Jason

Jason is a hero of Greek myth. His father Aeson was king of Iolcus in Thessaly until his half-brother Pelias seized the throne, and the boy was raised in safety by the centaur Chiron. When Jason returned to claim his inheritance, Pelias sent him to fetch the Golden Fleece from Colchis at the far end of the Black Sea, a task meant to be fatal.

Jason gathered the Argonauts, a crew of heroes, and sailed in the Argo. In Colchis the king's daughter, the enchantress Medea, fell in love with him and helped him win the fleece. On the way home, in the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, they reach Crete, where the bronze giant Talos hurls rocks at the ship until Medea destroys him.

Later Jason abandoned Medea to marry the daughter of the king of Corinth, the story of Euripides' tragedy Medea. Jason is a figure of myth; no historical person is known behind him, though some scholars see in the voyage a memory of early Greek sailing into the Black Sea.