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Key Details
Type
RealmMythology
Greek Pantheon
Coordinates
42.266°N, 42.718°E
About This Location
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.
Primary Sources
“They found the fleece hanging on a huge oak, like a cloud that blushes in the beams of the rising sun.”
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Body Of WaterThe principal river of the underworld, upon which even the gods swore binding oaths. Charon ferried the dead across its dark waters.