Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

4i6 The Golden or Purple Ram of Phrixos

children of Nephele, persuaded the women to parch the wheat. They took it
without the knowledge of the men and did so. The earth receiving wheat that
was parched failed to give her yearly crops. Consequently Athamas sent to
Delphoi to ask how he could be rid of this barrenness. But Ino induced the
messengers whom he had sent to declare that, according to the oracle, the curse
upon the crops would be removed, if Phrixos were sacrificed to Zeus. Athamas,
hearing this, was compelled by the inhabitants of the land to obey, and set
Phrixos beside the altar. But Nephele caught him up along with her daughter,
and, having obtained from Hermes a ram with a golden fleece, gave it to them.
Carried by the ram through the sky, they traversed land and sea. But, when
they were over the sea that lies between Sigeion and the Cherronesos, Helle
slipped off into the deep; and, as she perished there, the sea was called Helles-
pontos after her. Phrixos came to the Kolchoi, whose king was Aietes, son of
the Sun-god and of Perseis, and brother of Kirke and Pasiphae the wife of
Minos. Aietes welcomed him and gave him Chalkiope, one of his daughters.
Phrixos slew the ram with the golden fleece as a sacrifice to Zeus Phyxios and
gave its skin to Aietes: he nailed it round an oak-tree in a grove of Ares.
Phrixos moreover had by Chalkiope the following children, Argos, Melas,
Phrontis, and Kytisoros. At a later date Athamas, owing to the wrath of
Hera, was deprived of his children by Ino also. For he himself went mad and
shot Learchos, while Ino flung herself and Melikertes with her into the sea.
Driven out of Boiotia, Athamas enquired of the god where he should dwell.
The oracle replied that he should dwell wherever he was entertained as a guest
by wild beasts. So he travelled through much country, till he fell in with
wolves dividing sheep among themselves: they, when they caught sight of him,
left their shares and fled. Athamas settled there, called the land Athamantia
after his own name, married Themisto, the daughter of Hypseus, and begat
Leukon, Erythrios, Schoineus, and Ptoos.'

The myth of the golden ram was connected with two cult-
centres of Zeus Laphystios, one at Halos in Thessaly1, the other
near Orchomenos in Boiotia2. In both localities there was an
Athamantine Plain3; and it is reasonable to assume that a Thes-
salian tribe, of whom Athamas was the eponymous king, had
migrated into Boiotia4, and that there the story of Athamas had
been blended with that of the Boeotian heroine Ino. Another
cult-centre brought into connexion with the same myth was in the
territory of the Moschoi, at the eastern end of the Black Sea,
where Strabon records a sanctuary of Leukothea (that is, Ino)
founded by Phrixos and possessing an oracle once wealthy but
plundered by Pharnakes and Mithridates: there, he says, no ram
is offered in sacrifice5. Tacitus adds that the neighbouring tribes

1 Append. B Thessalia.

2 Append. B Boiotia.

3 Ap. Rhod. 2. 516 dfi iredLov Qdi-qs 'AOa/xaPTiov with schol. ad loc. h "AXcp and et.
mag. p. 24, 10ff. : Paus. 9. 24. 1 ££' Ai<pai<pviov 8£ Iovtl evdeiav e7rt \L/j.vr}v tjjv Kr)<pi<rida..,
ireSiov Ka\odfj.evbv £<jtlv '' AOafxavnov.

4 Cp. Paus. 9. 34. 6 f.

5 Strab. 498.