Greek PantheonRealm
Colchis
The distant kingdom at the edge of the known world where the Golden Fleece was kept, guarded by an ever-watchful dragon.
About Colchis
Fleece at the world's edge
Colchis is Aeetes's kingdom on the Phasis, where a ram's gold hide hangs in a grove of Ares. Pindar's Pythian 4 already sends Jason there; Apollonius fills the voyage. Medea's magic, the unsleeping dragon, and the fire-breathing oxen are Greek pictures of a Black Sea power that really traded with the Aegean. There is no Colchian epic in Greek libraries, only the Argonauts' report. The fleece is a prize that turns the return into a crime.
On the map
Colchis among other places of the Greek Pantheon.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4
About this entry
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.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
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