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Golden Fleece

By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.

Description

Ram-hide in Ares' grove

Phrixus flees to Colchis on the golden ram Chrysomallos; the hide is hung in a grove of Ares and watched by a sleepless dragon (Apollodorus; Apollonius, Argonautica). Jason takes it with Medea's help. Pindar's Fourth Pythian already knows the Argo. Healing and resurrection attached to the fleece are later coloring; the epic prize is a kingship-and-rescue token after a sacrifice of the ram to Zeus. No Colchian shrine of the fleece is left for archaeology to test. The poem ends with a hide, not a relic on tour.

Primary Sources

“Aeetes had hung the golden fleece in a grove of Ares, where it was guarded by a dragon that never slept.”
Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 2–4 (with Apollodorus, Library 1.9)(c. 3rd century BCE / 1st–2nd century CE)

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