Argonauts

For other uses of this term, see Argonaut.

Gathering of the Argonauts (?), Attic red-figure krater, 460–450 BC, Louvre (G 341)

The Argo, by Lorenzo Costa

The Argonauts (Greek: Αργοναύται, Argonautai; Georgian: არგონავტები, ArgonavTebi, (Laz language: Argonatepe)) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology who, in the years before the Trojan War, accompanied Jason to Colchis (modern day west of Georgia) in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, the Argo, which was named after its builder, Argus. "Argonauts", therefore, literally means "Argo sailors". They were sometimes called Minyans, after a prehistoric tribe of the area.

Story

After the death of King Cretheus, the Aeolian Pelias usurped the Iolcan throne from his half-brother Aeson and became king of Iolcus in Thessaly (near the modern city of Volos). 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 Diomedes. 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, who changed the boy's name to Jason.

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 Anavros river while helping an old woman (Hera in disguise) ford. The goddess was angry with King Pelias for killing his stepmother 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 cousin. 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.

Jason was accompanied by some of the principal heroes of ancient Greece. The number of Argonauts varies, but usually totals between 40 and 55; traditional versions of the story place their number at 50.

Some have hypothesized that the legend of the Golden Fleece was based on a practice of the Black Sea tribes; they would place a lamb's fleece at the bottom of a stream to entrap gold dust being washed down from upstream. This practice was still in use in recent times, particularly in the Svaneti region of Georgia. See Golden Fleece for other interpretations.

The crew of the Argo

There is no definite list of Argonauts. Many Greeks would claim their ancestors were Argonauts, and there were too many named for them all to be accurate. The following list is no more than an educated guess.

The Argonauts (Jason and Medea are sometimes not counted) were:

Spoken-word myths — audio files

Adaptations of the myth

Literature

• The Life and Death of Jason (1867) by William Morris
• Hercules, My Shipmate (1945) by Robert Graves
• The Greek Myths by Robert Graves
• Jason and Medeia by John Gardner -- a modern, epic poem in English.
• The Argonautica by Gaius Valerius Flaccus -- a first-century AD Latin epic poem.
• The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes -- a Hellenistic, Greek epic poem.
• Despoiled Shore Medea Material Landscape with Argonauts (1982) -- a play in the synthetic fragment form by Heiner Müller
• Matthew Reilly's Hover Car Racer alludes to this myth, with the main character being called Jason, and his hovercraft the Argonaut

"Celtika" by Robert Holdstock; a tale of Jason sailing far beyond Colchis

Film

Two movies titled Jason and the Argonauts have been made, and a film entitled Rise of the Argonauts is in production but is not an adaptation of the game and will act as a prequel to the first film. This film will be released sometime in spring 2011.

Jason and the Argonauts (1963), directed by Don Chaffey and featuring special effects by Ray Harryhausen, shows Jason hosting Olympics-like games and selecting his crew from among the winners.

A Hallmark presentation TV movie, Jason and the Argonauts (2000), on the other hand, shows Jason having to settle for men with no sailing experience. This includes a thief who says "Who better than a thief to grab the Golden Fleece?"

A movie titled "Vesyolaya hronika opasnogo puteshestviya" (Amusing Chronicle of a Dangerous Voyage) was made in the Soviet Union in 1986 starring a famous Russian actor Alexander Abdulov. (imdb)

Radio

In 2001, a radio drama adaptation of Apollonius' Argonautica was presented on the Radio Tales series for National Public Radio.

Video games

Jason and the Argo, along with a small number of the more legendary Argonauts and Greeks, were featured in the 2008 video game Rise of the Argonauts

See also

• Argo Navis
• Argonaut Mine
• Jason for more details on the quest for the Golden Fleece
• Toronto Argonauts, a Canadian Football League Team
• Argonaut Rowing Club, a rowing club based out of Toronto

Notes

References

• Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica I, 23-227;
• Apollodorus, Bibliotheke I, ix, 16.
• Ken Inglis, This is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission 1932-1983, 2006