From clashing rocks to golden treasure, Jason and the Argonauts is the ultimate Greek mythological adventure. But what lies behind the legend? And why has it endured for millennia?In this episode, Tristan Hughes is joined by bestselling author Caroline Lawrence to chart Jason’s epic quest for the Golden Fleece. From harpies and dragons to the witch Circe and the bronze giant Talos, discover the mythical monsters, heroic crossovers and extraordinary journey that make this tale a timeless example of the hero’s journey — from Greece to Colchis and back again.For more of Caroline Lawrence and Jason and the Argonauts on The Ancients:The Minotaur: https://open.spotify.com/episode/72Efg0BmVFYunKg2FsDOQOThe Golden Fleece: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6OtHIiiC87BN4RMyOngK0tPresented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music from Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here:https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MK
Chapter 1: What is the story of Jason and the Argonauts?
It's the Ancients on History Hit, I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. Today we're exploring arguably the greatest of the mythological Greek adventure stories, and a story that has survived in full. The legend of Jason and the Argonauts, their quest to retrieve the golden fleece, the fleece of a magical golden-winged ram, protected by a dragon and owned by a faraway kingdom east of the Black Sea.
Jason and his crew of heroes' many adventures during this quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece have captivated people for millennia. This is a story that goes from Greece to the Bosphorus, that narrow strait of water where Istanbul is today, to modern-day Georgia and the ancient Kingdom of Colchis.
before an extraordinary return journey that sees the Argonauts voyage up the river Danube, around the Adriatic Sea, across the Alps, navigating North Africa, before finally returning to Greece. It is quite the epic story, full of famous heroes from Greek mythology, a crossover par excellence.
and it also features many well-known mythical creatures ranging from harpies, to the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece, to the witch Circe, the Sirens, the metal giant Talos, and more. Joining me to cover this epic ancient voyage from beginning to end is the best-selling author Caroline Lawrence. Caroline has been on the podcast before to cover the story of the Minotaur.
She has recently written a book about Greek mythology which includes the legend of Jason and the Argonauts and how it is a classic example of the hero's journey, something we see time and time again in movies today. Let's get into it. INTRO Caroline, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. Welcome back.
Oh, I am so honoured to be back. Thank you so much for inviting me back. It was really good fun last time and I hope we'll have fun today.
Oh, I'm sure we will. And as I said, last time was the Minotaur. This time you've got just as juicy. a topic of ancient Greek mythology. Jason and the Argonauts. I mean, Caroline, this feels like this ancient Greek version of the Avengers, this epic story of heroes all together going on a quest to a faraway land.
Absolutely. And no other story from the Greek myth has been retold in as many different ways by as many different authors as Jason and the Argonauts. And it's one of my favorites. I think it started off being one of my favorites because of the 1963 film, Jason and the Argonauts, which is so cheesy, but it's so wonderful. And it's got amazing special effects by Ray Harryhausen.
including gods that grow in puffs of smoke and Jason being taken to Mount Olympus and put on a board like he's a little chess piece, and Talos, the bronze man who turns his head and chases them slowly around the island, and the skeletons that Jason has to fight. It's just so visually stunning. We watched it again last night, and it's just so cheesy and so fun.
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Chapter 2: Who is Jason and what is his quest?
Very unusual. And in the great film, there's a little twist in the film of Jason and the Argonauts where she appears on the riverbank and makes Plius, the evil king, fall in the water and Jason rescues him. And when they come out, Plius looks down and sees he only has one sandal. So that's a really good twist. So that's the first trope is the prophecy about the man will come.
And in Pindar, this is so great. Pindar describes, has a wonderful description of Jason arriving in Yolkis wearing two different types of clothing. Get this, a tight-fitting magnesium tunic that clung to his superb limbs and a leopard skin to protect him from shivering showers. And his long hair flows down his back. Now that shows he's really young. He hasn't cut his hair yet.
And in almost all the accounts, we emphasize that Jason's quite young and many of them say he just has his first beard. So he's like 20 years old. He's quite young and good looking. So this is very impressive. So that's our first trope.
Before we go on to the next trope, Caroline, I'd like to ask a bit more about that region. So Thessaly. So as you say, imagine Athens and Delphi a bit further south. Thermopylae is like the southern border of Thessaly, isn't it? And above Thessaly, you have Macedonia, Thessaloniki in modern day Greece.
And I believe also, Thessaly, you do have much later, you have a king called Jason, Jason of Pheri. So it almost seems like the name Jason really does stick in that area of the world. With the Old Colossus as well, I mean, I must admit that's not a name of a place that I would instantly recognise, but I believe it's big in Bronze Age times.
So if you also mentioned that the whole setting is a generation before the Trojan War, should we also be imagining that this young Jason, This story of the sandal and the river and all of that, this is taking place more than 3,000 years ago in the Bronze Age. That is the idea, is it? That's the setting?
Yes, I think we can firmly place it in the Bronze Age, especially the oral traditions and the kind of establishment of who are these people in different areas of ancient Greece. By the way, there's a great resource on the internet, which is the World History Encyclopedia, and there's a map of the hero Jason and his quest with the Argonauts.
And it's absolutely superb because it shows you it follows Apollonius's
version and it shows you his very circuitous route all around the ancient world and what happens in each place and for me i'm not good with geography so it's good for me to get a vision of where yolkus is and it's kind of like again the middle right coast of greece and you can just sail across the troy and in fact one of their places they sail by troy in the argo
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Chapter 3: What mythical creatures do Jason and the Argonauts encounter?
And he's the father of a couple of daughters and a son named Absurtus and Medea is the youngest. And she's a priestess of Hecate. She's a sorceress, a witch. She's very young in Apollonius and quite vulnerable and very sympathetic. And she falls in love with Jason. So she's very torn about whether she should be loyal to support him or her father.
And Ovid does this a lot, too, because Ovid and his metamorphoses really gets into Medea's head. And I think we were talking before that she, as soon as Medea appears, all the focus goes on her and away from poor Jason. She's so much more fascinating than Jason, who's quite bland at times. She falls in love with Jason because of his beauty.
And Aetes says, okay, you can have the golden fleece, but you must do this task. You must harness my bronze, two bronze bulls with breathe fire and sew some dragon's teeth. And if you can do that, I'll let you have the fleece. And of course, it's an impossible task, except that Medea gives him some special anointing oil to put on himself and his weapons to protect him from the flames.
And he's able to harness it. the fire-breathing bulls, and so the teeth, which go back to Cadmus, way back in Cadmus. Whole other story. The movie does a very clever thing. It has him kill the dragon, which doesn't happen in Apollonius, and then use those dragon's teeth to sew them. And of course, that's when these wonderful skeleton warriors pop up out of the ground.
But in most versions, most of the ancient versions, he has to do the plowing of the teeth first, and then Aeetes says he'll give him the fleece. But Aeetes does not give him the fleece, so he's got to get it by another method. Now you'd expect him to be a brave soldier, or rather not soldier, but warrior, and use his sword to kill the dragon and everything.
The snake, Drakon, means the same thing. And it's described as being as big as the Argo. So this is not your ordinary snake or dragon. It's a snake as big as the Argo ship. What he does is Medea just uses a charm to put it to sleep, which is a little bit anticlimactic. And again, in the film, they make it a hydra and he stabs the hydra and kills it that way.
He gets the fleece and now he's going to go home. So that happened pretty quickly, actually. A lot of it is the traveling there. And then they get there and it's slightly anticlimactic, except a lot of it's in Medea's head, her torturous inner debate about what she should do. And that's, of course, what makes it so fascinating and her so fascinating.
You've highlighted the point there then, Caroline. Is it the fact that actually one of the most, if not the fascinating part of the whole Jason and the Argonauts story is their journey there and their journey back? I mean, getting to the Kingdom of Colchis and what he does there, yes, it's pivotal to the story and the retrieving of the golden fleece.
But as you say, it's not slaying the monster, it's Medea helping him, putting it to sleep. And then I guess it's their returning from What is present-day Georgia? It's that area of the world, isn't it? The kingdom of Colchis. So they've got a long way to get back after that.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of the Golden Fleece?
So there are different variations on how absurdus is used as a kind of terrible distraction.
So is this the beginning of the story almost? And now that Medea's on board, I'm guessing it's part of the
the kind of creation of the story this idea that on the return journey it's no longer Jason as this wonderful figure this hero to admire this is someone that starts getting a bit more and I guess it's thanks to Medea in how they portray it a bit more repulsive in the actions that they do and this idea I'm guessing that they're going to get their comeuppance soon because of the horrific actions that they've taken as they
First of all, the killing of a sibling. And second of all, in some cases, the splitting up of the body so the burial rites will be more tricky and it's an abuse of the dead. Is this all coming to a head at the moment?
Absolutely right. They start off with the most noble of motives and they deteriorate as they go along the way. And Jason, again, is often shown to be indecisive in Apollonius' version. And we also, as you say, get this focus on some of the other characters like Medea or on some of the other heroes who, again, have an etiological function to perform. But this is a terrible thing they've done.
It's such a terrible thing. Killing ordinary people is bad, but killing your own flesh and blood is abhorrent to the gods and they need purification. So they're now told that they need to go to see Circe on her island and that she will cleanse them from purification. So this is quite surprising.
Circe's the witch, of course, who had Odysseus on her island for quite a while and did lots of fun things with him. But she is now the one who can purify them. So they've now got to go to the home of Circe somewhere off the western coast of Italy. So that's another one of the tropes, the cleansing of Absurtus's murder by Jason and Medea.
They then sail up the river Eridamus, which is the Po, and then they go over the Alps somehow. Don't ask me how. Down the Rhône, the Rhône River, and then down by the Tyrrhenian Sea. That's where they meet Circe, according to Apollonius. Then they're going down to the home of the Sirens, which is down on the shin of Italy, again in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Then they go through Scylla and Charybdis, and they go up to Drapane. I'm looking at the map here because there's no other way to understand it. Drapane is, again, near Albania or maybe Corfu. Then they sail down to Syrtis, and that's how they get to North Africa.
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