ARGONAUTS, the name given in Greek legends to the sailors, who, in a ship called the Argo, made a hazardous voyage to Colchis un der the leadership of Jason, in quest of the golden fleece. Jason's uncle Pelias had usurped the kingdom of Iolcos and would resign it only on condition that Jason should first bring from Colchis the golden fleece suspended in a conse crated grove at Colchis. Among Jason's corn panions were Hercules, Castor and Po!Mx, Peleus, Admetus, Meleager, Orpheus, Telamon, Theseus, and his friend Pirithous, Hylas and Lynceus. Having sailed from the promontory of Magnesia, in Thessaly, they reached the har bor of Lemnos, where they remained two years. The women of Lemnos, instigated by the of fended Aphrodite (Venus), had slain all the males among them, except Thoas, and they detained among them the welcome strangers. At length they proceeded to the Troad, where Hylas and Hercules were left behind. After various adventures they approached the dreaded Symplegades, rocks which closed together and dashed in pieces vessels passing through them. According to instructions previously received, they caused a dove to fly through before them, and followed, rowing with all their strength, while Orpheus played on his lyre. The rocks stood firm, and the danger was escaped. The last adventure awaited them at the Island of Aretias. Here they found the Stymphalides, birds which shot their feathers like arrows, and from which the heroes could only protect them selves by a violent clashing of weapons. On their arrival at Colchis King /Fetes did not re fuse absolutely to deliver the golden fleece, but charged Jason with three dangerous labors, thus hoping to destroy him. Jason was to yoke
the two fire-breathing bulls of Hephaestus to a ploughshare of adamant, and to plough with them four acres of land consecrated to Ares (Mars), and never before turned up. He was then to sow in the furrows the remaining ser pents' teeth of Cadmus, in the possession of fEetes, and to kill the armed heroes which they produced; at last, to fight with and slay the dragon that guarded the golden fleece. All three labors he was to accomplish in a single day. With the help of Medea, the daughter of Xetes, these tasks were accomplished and the fleece obtained. Jason then fled with Medea, but the fugitives were pursued and on the point of being overtaken when Medea averted the danger by killing her brother Absyrtus, and strewing on the road his mangled limbs. The unhappy father quitted the pursuit to collect the bloody limbs of his son and the fugitives escaped. The return of the Argonauts is variously told, but after many perils they reached Iolcos and gave the fleece to Pelias. Whatever the origin of the story, it was cer tainly developed under the influence of the great period of Greek colonization in the 8th and 7th centuries B.C., when the adventures of the navigators and explorers of the western Mediterranean and the Black sea were told of gods and heroes. The story is scattered through nearly all the literature of Greece. Apollonius of Rhodes first gathered the mass of material into a connected consistent narra tive.