had two children, Phryxus and Helle. As Nephele was subject to certain fits of madne , Athamas repudiated her, and took a second time Ino, by whom he had soon after two sons, Learchus and Melicerta. As the children of Nephele were to succeed to their father by right of birth, Ino conceived an immortal hatred against them, and she caused the city of Thebes to be visited by a pestilence, by poisoning all the grain which had been sown in the earth. Upon this the oracle was consulted; and as it had been corrupted by means of Ino, the answer was, that Nephele’s children should be immolated to the gods. Phryxus was apprised of this, and he immediately embarked with his sister Helle, and fled to the court of Æetes king of Colchis, one of his near relations. In the voyage Helle died, and Phryxus arrived safe at Colchis, and was received with kindne by the king. The poets have embellished the flight of Phryxus, by supposing that he and Helle fled through the air on a ram which had a golden fleece and wings, and was endowed with the faculties of speech. This ram, as they say, was the offspring of Neptune’s amours, under the form of a ram, with the nymph Theopane. As they were going to be sacrificed, the ram took them on his back, and instantly disappeared in the air. On their way Helle was giddy, and fell into that part of the sea which from her was called the Hellespont. When Phryxus came to Colchis, he sacrificed the ram to Jupiter, or, according to others, to Mars, to whom he also dedicated the golden fleece. He soon after married Chalciope the daughter of Æetes; but his father-in-law envied him the po e ion of the golden fleece, and therefore to obtain it he murdered him. Some time after this event, when Jason the son of Æson demanded of his uncle Pelias the crown which he usurped [ See: Pelias , Jason , Æson ], Pelias said that he would restore it to him, provided he avenged the death of their common relation Phryxus, whom Æetes had basely murdered in Colchis. Jason, who was in the vigour of youth, and of an ambitious soul, cheerfully undertook the expedition, and embarked with all the young princes of Greece in the ship Argo. They stopped at the island of Lemnos, where they remained two years, and raised a new race of men from the Lemnian women who had murdered their husbands. See: Hypsipyle . After they had left Lemnos, they visited Samothrace, where they offered sacrifices to the gods, and thence pa ed to Troas and Cyzicum. Here they met with a favourable reception from Cyzicus the king of the country. The night after their departure, they were driven back by a storm again on the coast of Cyzicum, and the inhabitants, supposing them to be their enemies, the Pelasgi, furiously attacked them. In this nocturnal engagement the slaughter was great, and Cyzicus was killed by the hand of Jason, who, to expiate the murder he had ignorantly committed, buried him in a magnificent manner, and offered a sacrifice to the mother of the gods, to whom he built a temple on mount Dindymus. From Cyzicum they visited Bebrycia, otherwise called Bithynia, where Pollux accepted the challenge of Amycus king of the country in the combat of the cestus, and slew him. They were driven from Bebrycia by a storm to Salmyde a, on the coast of Thrace, where they delivered Phineus king of the place from the persecution of the harpies. Phineus directed their course through the Cyanean rock or the Symplegades [ See: Cyaneæ ], and they safely entered the Euxine sea. They visited the country of the Mariandynians, where Lycus reigned, and lost two of their companions, Idmon, and Tiphys their pilot. After they had left this coast, they were driven upon the island of Arecia, where they found the children of Phryxus, whom Æetes their grandfather had sent to Greece to take po e ion of their father’s kingdom. From this island they at last arrived safe in Æa, the capital of Colchis. Jason explained the causes of his voyage to Æetes; but the conditions on which he was to recover the golden fleece were so hard, that the Argonauts must have perished in the attempt, had not Medea the king’s daughter fallen in love with their leader. She had a conference with Jason, and after mutual oaths of fidelity in the temple of Hecate, Medea pledged herself to deliver the Argonauts from her father’s hard conditions, if Jason married her, and carried her with him to Greece. He was to tame two bulls, which had brazen feet and horns, and which vomited clouds of fire and smoke, and to tie them to a plough made of adamant stone, and to plough a field of two acres of ground never before cultivated. After this he was to sow in the plain the teeth of a dragon, from which an armed multitude were to rise up, and to be all destroyed by his hands. This done, he was to kill an ever-watchful dragon, which was at the bottom of the tree, on which the golden fleece was suspended. All these labours were to be performed in one day; and Medea’s a istance, whose knowledge of herbs, magic, and potions was unparalleled, easily extricated Jason from all danger to the astonishment and terror of his companions, and of Æetes, and the people of Colchis, who had a embled to be spectators of this wonderful action. He tamed the bulls with ease, ploughed the field, sowed the dragon’s teeth, and when the armed men sprang from the earth, he threw a stone in the midst of them, and they immediately turned their weapons one against the other, till they all perished. After this he went to the dragon and by means of enchanted herbs, and a draught which Medea had given him he lulled the monster to sleep, and obtained the golden fleece, and immediately set sail with Medea. He was soon pursued by Absyrtus the king’s son, who came up to them, and was seized and murdered by Jason and Medea. The mangled limbs of Absyrtus were strewed in the way through which Æetes was to pa , that his further pursuit might be stopped. After the murder of Absyrtus, they entered the Palus Mæotis, and by pursuing their course towards the left, according to the foolish account of poets who were ignorant of geography, they came to the island Peucestes, and to that of Circe. Here Circe informed Jason that the cause of all his calamities arose from the murder of Absyrtus, of which she refused to expiate him. Soon after, they entered the Mediterranean by the columns of Hercules, and pa ed the straits of Charybdis and Scylla, where they must have perished, had not Tethys the mistre of Peleus, one of the Argonauts, delivered them. They were preserved from the Sirens by the eloquence of Orpheus, and arrived in the island of the Phæacians, where they met the enemy’s fleet, which had continued their pursuit by a different course. It was therefore resolved that Medea should be restored, if she had not been actually married to Jason; but the wife of Alcinous the king of the country, being appointed umpire between the Colchians and Argonauts, had the marriage privately consummated by night, and declared that the claims of Æetes to Medea were now void. From Phæacia the Argonauts came to the bay of Ambracia, whence they were driven by a storm upon the coast of Africa, and, after many disasters, at last came in sight of the promontory of Melea in the Peloponnesus, where Jason was purified of the murder of Absyrtus, and soon after arrived safe in The aly. The impracticability of such a voyage is well known. A poll on i us Rhodius gives another account, equally improbable. He says that they sailed from the Euxine up one of the mouths of the Danube, and that Absyrtus pursued them by entering another mouth of the river. After they had continued their voyage for some leagues, the waters decreased, and they were obliged to carry the ship Argo acro the country to the Adriatic, upwards of 150 miles. Here they met with Absyrtus, who had pursued the same measures, and conveyed his ships in like manner over the land. Absyrtus was immediately put to death; and soon after the beam of Dodona [ See: Argo ] gave an oracle, that Jason should never return home if he was not previously purified of the murder. Upon this they sailed to the island of Æa, where Circe, who was the sister of Æetes, expiated him without knowing who he was. There is a third tradition, which maintains that they returned to Colchis a second time, and visited many places of Asia. This famous expedition has been celebrated in the ancient ages of the world; it has employed the pen of many writers, and among the historians, Diodorus, Siculus, Strabo, Apollo dor us, and Justin; and among the poets, Onomacritus, more generally called Orpheus, A poll on i us Rhodius, Pindar, and Valerius Flaccus, have extensively given an account of its most remarkable particulars. The number of the Argonauts is not exactly known. Apollo dor us and Diodorus say that they were 54. Tzetzes admits the number of 50, but Apollo dor us mentions only 45. The following list is drawn from the various authors who have made mention of the Argonautic expedition. Jason son of Æson, as is well known, was the chief of the rest. His companions were Acastus son of Pelias, Actor son of Hippasus, Admetus son of Pheres, Æsculapius son of Apollo, Ætalides son of Mercury and Eupoleme, Almenus son of Mars, Amphiaraus son of Œcleus, Amphidamus son of Aleus, Amphion son of Hyper as i us, Anceus a son of Lycurgus, and another of the same name, Areus, Argus the builder of the ship Argo, Argus son of Phryxus, Armenus, Ascalaphus son of Mars, Aster i on son of Cometes, Asterius son of Neleus, Augeas son of Sol, A talant a daughter of Schœneus, disguised in a man’s dre , Autolycus son of Mercury, Azorus, Buphagus, Butes son of Teleon, Calais son of Boreas, Canthus son of Abas, Castor son of Jupiter, Ceneus son of Elatus, Cepheus son of Aleus, Cius, Clytius and Iphitus sons of Eurythus, Coronus, Deucalion son of Minos, Echion son of Mercury and Anti an ira, Ergynus son of Neptune, Euphemus son of Neptune and Mac i on a a, Eribotes, Euryalus son of Cisteus, Eurydamus and Eurythion sons of Iras, Eurytus son of Mercury, Glaucus, Hercules son of Jupiter, Idas son of A phare us, Ialmenus son of Mars, Idmon son of Abas, Iolaus son of Iphiclus, Iphiclus son of Thestius, Iphiclus son of Philacus, Iphis son of A lector, Lynceus son of A phare us, Iritus son of Naubolus, Laertes son of Arcesius, Laocoon, Leodatus son of Bias, Leitus son of A lector, Meleager son of Œneus, Menœtius son of Actor, Mopsus son of Amphycus, Nauplius son of Neptune, Neleus the brother of Peleus, Nestor son of Neleus, Oileus the father of Ajax, Orpheus son of Œager, Palemon son of Ætolus, Peleus and Telamon sons of Æacus, Per i cly menes son of Neleus, Peneleus son of Hipalmus, Phi loc tetes son of Pœan, Phlias, Pollux son of Jupiter, Polyp hem us son of Elates, Pœas son of Thaumacus, Phanus son of Bacchus, Phalerus son of Alcon, Phocas and Priasus sons of Ceneus one of the Lapithæ, Talaus, Tiphys son of Aginus, Staphilus son of Bacchus, two of the name of Iphitus, These us son of Ægeus, with his friend Pirithous. Among these Æsculapius was physician, and Tiphys was pilot.