THE GOLDEN" FLEECE. 59 



safely fixed at the year 1250 B.C. A theory propounded by 

 Sir Isaac Newton would connect it with the year 937 ; but this 

 is regarded with less favor than the earlier date. Its alleged 

 object was the Golden Fleece ; but what this was can only be 

 conjectured. It is hardly likely that the people of that age 

 would have been tempted by the prospect of commercial advan- 

 tages by opening a trade with the Euxine Sea. It is quite as un- 

 likely that they would have undertaken so dangerous a voyage for 

 the purpose of plunder, better opportunities for which existed 

 much nearer home. The supposition that the Golden Fleece was 

 a parchment containing the secret of transmuting the baser metals 

 into gold, and the opinion that the Argonauts went in quest of 

 skins and rich furs, hardly require discussion. There seems, 

 indeed, no adequate motive but a desire to obtain the precious 

 metals, which were believed to be furnished in abundance by the 

 mines near the Black Sea. Why these mines were symbolized 

 under the appellation of a golden fleece it is not easy to say, 

 and no satisfactory reason has ever been suggested. The most 

 probable is that the gold dust was supposed to be washed down 

 the sides of the Caucasus Mountains by torrents, and caught by 

 fleeces of wool placed among the rocks by the inhabitants. 



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 em- 

 ployed 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. 



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