Phrixos

Phrixos (also Phrixus; Greek: Φρίξος) is a figure in Greek mythology, the son of King Athamas of Boeotia and Nephele, a cloud goddess. His sister is Helle. During a famine, Athamas’s second wife Ino plotted to sacrifice the children. A golden ram, sent by Zeus, rescued Phrixos and Helle; they fled on its back. Helle fell into the sea, and the strait was later named the Hellespont after her. Phrixos reached the land of Colchis, where he sacrificed the ram to Zeus and gave the golden fleece to Aeetes, king of Colchis. Aeetes kept the fleece in a sacred grove guarded by a dragon. Phrixos married Chalciope, Aeetes’s daughter, and they had two sons; some sources name Argus and Melas, though other traditions give different names. The Golden Fleece subsequently becomes a central symbol in Greek mythology, notably as the prize sought by Jason and the Argonauts. Through Phrixos’s marriage and offspring, genealogies tie the Colchian royal line to wider heroic legend. The story of Phrixos explains, among other things, the origin of the Hellespont’s name and the later mythic importance of the Golden Fleece in the broader corpus of Greek myth.