<P> Pelias (Aeson's half - brother) was power - hungry and sought to gain dominion over all of Thessaly . Pelias was the progeny of a union between their shared mother, Tyro ("high born Tyro"), the daughter of Salmoneus, and the sea god Poseidon . In a bitter feud, he overthrew Aeson (the rightful king), killing all the descendants of Aeson that he could . He spared his half - brother for unknown reasons . Aeson's wife Alcimede I had a newborn son named Jason whom she saved from Pelias by having female attendants cluster around the infant and cry as if he were still - born . Fearing that Pelias would eventually notice and kill her son, Alcimede sent him away to be reared by the centaur Chiron,; she claimed that she had been having an affair with him all along . Pelias, fearing that his ill - gotten kingship might be challenged, consulted an oracle, who warned him to beware of a man wearing only one sandal . </P> <P> Many years later, Pelias was holding games in honor of Poseidon when the grown Jason arrived in Iolcus, having lost one of his sandals in the river Anauros ("wintry Anauros") while helping an old woman (actually the Goddess Hera in disguise) to cross . She blessed him for she knew, as goddesses do, what Pelias had planned . When Jason entered Iolcus (present - day city of Volos), he was announced as a man wearing only one sandal . Jason, aware that he was the rightful king, so informed Pelias . Pelias replied, "To take my throne, which you shall, you must go on a quest to find the Golden Fleece ." Jason readily accepted this condition . </P> <P> Jason assembled for his crew, a number of heroes, known as the Argonauts after their ship, the Argo . The group of heroes included the Boreads (sons of Boreas, the North Wind) who could fly, Heracles, Philoctetes, Peleus, Telamon, Orpheus, Castor and Pollux, Atalanta, Meleager and Euphemus . </P> <P> The isle of Lemnos is situated off the Western coast of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). The island was inhabited by a race of women who had killed their husbands . The women had neglected their worship of Aphrodite, and as a punishment the goddess made the women so foul in stench that their husbands could not bear to be near them . The men then took concubines from the Thracian mainland opposite, and the spurned women, angry at Aphrodite, killed all the male inhabitants while they slept . The king, Thoas, was saved by Hypsipyle, his daughter, who put him out to sea sealed in a chest from which he was later rescued . The women of Lemnos lived for a while without men, with Hypsipyle as their queen . </P>

Mythological ship used by jason in his search for the golden fleece