ARGONAUTS, in Greek legend, a band of heroes who went with Jason (q.v.) to fetch the golden fleece in the ship "Argo" (Gr. 'Apyovavrat, sailors of the "Argo"). This task had been imposed on Jason by his uncle Pelias (q.v.), who had usurped the throne of Iolcus in Thessaly, which rightfully belonged to Jason's father Aeson. The story of the fleece follows: Jason's uncle Athamas had two children, Phrixus and Helle, by his wife Nephele, the cloud goddess. But after a time he became enamoured of Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, and neglected Nephele, who disappeared in anger. Ino, who hated the children of Nephele, persuaded Athamas, by means of a false oracle, to offer Phrixus as a sacrifice, as the only means of alleviating a famine which she herself had caused by ordering the grain to be secretly roasted before it was sown. But before the sacrifice, the shade of Nephele appeared to Phrixus, bringing a ram with a golden fleece on which he and his sister Helle endeavoured to escape over 1.he sea. Helle fell off and was drowned in the strait, which after her was called the Helles pont. Phrixus, however, reached the other side in safety, and proceeding by land to Aea in Colchis on the farther shore of the Euxine Sea, sacrificed the ram, and hung up its fleece in the grove of Ares, where it was guarded by a sleepless dragon.
Jason, having undertaken the quest of the fleece, called upon the noblest heroes of Greece to take part in the expedition. Ac cording to the original story, the crew consisted of the chief members of Jason's own race, the Minyae. But when the legend became common property, other and better-known heroes were added to their number. The crew was supposed to consist of 50, agreeing in number with the 5o oars of the "Argo," so called from its builder Argos, or from Gr. apyos (swift). It was the first ship, or the first war-galley, ever built. Athena herself super intended its construction, and inserted in the prow a piece of oak from Dodona, which was endowed with the power of speaking and delivering oracles. The Argonauts arrived at Lemnos, which was occupied only by women, who had put to death their fathers, husbands and brothers. Here they remained some months. It is known from Herodotus (iv. 145) that the Minyae had formed settlements at Lemnos at a very early date. Proceeding up the Hellespont, they sailed to the country of the Doliones, by whose king, Cyzicus, they were hospitably received. After their de parture, being driven back to the same place by storm, they were attacked by the Doliones, who did not recognize them, and in a battle which took place Cyzicus was killed by Jason. After Cyzicus had been duly mourned and buried, the Argonauts pro ceeded along the coast of Mysia, where occurred the incident of Hercules and Hylas (q.v.) . On reaching the country of the Bebryces, they again landed to get water, and were challenged by the king, Amycus, to match him with a boxer. Polydeuces accepted the challenge, and beat him. At the entrance to the Euxine, at Salmydessus, on the coast of Thrace, they met Phineus, the blind and aged king whose food was being constantly polluted by the Harpies. He knew the course to Colchis, and offered to tell it, if the Argonauts would free him from the Harpies. He was freed by the winged sons of Boreas, and Phineus now told them their course, and how to pass through the Symplegades or Cyanean rocks—two cliffs which moved on their bases and crushed what ever sought to pass. His advice was successfully followed, and the "Argo" made the passage unscathed, except for trifling damage to the stern. From that time the rocks became fixed and never closed again. After sundry minor adventures, they reached Col chis; but the king, Aeetes, would not give up the fleece until Jason should yoke his bulls, given him by Hephaestus, and which snorted fire and had hoofs of bronze, to a plough, and with them plough the field of Ares. That done, the field was to be sown with the dragon's teeth, from which armed men were to spring. Helped by Aeetes's daughter, the sorceress Medea, who had fallen in love with him, Jason accomplished these tasks and carried off the fleece. He then fled with Medea, Aeetes meanwhile pursuing them. To delay him and thus obtain escape, Medea dismem bered her young brother Absyrtus, whom she had taken with her, and cast his limbs about in the sea for his father to pick up.
In another account Absyrtus had grown to manhood then, and met his death in an encounter with Jason, in pursuit of whom he had been sent. Of the homeward course various accounts are given. In the oldest (Pindar), the "Argo" sailed along the river Phasis into the eastern Oceanus, round Asia to the south coast of Libya, thence to the mythical lake Tritonis, after being carried 12 days overland through Libya and thence again to Iolcus. Hecataeus of Miletus (Schol. Appollon. Rhod. iv. 259) suggested that from the Oceanus it may have sailed into the Nile, and so to the Mediterranean. Others, like Sophocles, described the return voyage as differing from the outward course only in taking the northern instead of the southern shore of the Euxine. Some (pseudo-Orpheus) supposed' that the Argonauts had sailed up the river Tangs, passed into another river, and by it reached the North Sea, returning to the Mediterranean by the Pillars of Hercules. Again, others (Appollonius Rhodius) laid down the course as up the Danube (Ister), from it into the Adriatic by a supposed mouth of that river, and on to Corcyra. Then follow wanderings, partly based on those of Odysseus (q.v.), partly on the older Argonautic routes. Finally, they reached Iolcus, and the "Argo" was placed in a grove sacred to Poseidon on the isthmus of Corinth.
The story of the expedition of the Argonauts is very old. Homer was acquainted with it and speaks of the "Argo" as well known to all men; the wanderings of Odysseus may have been partly founded on its voyage. Pindar, in the fourth Pythian ode, gives the oldest detailed account of it. In ancient times, the expedition was regarded as a historical fact, an incident in the opening up of the Euxine to Greek commerce and colonization, and so it probably is, but with a great accretion of fabulous details of many kinds.
See Miss J. R. Bacon, The Voyage of the Argonauts (London, 1925) , for further discussion and bibliography.