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Mythographia

    Jason

    Jason is the leader of the Argonauts, a band of heroes who sailed aboard the Argo to retrieve the Golden Fleece from Colchis. With the help of the sorceress Medea, he completed seemingly impossible tasks, though his story ends in betrayal and tragedy.

    Jason in bronze medallion style, a determined young hero, holding the Golden Fleece as the solid-bronze accent symbol.
    Illustration, not a source

    Jason, leader of the Argonauts

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    What does the name "Jason" mean? →

    Core Myth

    Jason was the rightful heir to the throne of Iolcus, but his uncle Pelias had seized power. Pelias agreed to surrender the throne if Jason could retrieve the Golden Fleece from the distant land of Colchis. Jason assembled the Argonauts - the greatest heroes of the age, including Heracles, Orpheus, and the Dioscuri - and set sail on the Argo. In Colchis, King Aeëtes set Jason impossible tasks: yoking fire-breathing bulls, sowing dragon's teeth, and defeating the warriors that sprang from them. The king's daughter Medea, a powerful sorceress, fell in love with Jason and helped him succeed. They stole the Fleece and fled together. Jason and Medea lived in Corinth until Jason abandoned her for a political marriage, prompting Medea's devastating revenge.

    Why did Pelias send Jason after the Golden Fleece?

    Pelias had usurped the throne of Iolcus from Jason's father and had been warned by an oracle to beware a man wearing only one sandal. Jason arrived in the city having lost a sandal crossing a river, and Pelias, recognizing the sign, set him the seemingly impossible task of retrieving the Golden Fleece from Colchis, expecting the voyage to kill him rather than intending to genuinely hand over the throne.

    Pindar, Pythian Ode 4

    How did Medea help Jason win the Golden Fleece?

    King Aeetes of Colchis set Jason tasks meant to be fatal: yoking fire-breathing bulls, plowing a field with them, and sowing dragon's teeth that sprang up as armed warriors. Medea, a sorceress and the king's daughter, gave Jason a protective ointment against the bulls' fire and told him to throw a stone among the warriors to turn them against each other. She then used her magic to put the serpent guarding the Fleece to sleep so Jason could take it.

    Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, Book 3

    Why did Medea kill her own children?

    In Euripides's version, after Jason abandons her in Corinth for a political marriage to the local princess, Medea takes revenge by killing the princess with a poisoned gift, killing the princess's father, and finally killing her own two sons by Jason, judging that hurting Jason through his children mattered more to her than sparing them. Euripides makes her the play's dominant figure, unresolved and unpunished at the end, escaping Corinth on a chariot sent by her grandfather the sun god Helios.

    Euripides, Medea 1236-1250

    How did Jason die?

    Later sources report an unheroic end: years after the quest, Jason was sitting in the shade of the beached and rotting Argo when its stern collapsed on him, killing him or fatally injuring him. Ancient authors treat the death as a kind of poetic justice, the ship that made him famous eventually taking his life once he had broken the oaths he swore aboard it.

    Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica

    Who sailed with Jason on the Argo?

    The Argonauts were presented as a gathering of the greatest heroes of the generation before the Trojan War, including Heracles, the musician Orpheus, the twin Dioscuri Castor and Polydeuces, and Atalanta in some versions. Apollonius devotes his opening book largely to a catalogue of this crew, since part of the story's appeal was seeing so many famous heroes united on one voyage.

    Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, Book 1

    Later Traditions

    Euripides' Medea became the definitive treatment of the Jason legend, shifting sympathy entirely to the wronged Medea and reducing Jason to a self-justifying opportunist who frames his political remarriage as a favor to his own children. Apollonius of Rhodes, writing centuries later, instead centers the outward voyage itself, giving Jason a more hesitant, less commanding temperament than the confident hero of earlier tradition - modern scholars often read this as a deliberate contrast with the assertive heroism of Homer's warriors. Jason's story became a cautionary tale about broken oaths and ingratitude: several ancient sources agree that he died alone and forgotten, killed or badly injured when the rotting stern of the beached Argo collapsed on him as he sat beneath it.

    Also Connected

    5 recorded connections, each with the ancient line behind it.

    Enemies

    Connected

    Where Accounts Differ

    • how Jason died
    • Jason's death by the collapsing Argo is reported by later sources rather than Apollonius, who ends his epic with the successful return; ancient accounts of Jason's old age and death are not fully consistent with one another.

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    Mythology

    Appears In

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    Referenced By

    Sources

    Primary sources
    • Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, Book 1
    • Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, Book 3
    • Euripides, Medea 1236-1250
    • Pindar, Pythian Ode 4
    Further reading
    • Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)