Reference
- Apollonius, of Rhodes (Apollonius Rhodius)Our main sources are: POxy. 1241, a 2nd-cent. ad list of the librarians of the Royal Library at Alexandria; two Lives transmitted with the manuscripts of Argonautica which probably contain material deriving from the late 1st cent. bc; an entry in the Suda. (1) All four state that Apollonius was from Alexandria itself, though two 2nd-cent. ad notices point rather to Naucratis. The most likely explanation for the title ‘Rhodian’ is thus that Apollonius spent a period of his life there, which would accord well with what we know of his works (cf. below), though it remains possible that he or his family came from *Rhodes. (2)...
- Apollonius of RhodesThe ancient sources concerning the life of Apollonius of Rhodes give conflicting information about many aspects of his biography. Apollonius's most scholarly modern editor and translator, Peter Green, however, has constructed from that ancient confusion what he considers to be a likely sequence of events, and here I follow Green's discussion—though not his preferred Greek spellings...
- ArgonautsThe heroes who sailed with JASON on the ship Argo in quest of the Golden Fleece, a famous expedition “of interest to all men”, according to its first brief mention in Homer (Odyssey 12.69–72). PELIAS, king of Iolcus in Thessaly, hoped to rid himself of the threat to his throne posed by Jason, the legitimate heir, by sending him to fetch the golden fleece of the flying, talking ram that had carried PHRIXUS to Colchis, a distant land at the eastern end of the Black Sea. Here AEETES, son of the Sun-god Helios, was king. The Fleece was hung in an oak tree in a grove sacred to the war-god, ARES, and guarded by a dragon that never slept. Pelias was convinced that Jason would never return alive from such a dangerous quest...
- JasonThe hero who captained the Argo on the quest for the GOLDEN FLEECE. He was the son of AESON and Alcimede (or Polymede). In the usual version of the myth, Aeson should have become king of Iolcus on the death of his father, Cretheus, but the throne was usurped by his half-brother, PELIAS. At Jason's birth his parents, fearing for his life, told Pelias that their baby had been born dead, then secretly sent him to Mount Pelion, to be brought up by the wise Centaur CHEIRON, the educator of so many great heroes. Pelias, meanwhile, ruled on, though he knew from an oracle that he must beware of a man, coming from the country and wearing a single sandal, by whom he was destined to die...
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The Adventure of Jason and the Argonauts from the Argonautica
- The Adventure of Jason and the Argonauts from the Argonautica: World History EncyclopediaJason is a mythological Greek hero who is best known for his journey with the Argonauts in search of the golden fleece. Aboard the ship the Argo (which is where the term Argonauts comes from), Jason and his men travelled to Kolchis on the Black Sea from Iolkos in Thessaly to retrieve the golden fleece, which is the hide of what was once a flying ram with gold hair, and he gets into a number of adventures on his journey. Jason is aided by Medea, who was made to fall in love with Jason, and who used her skills in magic to help him succeed in his quest and then returns home with him. The journey of Jason may reflect historical expeditions the Mycenaeans made in the thirteenth century BCE as they travelled and explored lands to the east of the Greek world.
There are numerous versions of Jason’s story (as there are for much if not all of Greek myth), but it’s Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica, written in the third century BCE, that is often referred to as the main version of the story (which is the version this video will summarise), although parts of his myth are told in Pindar’s Fourth Pythian Ode and Pseudo-Apollodorus’ The Library of Greek Mythology, not to mention the story of Jason and Medea after his quest for the golden fleece is the topic of Euripides’ tragedy Medea.
Online Resources
- Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica: Columbia UniversityApollonius of Rhodes composed the Argonautica in the mid-third century BC, probably working for the most part in Alexandria, which as the capital of Egypt under the rule of the Ptolemaic dynasty had become an important centre of intellectual activity...
- Apollonius of Rhodes: BritannicaApollonius of Rhodes, (born c. 295 BC), Greek poet and grammarian who was the author of the Argonautica. The two lives contained in the Laurentian manuscript of the Argonautica say that Apollonius was a pupil of Callimachus; that he gave a recitation of the Argonautica at Alexandria; and that when this proved a failure he retired to Rhodes...
- Apollonius of Rhodes and Homeric Anger: HarvardThere have been many recent studies of various aspects of anger in Greek culture, from Homer through the Hellenistic period, and beyond. However few have examined the role anger plays in the Argonautica. There right away a striking curiosity concerning anger stands out. Apollonius of Rhodes avoids the most common term of his day for anger, ὀργή. Through the Classical period and into the Hellenistic, ὀργή became the predominant word for anger. In fact, it is this word and concept for anger that Aristotle analyzes and defines in the Rhetoric...
Perspectives
Apollonius of Rhodes and the Spaces of Hellenism
Although Apollonius of Rhodes' extraordinary epic poem on the Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece has begun to get the attention it deserves, it still is not well known to many readers and scholars. This book explores the poem's relation to the conditions of its writing in third century BCE Alexandria, where a multicultural environment transformed the Greeks' understanding of themselves and the world. Apollonius uses the resources of the imagination - the myth of the Argonauts' voyage and their encounters with other peoples - to probe the expanded possibilities and the anxieties opened up when definitions of Hellenism and boundaries between Greeks and others were exposed to question. Central to this concern with definitions is the poem's representation of space. Thalmann uses spatial theories from cultural geography and anthropology to argue that the Argo's itinerary defines space from a Greek perspective that is at the same time qualified. Its limits are exposed, and the signs with which the Argonauts mark space by their passage preserve the stories of their complex interactions with non-Greeks. The book closely considers many episodes in the narrative with regard to the Argonauts' redefinition of space and the implications of their actions for the Greeks' situation in Egypt, and it ends by considering Alexandria itself as a space that accommodated both Greek and Egyptian cultures.
Argonautica
Apollonius was a Greek grammarian and epic poet of Alexandria in Egypt and lived late in the 3rd century and early in the 2nd century BCE. While still young he composed his extant epic poem of four books on the story of the Argonauts. When this work failed to win acceptance he went to Rhodes where he not only did well as a rhetorician but also made a success of his epic in a revised form, for which the Rhodians gave him the 'freedom' of their city; hence his surname. On returning to Alexandria he recited his poem again, to applause. In 196 Ptolemy Epiphanes made him the librarian of the Museum (the university) at Alexandria. Apollonius's Argonautica is one of the better minor epics, remarkable for originality, powers of observation, sincere feeling, and depiction of romantic love. His Jason and Medea are natural and interesting, and did much to inspire Virgil (in a very different setting) in the fourth book of the Aeneid,
Untimely Epic
Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica is a voyage across time as well as space. The Argonauts encounter monsters, nymphs, shepherds, and kings who represent earlier stages of the cosmos or human society; they are given glimpses into the future, and themselves effect changes in the world through which they travel. Readers undergo a still more complex form of temporal transport, enabled not just to imagine themselves into the deep past, but to examine the layers of poetic and intellectual history from which Apollonius crafts his poem. Taking its lead from ancient critical preoccupations with poetry's ethical significance, this volume argues that the Argonautica produces an understanding of time and temporal experience which ramifies variously in readers' lives. When describing the people and creatures who lived the past, Apollonius extends readers' capacity for empathetic response to the worlds inhabited by others. In the ecphrasis of Jason's cloak and the account of Jason's conversations with Medea, readers are invited to scrutinize the relationship between exempla and temporal change, while episodes such as the taking of the Golden Fleece explore links between perceptions and their temporal situation. Running through the poem, and through the readings that comprise this book, is an attention to the intellectual potential of the 'untimely' - objects, experience, and language which do not belong straightforwardly to a particular time. Treatment of such phenomena is crucial to the poem's aspiration to inform and expand readers' understanding of themselves as subjects in and of history.
Jason and the Argonauts: Jason as Every Ancient Greek Boy's Hero
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Jason, the original adventure hero, leads the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece. It is the story of how to become a hero and what to make of the opposite sex. This BBC film is based on the Greek myth. A BBC Production.