Jason
(Ἰάσων), i.e. the healer or atoner, a name which the hero was said to have received from Cheiron, his instructor, having before been called Diomedes. (Pind. P. 4.221, with the Schol.) The chief exploits of this hero are related in the article Argonautae, and we therefore confine ourselves now to his personal history. According to the common tradition, he was a son of Aeson and Polymede, and belonged to the family of the Aeolidae at Iolcus. The name of his mother, however, is different in the different writers, either Polymele (Schol. ad Hom. Od. 12.70), Amphinome (Diod. 4.50), Alcimede (Apollon. 1.232), Polypheme (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. 1.45), Arne or Scarphe (Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 872), or Rhoeo (Tzetz. Chil. 7.980). After the death of Cretheus, the founder of Iolcus and father of Aeson, Pelias, the nephew, or, according to others, a brother of Jason, ruled at Iolcus. Pelias was told by an oracle that he should be killed by a descendant of Aeolus, and therefore put to death all the Aeolidae; but Jason, whose grandfather, Cretheus, had been the eldest son of Aeolus, and who was on that account likewise destined to die, was saved by his own relatives, who lamented over him as though he were dead, and entrusted him to Cheiron to be educated. (Pind. N. 3.94.) Pelias was now advised by an oracle to be on his guard against a man with only one shoe. Once when Pelias offered up a sacrifice to Poseidon, he invited among others Jason. The latter arrived with only one sandal, having lost the other in crossing the river Anaurus, on the banks of which he lived as a peasant. Another tradition represents Jason as coming in Magnesian costume from Mount Pelion. (Pind. P. 4.140 ; Apollod. 1.9.16.) Instead of the river Anaurus, others mention the Evenus or Enipeus, and it is added that Hera, being in love with Jason, assumed the appearance of an old woman, and standing on the bank of the river, requested him to carry her across, and that Jason in so doing lost one of his sandals. (Hyg. Fab. 13.) Others again relate that Jason, uninvited by Pelias, came from Mount Pelion to Iolcus, found his aged father Aeson still alive, and demanded the throne of Pelias, who had usurped it, or had undertaken the government as the guardian of Jason. (Schol. ad Hom. Od. 12.70.) Pelias consented to surrender the throne, but demanded of Jason to remove the curse which rested on the family of the Aeolidae, by fetching the golden fleece, and soothing the spirit of Phrixus. (Pind. P. 4.109, &c.; Diod. 4.40.) The common story, however, goes on to say that on the arrival of Jason at Iolcus, Pelias remembered the oracle about the man with one shoe, and asked Jason what he would do if he were told by an oracle that he should be killed by one of his subjects? Jason, on the suggestion of Hera, who hated Pelias, answered, that he would send him out to fetch the golden fleece. Pelias accordingly ordered Jason to fetch the golden fleece, which was in the possession of king Aeetes in Colchis, and was guarded by an ever-watchful dragon. At the request of Jason, Argus, a son of Phrixus or Arestor, built the ship Argo, and the principal heroes of Greece being invited to join the expedition, Jason and his companions embarked at Iolcus. They first landed in Lemnos, which was governed by Hypsipyle, by whom Jason became the father of Euneus and Nebrophonus (or, as others call him, Deiphilus, or Thoas; Hyg. Fab. 15; Hom. Il. 7.468). After many adventures, Jason and his companions arrived in Colchis, the kingdom of Aeetes. While Jason was meditating upon the manner in which he might fulfil the conditions under which Aeetes had promised to surrender the golden fleece, the sorceress Medeia, the daughter of Aeetes and Idyia, fell in love with him, and from fear lest he should be killed by the brazen-footed and fire-breathing bulls whom Jason was to yoke to a plough, she promised to assist him, and surrender the fleece to him, if he would take an oath that he would make her his wife, and take her to Greece. When Jason promised to do so, Medeia gave him an ointment, with which he was to anoint his body, shield and spear, and which was to make him for one day invulnerable by fire and iron. She further informed him, that from the teeth of the dragon which he was to sow in the field ploughed with the above-mentioned bull, armed men would rise against him, and she commanded him to throw stones among them, adding, that as they would light about those stones, they would destroy one another, or it would be easy for him to destroy them. Jason now succeeded in doing as he was bid by Aeetes, but the latter, nevertheless, refused giving up the golden fleece, for he had formed the secret plan of burning the ship Argo, and destroying the Argonauts. But Medeia prevented this, and in the night she conducted her beloved to the fleece, sent the dragon to sleep, and having taken possession of the fleece, she embarked with Jason in the ship Argo. Her brother Absyrtus accompanied them. According to some, Jason, previous to his departure, fought with Aeetes, and killed him, and Jason, who was wounded, was cured by Medeia. (Diod. 4.4, 8.) But, according to the common story, Aeetes pursued the fugitives, and as he was near overtaking them, Medeia killed her brother Absyrtus, and scattered the parts of his body into the sea as she fled. The collecting of these scattered limbs detained Aeetes; Jason and Medeia thus escaped, and Aeetes buried the collected limbs of Absyrtus in a place which was hence called Tomi (pieces, from τέμνω; Steph. Byz. s. v. Τομεύς). The Argonauts were subsequently purified by Circe from the murder of Absyrtus. When they arrived in the island of the Phaeacians, the Colchians who had been sent out in their pursuit overtook them, and demanded the surrender of Medeia. Alcinous promised to give her up, in case of her not being actually married to Jason, and Arete, the wife of Alcinous, contrived to hurry the marriage, in order to avoid the necessity of surrendering Medeia. At length Jason and Medeia arrived at Iolcus. According to Ovid (Ov. Met. 7.162, &c.), Jason found his aged father Aeson still alive, and Medeia made him young again; but according to the common tradition, Pelias, not believing that the Argonauts would ever return, had in the mean time resolved to kill Aeson. But the latter begged to be permitted to put an end to his own life, drank the blood of a bull which he sacrificed, and thus died. Jason's mother cursed Pelias for this crime, and made away with herself (Diod. 4.50); and Pelias killed her surviving young son Promachus. After the perpetration of these crimes Jason arrived, and delivered the fleece to Pelias. He then dedicated the ship Argo to Poseidon on the Isthmus, and called upon Medeia to take vengeance on Pelias. Medeia prevailed on the daughters of Pelias to cut their father to pieces and boil them, pretending that thereby they would restore him to youth and vigour, as she had before changed a ram into a lamb, by boiling the dissected parts of his body in a cauldron. But Pelias remained dead, and his son Acastus expelled Jason and Medeia from Iolcus. According to other traditions, Jason, after having taken vengeance on Pelias, spared the other members of the family, and even raised Acastus to the throne. (Diod. 4.52, &c.; Hyg. Fab. 24.) The earliest legends do not mention Jason's expulsion from Iolcus, for Hesiod (Theog 982, &c.) simply relates that Jason returned to Iolcus, and became by Medeia the father of Medeius, who was educated by Cheiron on the neighbouring Pelion. But according to the common account, Jason and Medeia went from Iolcus to Corinth, where they lived happy for a period of ten years, until Creon, king of Thebes, betrothed his daughter Glauce or Creusa to Jason, and thus led him to desert Medeia. Medeia invoked the gods by whom Jason had sworn to be faithful to her, and sent to Glauce a poisoned garment and diadem. When the latter put on the garment, she, together with her father, was consumed by the poisonous fire that issued from the vestment. Medeia also killed her children by Jason, viz. Mermerus and Pheres, and then fled in a chariot drawn by winged dragons, the gift of Helios, to Athens. Her younger children she placed, previous to her flight, as suppliants on the altar of Hera Acraea, but the Corinthians took them away and put them to death. (Apollod. 1.9.16; Ov. Met. vii.; Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 175; Eurip. Medeia ; Pind. Pyth. iv.; Apollon. Rhod. Argon.) According to Diodorus (4.54), Medeia set the royal palace at Corinth on fire, in which Creon and Glauce were burnt, but Jason escaped; further, she had three sons, Thessalus, Alcimenes, and Thersander, the two last of whom were killed, whereas Thessalus, who escaped, afterwards became the ruler of Iolcus. Medeia herself first escaped to Thebes, where she cured Heracles, and afterwards to Athens. The earliest accounts we have do not mention Medeia's murder of her children, but represent her as a priestess at Corinth, where she was killed by the Corinthians (Aelian, V. H. v. in fin.); and Pausanias (2.3, in fin.) relates, that after the death of Corinthus, Medeia was invited from Iolcus, and ruled over Corinth, as her lawful paternal inheritance, in conjunction with Jason. Medeia concealed her children in the temple of Hera, hoping thereby to make them immortal; but Jason, indignant at this conduct, deserted her, and returned to Iolcus, whereupon Medeia also quitted Corinth, leaving the government to Sisyphus. Jason is also mentioned among the Calydonian hunters (Apollod. 1.8.2); and it is further stated, that he and the Dioscuri joined Peleus, for the purpose of assisting him in taking vengeance on Astydameia, the wife of Acastus, and conquered and destroyed Iolcus. (Schol. ad Pind. Nem. 3.55; Apollod. 3.13.7.) Later writers represent Jason as having in the end become reconciled to Medeia, as having returned with her to Colchis, and as having there restored Aeetes to his kingdom, of which he had been deprived. (Tac. Ann. 6.34; Justin, 42.2.) The death of Jason is also related differently ; for, according to some, he made away with himself from grief (Diod. 4.55), and, according to others, he was crushed by the poop of the ship Argo, under which he laid down on the advice of Medeia, and which fell upon him. (Schol. on the Argument of Eurip. Med.) He was worshipped as a hero in several parts of the ancient world (Strab. xi. pp. 526, 531) : his marriage with Medeia was represented on the chest of Cypselus. (Paus. 5.18.1.) [L.S]
(Ἰάσων), tyrant of Pherae and Tagus of Thessaly (Dict. of Antiq. s. v. Tagus), was probably the son of Lycophron, who established a tyranny on the ruins of aristocracy at Pherae, about the end of the Peloponnesian war, and aimed at dominion overall the Thessalians. (Xen. Hell. 2.3.4; Diod. 14.82.) From this passage of Diodorus we know that Lycophron was still alive in B. C. 395, but we cannot fix the exact time at which Jason succeeded him, nor do we find anything recorded of the latter till towards the close of his life. Wyttenbach, however (ad Plut. Mor. p. 89c.), may possibly be right in his conjecture that the Prometheus who is mentioned by Xenophon as engaged in struggles against the old aristocratic families of Thessaly, with the aid of Critias, was no other than Jason. (Xen. Mem. 1.2.24, Hell. 2.3.36; Schneid. ad loc.) It is at least certain that the surname in question could not have been applied more appropriately. He not only adopted, but expanded the ambitious designs of Lycophron, and he advanced towards the fulfilment of his schemes ably, energetically, and unscrupulously. In B. C. 377 we find him aiding Theogenes to seize the Acropolis of Histiaea in Euboea, from which, however, the latter was afterwards dislodged by the Lacedaemonians under Therippidas or Herippidas. (Diod. 15.30; Palm. and Wess. ad loc. ; Casaub. ad Polyaen. 2.21.) In B. C. 375 all the Thessalian towns had been brought under Jason's dominion, with the exception of Pharsalus, which had been entrusted by the citizens to the direction of Polydamas. Alcetas I., king of Epeirus, was associated with him rather as a dependent than an ally, and Thebes was leagued with him from enmity to Sparta, from which latter state, though it had supported Lycophron (Diod. 14.82), he held aloof, probably because of its connection with Pharsalus (Xen. Hell. vi. L §§ 2, 13), and also from the policy of taking the weaker side. He already kept in his pay 6000 picked mercenaries, with whose training he took personally the greatest pains; and if he could unite Thessaly under himself as Tagus, it would furnish him, in addition, with a force of 6000 cavalry and more than 10,000 foot. The neighbouring tribes would yield him a body of lightarmed troops, with which no others could cope. The Thessalian Penestae would effectually man his ships, and of these he would be able to build a far larger number than the Athenians, as he might calculate on possessing as his own the resources of Macedonia and all its ship-timber. If once therefore the lord of Thessaly, he might fairly hope to become the master of Greece; and when Greece was in his power, the weakness of the Persian empire, as shown especially by the retreat of the Ten Thousand and the campaigns of Agesilaus in Asia, opened to him an unbounded and glorious field of conquest. (Xen. Hell. 6.1. §§ 4-12 ; comp. Isocr. ad Phil. p. 106c. d.; Diod. 15.60 ; V. Max. 9.10, Ext. 2.) But the first step to be taken was to secure the dominion of Pharsalus. This he had the means of effecting by force, but he preferred to carry his point by negotiation, and accordingly, in a personal conference with Polydamas, he candidly set before him the nature and extent of his plans and his resources, represented to him that opposition on the part of Pharsalus would be fruitless, and urged him therefore to use his influence to bring over the town to submission, promising him the highest place, except his own, in power and dignity. Polydamas answered that he could not honourably accept his offer without the consent of Sparta, with which he was in alliance ; and Jason, with equal frankness, told him to lay the state of the case before the Lacedaemonians, and see whether they could adequately support Pharsalus against his power. Polydamas did so, and the Lacedaemonians replied that they were unable to give the required help, and advised him to make the best terms he could for himself and his state. Polydamas then acceded to the proposal of Jason, asking to be allowed to retain the citadel of Pharsalus for those who had entrusted it to him, and promising to use his endeavors to bring the town into alliance with him, and to aid him in getting himself chosen Tagus. Soon after this, probably in B. C. 374, Jason was elected to the office in question, and proceeded to settle the contingent of cavalry and heavy-armed troops which each Thessalian city was to furnish, and the amount of tribute to be paid by the περίοικοι, or subject people. He also entered into an alliance with Amyntas II., king of Macedonia. (Xen. Hell. 6.1. §§ 2-19; Diod. 15.60; Plut. Pol. Praec. 24, Reg. et Imp. Apoph. Epam. 13.). In B. C. 373 Jason and Alcetas I., king of Epeirus, came to Athens, with which they were both in alliance at the time, to intercede on behalf of Timotheus, who was acquitted, on his trial, in a great measure through their influence. (Dem. c. Tim. pp. 1187, 1190; Corn. Nep. Tim. 4; comp. Rehdantz, Vit. Iphicr., Chabr., Tim. p. 91.) In B. C. 371, after the battle of Leuctra, the Thebans sent intelligence of it to Jason, as their ally, requesting his aid. Accordingly, he manned some triremes, as if he meant to go to the help of the Thebans by sea; and having thus thrown the Phocians off their guard, marched repidly through their country, and arrived safely at Leuctra. Here the Thebans were anxious that he should join them in pressing their victory over the enemy; but Jason (who had no wish to see Thebes any more than Sparta in a commanding position) dissuaded them, by setting forth the danger of driving the Lacedaemonians to despair. The latter he persuaded to accept a truce, which would enable them to secure their safety by a retreat, representing himself as actuated by a kindly feeling towards them, as his father had been on terms of friendship with their state, and he himself still stood to them in the relation of proxenus. Such is the account of Xenophon. (Hell. 6.4.20, &c.) According to that of Diodorus, Jason arrived before the battle, and prevailed on both parties to agree to a truce, in consequence of which the Spartan king, Cleombrotus, drew off his army; but Archidamus had been sent to his aid with a strong reinforcement, and the two commanders, having united their forces, returned to Boeotia, in defiance of the compact, and were then defeated at Leuctra. (Diod. 15.54.) This statement, however, cannot be depended on. (See Wess. ad Diod. l.c. ; Thirlwall's Greece, vol. v. p. 78, note; comp. Schneid. ad Xen. Hell. 6.4.5.) On his return through Phocis, Jason took Hyampolis and ravaged its land, leaving the rest of the country undisturbed. He also demolished the fortifications of the Lacedaemonian colony of Heracleia in Trachinia, which commanded the passage from Thessaly into southern Greece, evidently (says Xenophon) entertaining no fear of an attack on his own country, but wishing to keep open a way for himself should he find it expedient to march to the south. (Xen. Hell. 6.4.27; comp. Diod. 15.57, who refers the demolition of Heracleia to B. C. 370.) Jason was now in a position which held out to him every prospect of becoming master of Greece. The Pythian games were approaching, and he proposed to march to Delphi at the head of a body of Thessalian troops, and to preside at the festival. Magnificent preparations were made for this, and much alarm and suspicion appear to have been excited throughout Greece. The Delphians, fearing for the safety of the sacred treasures, consulted the oracle on the subject, and received for answer that the god himself would take care of them. (Comp. Hdt. 8.36; Suid. s. v. ἐμοί μελήσει ταῦτα καὶ λευκᾶς κόραις.) Jason, having made all his preparations, had one day reviewed his cavalry, and was sitting in public to give audience to all comers, when he was murdered by seven youths, according to Xenophon and Ephorus, who drew near under pretence of laying a private dispute before him. Two of the assassins were slain by the body guard, the rest escaped, and were received with honour in all the Grecian cities to which they came--a sufficient proof of the general fear which the ambitious designs of Jason had excited. The fact, however, that his dynasty continued after his death shows how fully he had consolidated his power in Thessaly. (Xen. Hell. 6.4. §§ 28-32.) It does not clearly appear what motive his murderers had for the deed. Ephorus (apud Diod. 15.60) ascribed it to the desire of distinction, which seems to point to a strong political feeling against his rule; and this is confirmed by the anecdote of a former attempt to assassinate him, which accidentally saved his life by opening an impostume from which he was suffering, and on which his physicians had tried their skill in vain. (Cic. de Nat. Deor. 3.28; V. Max. 1.8. Ext. 6; comp. Xen. Hell. 6.1.14; Diod. 15.57.) Valerius Maximus (9.10, Ext. 2) tells us that the youths who murdered him were excited by revenge because they had been punished with blows for an assault on one Taxillus, a gymnasiarch. According to Diodorus (15.60), some accounts mentioned Jason's own brother and successor, Polydorus, as his murderer.
An insatiable appetite for power--to use his own metaphor--was Jason's ruling passion (Arist. Pol. 3.4, ed. Bekk. ἔφη πεινῇν ὅτε μὴ τυραννοῖ); and to gratify this, he worked perseveringly and without the incumbrance of moral scruples, by any and every means. With the chief men in the several states of Greece, as e. g. with Timotheus and Pelopidas (Plut. Pel. 28), he cultivated friendly relations ; and the story told by Plutarch and Aelian of the rejection of his presents by Epaminondas, shows that he was ready to resort to corruption, if he saw or thought he saw an opportunity. (Plut. de Gen. Soc. 14, Apoph. Reg. et Imp. Epam. 13 ; Ael. VH 11.9.) We find also on record a maxim of his, that a little wrong is justifiable for the sake of a great good. (Arist. Rh/et. 1.12.31 ; Plut. Pol. Praec. 24.) He is represented as having all the qualifications of a great general and diplomatist--as active, temperate, prudent, capable of enduring much fatigue, and no less skilful than Themistocles in concealing his own designs and penetrating those of his enemies. (Xen. Hell. 6.1.6; Diod. 15.60; Cic. de Off. 1.30.) Pausanias tells us that he was an admirer of the rhetoric of Gorgias; and among his friends he reckoned Isocrates, whose cherished vision of Greece united against Persia made him afterwards the dupe of Philip. (Paus. 6.17; Isocr. Ep. ad Jas. Fil. p. 418.) [E.E]
(Ἰάσων), literary.
1. Of Cyrene, an Hellenist Jew, wrote the history of the Maccabees, and of the wars of the Jews against Antiochus Epiphanes and his son Eupator, in five books. He must therefore have written after B. C. 162. The second book of Maccabees, in the Apocrypha, with the exception of the two spurious epistles at the beginning, is an abridgement of the work of Jason. (2 Maccab. 2.21-24; Prideaux, Connection, vol. iii. pp. 264, 265, ed. 1729.)
2. Of Nysa, a Stoic philosopher, son of Menecrates, and, on the mother's side, grandson of Posidonius, of whom also he was the disciple and successor. He therefore flourished after the middle of the first century B. C. (Clinton, Fasti, vol. iii. s. a. 51, B. C.) Suidas (s. v.) mentions his works Βίοι ἐνδόξων and Φιλοσόφων διαδοχαί, and adds that some ascribed to him a Βίος Ἑλλάδος, in four books, which, however, as well as the work Περὶ Ῥόδου, should perhaps be assigned to Jason of Argos.
3. Of Argos, an historian, who was, according to Suidas, younger than Plutarch. He therefore lived under Hadrian. He wrote a work on Greece in four books, containing the early history (ἀρχαιολογία) of Greece, and the history from the Persian wars to the death of Alexander and the taking of Athens by Antipater, the father of Cassander. His book Περὶ Κνίδου (Schol. ad Theocrit. 17.69), and that Περὶ Ῥόδου (see above), seem to have been parts of this work, and so was probably the book Περὶ τῶν Ἀλεξάνδρου ἱερὼν. (Ath. xiv. p. 620d; comp. Steph. Byz. s. vv. Ἀλεξανδρεία, Τῆλος; Vossius, de Hist. Graec., p. 264, ed. Westermann ; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. vi. p. 370.) Suidas also calls him a grammarian; and a grammarian Jason is quoted in the Etymologicum Magnum (p. 184, 27).
4. Of Byzantium, only known by a single reference in Plutarch (de Fluv. 11), where the title of his work, instead of Τραγικα, should probably be Θρᾳκικά. (Jonsius, Script. Hist. Philos. 3.2, 2.) [P.S]
- Hdt. 4.179, Hdt. 7.193
- son of Aeson, hunts the Calydonian boar: Apollod. 1.8.2
- son of Aeson: Apollod. 1.9.15
- dwells in Iolcus: Apollod. 1.9.15, Apollod. 1.9.16
- sails to Colchis: Paus. 1.1.4, Paus. 1.18.1, Paus. 5.17.9, Paus. 8.4.10
- sent by Pelias to fetch the Golden Fleece: Apollod. 1.9.16
- admiral of the Argo: Apollod. 1.9.17
- bedded with Hypsipyle, queen of Lemnos: Apollod. 1.9.17
- demands the Golden Fleece from Aeetes: Apollod. 1.9.22
- yokes the brazenfooted bulls: Apollod. 1.9.22, Apollod. 1.9.23
- swears to make Medea his wife: Apollod. 1.9.23
- sows the dragon's teeth: Apollod. 1.9.23
- wins the Golden Fleece and flees with Medea: Apollod. 1.9.23
- weds Medea: Paus. 5.18.3
- marries Medea in Corcyra: Apollod. 1.9.25
- on returning to Iolcus surrenders the Golden Fleece to Pelias: Apollod. 1.9.26
- dedicates the Argo to Poseidon at Corinth: Apollod. 1.9.26
- expelled with Medea from Iolcus: Apollod. 1.9.27
- goes to Corinth: Apollod. 1.9.27
- father of Mermerus, Medeus, and Eriopis: Paus. 2.3.9
- reigns in Corinth: Paus. 2.3.11
- departs to Iolcus, Paus. 2.3.11
- wrestles with Peleus: Paus. 5.17.10
- migrate to Corcyra: Paus. 2.3.9
- his altar: Paus. 1.34.3
- marries Glauce and divorces Medea: Apollod. 1.9.27
- helps Peleus to lay waste Iolcus: Apollod. 3.13.6, Apollod. 3.13.7
- sails with Zetes and Calais: Apollod. 3.15.1, Apollod. 3.15.2
- prefers Gorgias to Polycrates: Paus. 6.17.9