On Unbelievable Stories (30)

The story that they tell about Phrixos is that the ram warned him that his father intended to sacrifice his own children, so he took his sister and climbed up onto its back with her. They crossed the sea and arrived at the Black Sea, completing the entire journey in about three or four days. This in particular is fanciful – that a ram could swim through the sea faster than a ship, and to do this carrying two people, and sufficient food and water for himself and for them. (Presumably they could not survive without food for such a length of time!)

And then – so the story goes – Phrixos slaughtered the ram who had warned him and had brought him to safety. He flayed him and gave the fleece to Aietes as a bride price for his daughter. (Aietes was king of that region at the time.) See how rare fleeces were then: a king took a sheepskin in exchange for his own daughter! Or did he consider his own daughter worth so little? To avoid ridicule some now say that the fleece was golden. But if the fleece really had been golden, the king ought not to have taken it from a foreigner. It has also been said that it was for this sheepskin that Jason set out in the Argo with the best of the Greeks. Phrixos would not have been so ungrateful as to murder his protector, nor would the Argo have sailed in search of the skin even if it had been studded with emeralds.

The truth is as follows. Athamas, son of Hellen’s son Aiolos, was king of Phthia. He had entrusted his property and his kingdom to a man whom he considered especially loyal and greatly deserving. His name was Crios (‘Ram’). When Phrixos' mother died, Athamas gave his kingdom to him, since he was the elder. …[*] Crios learned about the plot and said nothing to Athamas, but instead spoke to Phrixos and instructed him to leave the country. Crios prepared a ship, placed in it all of Athamas’ valuables, and loaded it with his property and wealth. Amongst these was a statue of the mother of Merops, daughter of Helios, whose name was Cos (‘Fleece’). She had used her own money to have a life-sized statue of herself made out of gold. (It was a huge amount of gold, so the story surrounding it became legendary). Anyway, Crios loaded all this onto the ship along with Phrixos and Helle, and they left. Helle became sick and died during the voyage. (It was after her that the Hellespont was named). The others arrived in Phasis and settled there. Phrixos married the daughter of Aietes, king of Colchis, and gave the golden statue of Cos as a bride price. Later, when Athamas died, Jason sailed on the Argo in search of this golden statue of Cos, and not for a ram’s fleece. This is the truth.