Jason, the son of the King of Thessaly, being deprived of his inheritance, and having resolved to seek his fortune by some remote and hazardous expedition, was induced to go in quest of the Golden Fleece in Colchis. He enlisted fifty men, and employed a person named Argus to build him a ship, which from him was called Argo, the adventurers being named Argonauts. The Argo is described as a pentecontoros,--that is, a vessel with fifty oars. The number of the Argonauts is usually stated at fifty, though one authority asserts that they numbered one hundred. They started from Iolcos in Thessaly, and with a south wind sailed east by north. The narrative of the expedition is full of wonders. They landed at the island of Lemnos, where they found that the women had just murdered their husbands and fathers. The Argonauts supplied the place of the assassinated relatives, and Jason had two sons by one of the bereaved Lemnians. When the vessel arrived at the entrance to the Euxine,--the narrow strait now called the Bosphorus,--they built a temple, and implored the protection of the gods against the Symplegades, or Whirling Rocks, which guarded the passage. A seer named Phineas was consulted upon the probability of their sailing through unharmed. The rocks were imagined to float upon the waves, and, when any thing attempted to pass through, to seize and crush it. According to Homer,-- "No bird of air, no dove of swiftest wing, That bears ambrosia to th' ethereal king, Shuns the dire rocks: in vain she cuts the skies: The dire rocks meet, and crush her as she flies." Phineas advised them to loose a dove, to mark its flight, and to judge from its fate of the destiny reserved for them. They did so, determined to push boldly on if the bird got through in safety. The pigeon escaped with the loss of some of its tail-feathers. The Argo dashed onward, and cleared the formidable rocks with the loss of a few of its stern ornaments. From this time forward, the legend adds, the Symplegades remained fixed, and were no longer a terror to navigators.