Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Cretheus, founder-king of Iolcus, had by Tyro a son Aeson; Tyro’s other sons by Poseidon were Pelias and Neleus. After Cretheus’s death Pelias seized the throne of Iolcus, thrusting aside Aeson. An oracle warned Pelias to beware of a man who would come wearing only one sandal—the man destined to destroy him. Pelias therefore lived in fear of that sign. Aeson’s son Jason had been reared away from the city, often said to have been fostered by the Centaur Chiron on Mount Pelion. When he came of age he set out for Iolcus to claim his father’s rights. Crossing the river Anaurus (or another swollen stream) in winter flood, he lost one sandal in the mud and arrived at the city shod on one foot only. He entered during a sacrifice that Pelias was offering to Poseidon. The king saw the stranger and recognized the oracle’s mark. Pelias asked who he was and what he wanted. Jason named his lineage and demanded the kingdom that belonged to Aeson’s house. Pelias, unwilling to refuse openly and eager to remove the threat, set a seemingly impossible condition: if Jason would fetch the Golden Fleece from Colchis—the fleece of the ram that had carried Phrixus, hanging in Ares’s grove and guarded by a sleepless dragon—then Pelias would surrender the throne. Jason accepted. Thus the dangerous quest was born of prophecy and usurpation: the one-sandaled man would sail to the ends of the earth, and Pelias hoped he would never return. Pindar’s *Pythian* 4 elaborates the same hinge for Arcesilas of Cyrene: Hera’s favor stirs Jason; the Anaurus crossing and the single sandal confront Pelias at the marketplace; the demand for the fleece follows as the tyrant’s craft.