A mission designed to remove a rival
The Library explains Jason’s mission through a warning to Pelias, ruler of Iolcus: a man wearing only one sandal will threaten him. Jason arrives in that condition after losing a sandal in a river. Pelias asks what he would do with a man whom an oracle identified as his killer. Jason suggests sending him to fetch the Golden Fleece, and Pelias turns the answer against him.
The fleece belongs to the ram that carried Phrixus to Colchis. Phrixus sacrificed the animal and gave its golden skin to Aeetes, who hung it in a grove guarded by a dragon. Jason assembles a crew of heroes and travels on the Argo. The voyage includes encounters with hostile rulers, the Harpies, and clashing rocks. Reaching the distant destination therefore does not complete the task; it only brings the expedition to the ruler who possesses the prize.
Source: Library and Epitome · Library 1.9.1, 1.9.16–22
Medea makes the trial possible
Aeetes requires Jason to yoke fire-breathing bulls and sow a field with dragon’s teeth. Medea, the king’s daughter, falls in love with him and offers help if he swears to marry her and take her away. Her preparation protects his body and equipment from fire and iron for a single day. She also explains how to deal with the armed men that will rise from the sown teeth: cast stones among them so that they turn against one another.
Jason completes the labor, but Aeetes still refuses the fleece and plans to destroy the ship. Medea leads Jason to the guarded grove at night, drugs the dragon to sleep, and takes the fleece. The successful trial has not produced an honest exchange. Escape becomes necessary because the ruler’s conditions were never a reliable promise. Medea supplies the strategy, the medicine, the local access, and the decision to break with her father.
Source: Library and Epitome · Library 1.9.23
Escape creates another debt
In this compilation’s version, Medea brings her brother Apsyrtus aboard and kills him when Aeetes pursues. She scatters his remains, forcing their father to interrupt the chase. Zeus responds with storms, and the voyagers must seek purification from Circe. They eventually reach Iolcus with the fleece, but the mission has not restored an undamaged family or an uncomplicated political order.
The brother’s death has different arrangements in other surviving accounts, so this detail belongs specifically to the selected witness. Even within this version, the narrative defeats the image of a lone hero collecting a trophy. Jason’s public success depends on commitments to a woman whose help leaves her estranged from her homeland. The oath matters because assistance is not free of obligations. The later breach of their relationship, treated in Medea’s own entry, exposes the cost of reading the fleece as the expedition’s only important result.
Source: Library and Epitome · Library 1.9.24–28
- Period / witness
- Greek mythographic compilation, probably first or second century CE; Frazer translation 1921
- Recording context
- The Library attributed to Apollodorus survives through medieval manuscripts; its lost ending is known through epitomes. This later compilation preserves earlier traditions without dating their beginnings.
A recording location is not necessarily a story’s origin. Dates of texts, copies, and translations answer different questions.
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These references support the explanation above. Rights and edition notes are recorded individually.
Library and Epitome ↗
Pseudo-Apollodorus (ancient author uncertain); translated by Sir James George Frazer · Greek compilation probably first or second century CE; ending survives through later epitomes; Frazer translation 1921; host text page dated 2026-10-05
Edition & rights note