=Argonautæ=, a name given to those ancient heroes who went with Jason on board the ship Argo to Colchis, about 79 years before the taking of Troy, or 1263 B.C. The causes of this expedition arose from the following circumstance:――Athamas king of Thebes had married Ino the daughter of Cadmus, whom he divorced to marry Nephele, by whom he had two children, Phryxus and Helle. As Nephele was subject to certain fits of madness, Athamas repudiated her, and took a second time Ino, by whom he had soon after two sons, Learchus and Melicerta. As the children of Nephele were to succeed to their father by right of birth, Ino conceived an immortal hatred against them, and she caused the city of Thebes to be visited by a pestilence, by poisoning all the grain which had been sown in the earth. Upon this the oracle was consulted; and as it had been corrupted by means of Ino, the answer was, that Nephele’s children should be immolated to the gods. Phryxus was apprised of this, and he immediately embarked with his sister Helle, and fled to the court of Æetes king of Colchis, one of his near relations. In the voyage Helle died, and Phryxus arrived safe at Colchis, and was received with kindness by the king. The poets have embellished the flight of Phryxus, by supposing that he and Helle fled through the air on a ram which had a golden fleece and wings, and was endowed with the faculties of speech. This ram, as they say, was the offspring of Neptune’s amours, under the form of a ram, with the nymph Theopane. As they were going to be sacrificed, the ram took them on his back, and instantly disappeared in the air. On their way Helle was giddy, and fell into that part of the sea which from her was called the Hellespont. When Phryxus came to Colchis, he sacrificed the ram to Jupiter, or, according to others, to Mars, to whom he also dedicated the golden fleece. He soon after married Chalciope the daughter of Æetes; but his father-in-law envied him the possession of the golden fleece, and therefore to obtain it he murdered him. Some time after this event, when Jason the son of Æson demanded of his uncle Pelias the crown which he usurped [_See:_ Pelias, Jason, Æson], Pelias said that he would restore it to him, provided he avenged the death of their common relation Phryxus, whom Æetes had basely murdered in Colchis. Jason, who was in the vigour of youth, and of an ambitious soul, cheerfully undertook the expedition, and embarked with all the young princes of Greece in the ship Argo. They stopped at the island of Lemnos, where they remained two years, and raised a new race of men from the Lemnian women who had murdered their husbands. _See:_ Hypsipyle. After they had left Lemnos, they visited Samothrace, where they offered sacrifices to the gods, and thence passed to Troas and Cyzicum. Here they met with a favourable reception from Cyzicus the king of the country.