Other Versions of the Quest

Our most authoritative work about the Jason and the Quest of the Golden Fleece come from Apollonius of Rhodes, in the epic Argonautica (3rd century BC), which I have already retold.

There are many scattered references about the Argonauts, but very few authors tell the complete tale about Jason's quest. Homer only made passing reference to Jason, whose ship was the first to pass safely through the Scylla and Charybdis. Circe told Odysseus:

"...One ship alone, one deep-sea craft sailed clear,
the Argo, sung by the world, when heading home
from Aeetes' shores. And she would have crashed
against those giant rocks and sunk at once if Hera,
for the love of Jason, had not sped her through."

Homer, The Odyssey,
Book XII 75-80
translated by Robert Fagles

In Pindar's Pythian IV, we have our first very brief extant account of the Quest. Some of the events can be recognised, while other events showed different variations to those told by Apollonius.

In the Library, Apollodorus followed more or less along the line of Apollonius' epic, but in his usual compact and concise manner. Apollodorus gave us other accounts of Athamas and Pelias before the Quest and the death of Pelias after the completion of the Quest, as well what happened to Jason and Medea.

Hyginus' Fabulae also followed a similar line to that of Apollonius and Apollodorus, though it was written in a rather confusing fashion.

Diodorus Siculus' account was quite different in many respects to that told by all the other writers.

Below, Pindar and Diodorus wrote two very different but brief accounts about the Quest.

• Pindar's Version

• Diodorus' Version

• The Orphic Argonautica

• Death of King Pelias

Note that there is one other version about the Argonauts, but so far I have not found a copy of this work. It was written by the Roman author Valerius Flaccus.

Pindar's Version

The great lyric poet Pindar had written the oldest extant account about Jason and the Argonauts in his ode, Pythian IV. Pindar lived in the second half of the 5th century BC. Apollonius had obviously used much of Pindar's poem as his source for the Argonautica, but there was not much description about their journey, anyway.

The ode begins with Euryplus of Thera, son of Poseidon, a descendant of the hero and Argonaut Euphemus. Euphemus had received a clod of earth from a Libyan sea god, as an indication that he would rule Africa within four generations, when Euphemus planted the holy soil in the cave of Tainaros. Instead the clod of earth got washed overboard the Argo from the waves and sank to the bottom of the sea, so the prophecy was delayed from fulfilment until that of Battus.

The account about the Quest doesn't begin until the poet talks about the prophecy, where Pelias must die at the hand of the descendant of Aeolus, a young man with one sandal.

This young hero did arrive with one sandal, and Pindar gave us an interesting description of what he looked like. The hero was young, muscular and long-limbed, and with bright coloured locks of long hair. The stranger wore a cloak made of leopard hide, and was armed with two deadly spears.

The hero announced to the people of Iolcus that he was Jason, son of Aeson. He had been living for 20 years under his mentor, the wise Centaur Cheiron. Jason had come to claim his rightful place as the king of Iolcus. Aeson recognised his son. Aeson's brothers and nephews came to support Jason when the hero confronted King Pelias.

Pelias answered Jason's claim that he would willingly step down, if his nephew would fetch the Golden Fleece from Colchis for him, because Phrixus haunted his dreams. Only by returning the Golden Fleece to Greece would the soul of Phrixus be laid to rest. Jason readily agreed to such a perilous quest. Pelias didn't believe that Jason would return, but the treacherous king didn't realise that the hero was under the protection of the powerful goddess, Hera.

Jason announced the Quest to the whole of the Greek kingdoms, asking for the bravest men to join him. Many heroes arrived at his calling; they were also eager to test their prowess in the grand voyage. Not many of the heroes were listed in this ode; a mere dozen names (including Jason) were listed. They were Heracles, Castor and Polydeuces, Euphemus, Periclymenus, Orpheus, Echion and Erytus, Calais and Zetes, and Mopsus. (See Facts and Figures for the list of crew of the Argo.)

Since it was a lyric poem that was performed before an audience, Pindar skipped details about individual adventures in the voyage to Colchis, where he only briefly mentioned the Clashing Rocks before the Argonauts were suddenly in Aea, the capital of Colchis, at the mouth of the river Phasis.

Pindar does go into more detail about the meeting between Jason and Medea, daughter of Aeëtes, than about the voyage. Aphrodite, goddess of love, used wryneck to cause Medea to fall in love with Jason. Such was Medea's love and passion for the stranger that she forgot all loyalties to her father and kingdom. Medea knew of her father's plan against the Argonauts, so she secretly aided Jason in return for his love and marriage. She anointed Jason's body with special magic oil.

Aeëtes was not so welcoming to foreigners, and was angry at the demand made by the Argonauts. Aeëtes agreed to hand over the Golden Fleece, but demanded that Jason face a perilous task: ploughing the field using bronze-shod hoof, fire-breathing bulls, straight and at a certain distance.

When Jason faced the bulls, the blast of fire from bulls' breath did no harm to Jason's oiled body. Jason took up the plough and drove the bulls to pull the plough at the required distance. (There was no sowing of dragon-teeth men.) Aeëtes was enraged that Jason had succeeded in what should have been an impossible task.

Aeëtes told Jason that the Golden Fleece was nailed to a tree within a sacred grove of the Ares, but the never-sleeping dragon or serpent guarded the Golden Fleece. The adventure ended with Jason killing the dragon and taking the Golden Fleece.

From there, Pindar briefly says that Medea fled from her father's kingdom with Jason, and she caused the death of Pelias upon Jason's return to Iolcus.

Diodorus' Version

In Sicily, in the first century BC, Diodorus Siculus wrote his so-called history called the Library of History, where most of Book I-VIII contained mythical and legendary accounts. A major part of the Library is either lost or fragmented after Book V. From Book IX to XX, Diodorus began his history on the Greek world.

Diodorus' version of the adventures of the Argonauts can be found in Book 4, in 40-49, while he related Pelias' death after the Argonauts returned to Iolcus and Medea's later life, from 50-56 of Book 4.

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Unlike the previous tales of the Argonauts, Pelias was actually the brother, not half-brother, of Aeson and Pheres. Pelias was not a usurper, but the rightful king of Iolcus. Being the eldest, but he had no male child of his own (which is a contradiction to what Diodorus wrote later, when Pelias died), so he feared that his brothers and nephews might depose him.

It was Jason, Pelias' nephew, who brought up the idea of a quest to Colchis to fetch the Golden Fleece because he wanted to win glory and be remembered for his heroic deeds, like the hero Perseus. Pelias encouraged his nephew in the hope that Jason would die on the perilous voyage.

So there was no Jason being brought up by the wise Centaur Cheiron in Diodorus' account. There was no goddess Hera favouring the hero, nor were there any prophecies where Pelias would die by the stranger with one sandal, which we find in the early sources.

Jason had the ship built by Argus, at Mount Pelion. The ship was named Argo, after its ship-builder. Once the ship was completed, Jason made an announcement throughout Greece for the bravest heroes to enlist in this adventure. Diodorus listed Heracles, Castor and Polydeuces, Telamon, Orpheus, and the sons of Thespius. Diodorus also included the huntress Atalanta, daughter of Schoeneus. Though Jason was the leader, Heracles was chosen as their general, because he was the mightiest of all heroes. (See Facts and Figures for the list of crew of the Argo.)

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Diodorus ignored or modified much of the Argonauts' adventures in their voyage to Colchis that appeared in other Greek myths and in Apollonius' epic.

When the Argo landed on Sigeium, in Troad, they discovered the maiden Hesione, daughter of Laomedon, king of Troy. The Trojan princess was chained to a rock, as a sacrifice to the sea-monster sent by Poseidon. Laomedon had offended the gods, Apollo and Poseidon, because the king broke his promise to pay the two gods for building the walls around Troy. Apollo brought pestilence to the city.

Heracles freed the girl, and then went to the king, proposing to slay the sea-monster in return for Laomedon's immortal horses, which Laomedon readily agreed. Heracles slew the sea monster. Laomedon agreed to keep the horses for Heracles until they returned from Colchis. His daughter Hesione, who feared that she might be chosen as sacrifice again, preferred to go to Greece with the Argonauts when they returned to Greece.

(Usually, this adventure of Heracles at Troy happened on his return journey from the land of the Amazons, when Heracles was required to fetch the girdle of the Amazon Queen, Hippolyte, in his ninth labour. The adventure in Troy didn't appear in Apollonius' account. See the 9th Labour of Heracles.)

A storm hit their ship when they left the Troad, and only when the musician Orpheus prayed to the deities from the island of Samothrace did the winds die down. Orpheus was the only one aboard who was initiated in the mysteries of the deities of the Samothrace. Two stars fell over the heads of Castor and Polydeuces, the Dioscuri. These stars were part of the Gemini constellation.

The Argonauts then landed at Thrace where Phineus was king. They discovered the two sons of Phineus and Cleopatra, daughter of the wind god Boreas and the Athenian princess Oreithyïa, daughter of Erechtheus. Phineus' sons were confined in a burial vault and were whipped as punishment because of the lies of their stepmother, Idaea, daughter of Dardanus, king of the Scythians.

They appealed to the Argonauts to rescue them. Phineus angrily told the Argonauts that this had nothing to do with them, but Calais and Zetes, who were known as the Boreadae, were the brothers of Cleopatra. The Boreadae took pity on them because they were their nephews. The Boreadae, who were part of the crew of the Argo, chose to help them, so fighting erupted between the Thracians and the Argonauts. The fighting quickly ended when Heracles killed Phineus. The Boreades' nephews were freed, as well as their sister Cleopatra. The sons of Phineus wanted to kill their stepmother (Idaea), but refrained from doing so when Heracles asked them to. They sent Idaea back to her father in Scythia. When the Scythians heard of Idaea's wicked lies, they condemned her to death.

(Here, there were no Harpies, from which the Boreades had rescued the blind seer Phineus. Also Diodorus' Phineus was not blind and had no gift of divination. Phineus did not try to help the Argonauts, but was against them. And Diodorus totally ignored the Argonauts' adventure at the Clashing Rocks, the entrance to the Black Sea. See Apollonius' version under the title, In the Black Sea.)

The voyage of the Argonauts in the Black Sea was uneventful, and it is at this point that Diodorus spoke of the origin of the Golden Fleece and the family of Aeëtes. Again, Diodorus' account was very different to that of Apollonius and other classical authors.

You would remember that in the usual myth, Phrixus and his sister were saved from being sacrificed by the flying Golden Fleece, sent by the god. Upon the ram's back, they flew away towards the East. As they were flying over the Troad, Helle was exhausted, fell asleep, and plunged to her death in the narrow strait of water, which was named after her – Hellespont. (See Origin of the Quest.)

In Diodorus' version however, it was not a flying ram of gold that had the children of Athamas, but Phrixus and Helle escaping on a ship, and the bow of the ship had an image of a ram's head. As they were sailing past the Hellespont, Helle was overcome with seasickness. When she leaned too far over the side of the ship, she fell overboard and drowned. Phrixus continued on his journey to Colchis. Here, you can see that Diodorus has tampered with the well-known myths, trying to give a realistic but uninteresting account for his readers.

Aeëtes, its king, was the son of Helios. Aeëtes had a brother who was named Perses, the father of Hecate and king of the Tauric Chersonese. Both the Colchians and Taurians were known for their cruelty and hostility towards strangers. It was normal practice to sacrifice strangers to their goddess (Artemis?). Hecate was a noticeably cruel practitioner of dark sorcery, as well as being a high priestess of Artemis, goddess of magic. Hecate poisoned her father and succeeded Perses to the throne, before she married her uncle and became the mother of two powerful sorceresses, Circe and Medea.

Phrixus and his attendant named Crius, whose name means, "ram", were captured by the Colchians. Before they could sacrifice Phrixus and Crius, the king of the Scythians and son-in-law of Aeëtes, saw the exiled Minyan prince and fell in love with Phrixus. Aeëtes gave the boy to the Scythian king, but sacrificed Phrixus' attendant. It was the normal practice of the Colchians to flay the victim, so they hanged the skin of Crius and nailed it to the altar of the temple to Ares. But Aeëtes learned from the oracle that he would die when strangers would sail into his land and steal the skin of Crius.

Hoping to prevent his doom from taking place, the king set a dragon to guard the temple and the skin. Aeëtes had also set the Taurians to guard both the city and his kingdom, with orders to capture any stranger who set foot in his kingdom. Diodorus tried to dispel the myth about the fire-breathing bulls by saying that the Taurians or the people of Tauric Chersonese were these so-called bulls. Aeëtes had the skin painted in a gold colour because he wanted the Taurian soldiers to guard it more carefully, if they thought it was worth protecting. The skin of Crius was the so-called Golden Fleece.

Circe and Medea had learned drugs, magic and sorcery of all sorts from their mother. Though Hecate and Circe used their sorcery for power that they could gain, Medea on the other hand tried to use her power to help people. She tried to save people who were about to be sacrificed. When Aeëtes learned of his daughter's defiance of his strict orders to capture strangers, she was put on house arrest or on parole.

Medea escaped and went to the shore where there was a precinct, sacred to Helius. It was on this very day of her arrival when she met Jason and the Argonauts. Medea offered to help them, while Jason offered her marriage to him when they returned to Iolcus.

Medea had the gates opened to her at the city of Sybaris (though most people called Aeëtes' capital Aea), and the Argonauts rushed into city, killing some guards, while the other Taurians fled in confusion because of the sudden attack. Medea quickly led them to the precinct of Ares where she poisoned the dragon that guarded the skin of Crius (Golden Fleece). Jason took the fleece, and with Medea and the Argonauts fled back to their ship.

Hearing of the attack and the theft of Golden Fleece, Aeëtes gathered his most trusted bodyguards and pursued the fleeing Argonauts. They encountered the Argonauts on the beach, where there was fierce fighting between the two sides. The Argonauts were vastly outnumbered, but with Heracles on their side, the mighty hero killed many Taurians and Colchians. Aeëtes killed Iphitus, brother of King Eurystheus of Mycenae, but the king fell to Meleager.

With Aeëtes' death, the Colchians fled, and the Argonauts returned to their ships. Medea healed the wounded; among them were Jason, Laertes, Atalanta and the sons of Thespius. The Argonauts left Colchis three days later.

The Argo ran into another violent storm in the sea, but the winds died down and the rough waves calmed when Orpheus prayed to the deities of Samothrace again. This brought about the appearance of Glaucus, the minor sea god. Glaucus foretold that the Spartan twins, Castor and Polydeuces (Dioscuri), and Heracles, because of his Twelve Labours, would receive immortality from the gods. The sea god counselled them to erect a shrine to the gods for their deliverance on the first dry land they would set foot on. This was at Byzantium, ruled by the king named Byzas.

The Argonauts then returned to Troy where Heracles came to fetch Hesione and the immortal horses that Laomedon had promised to the hero. Heracles sent his brother Iphicles and his friend Telamon to Laomedon's court, but the treacherous king threw the ambassadors into his dungeon.

Priam was the only son of Laomedon who opposed the imprisonment of the pair of Argonauts, and pleaded for their release and the fulfilment of his father's promise to Heracles, which Laomedon ignored. So Priam helped Telamon and Iphiclus to escape from prison. Killing some guards, they returned to the Argo with the news of Laomedon's betrayal. The Argonauts quickly armed themselves just as the Laomedon set out with an army to destroy the Argonauts.

The battle lasted until Heracles killed Laomedon and all his sons except Priam, and captured Troy. Heracles set Priam as king of Troy. Again this account (by Diodorus) is different from the usual myth about the rescue of Hesione and Heracles' war against Troy.

At this point, Jason and the Argonauts reached home, when Jason had heard news of the death of his parents at the hands of Pelias who wished to remove all rivals for the throne. Since Diodorus' account on Pelias' death was similar to other accounts, then I suggest that you should read the Death of King Pelias for more information on it.

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The role of Jason was very small in Diodorus' account. Heracles and other heroes, plus Medea, played more vital parts in the Quest than Jason did. Jason was the leader of the Argonauts and had the ship built for his journey and promised to marry Medea, but it was his companions, like Heracles, Meleager and Orpheus, who saved the day when they were in danger. Medea's role was small in the Quest, but she played a more important role after the quest, causing Pelias' death.

In Apollonius' Argonautica, the Argonauts abandoned Heracles when his squire vanished in Mysia. This episode did not appear in Diodorus' work. Heracles was a more important hero than Jason and the other Argonauts in the Quest, who went all the way to Colchis and back. This was because Diodorus was writing about the Quest as part of the adventures of Heracles.

The Orphic Argonautica

The Orphic Argonautica belonged to the Orphic mystery religion. This version of the Argonautica alluded to the Orphic creation myth.

There are many similarities between the Orphic Argonautica and Apollonius' version.

The differences between Orphic Argonautica and other versions is the role played by Orpheus.

In this Argonautica, Orpheus played the narrator, recounting his adventure with his fellow Argonauts which was to fetch the Golden Fleece in Colchis.

Orpheus was a mythical bard. A son of the Muse, Calliope. His father was either the god Apollo or the Thracian king Oeagrus. Orpheus also played a prominent role in the Orphic theology, and was said to have started this religion.

The epic began with Orpheus alluding to the some primeval deities, including Phanes, also known as Eros (Love). Chaos and Time were the parents of Aether, Night and Eros-Phanes. In this version, Persephone was the daughter of the mother goddess Cybele (instead of Demeter, unless Cybele and Demeter are one and the same) and Zeus. Even the Egyptian god Osiris and the bull god Apis were mentioned.

Then the real story began. The first person that Jason recruited as part of the crew to join his voyage to fetch the Golden Fleece was Orpheus. According to the narrator (Orpheus), Jason wanted Orpheus more than anyone else, so he personally entreated Orpheus because of some sort of special abilities, other than his bardic ability. The other Argonauts listed in the crew catalogue were also happy to have Orpheus join them.

The goddess Hera heard Jason's prayer and called upon the goddess Athena Tritogeneia to build the very first ship, which they named Argo. Other versions never said that the Argo was the first ship.

Many of the same Argonauts that appeared in Apollonius' list also appeared in the Orphic poem, with a few names omitted and a few that were added.