Jason and the Argonauts: To the Golden Fleece

The heroes gather on the beach at Pagasae, the harbour of Iolcus, where crowds come down to see them off and the women weep for Jason's mother. Even the ship speaks: the Argo carries a beam from Zeus's sacred oak of Dodona that can talk. Iolcus is now part of Volos, on the gulf that still carries the name of Pagasae. Mount Pelion, home of the centaur Chiron who raised Jason, rises behind the city; Chiron's wife stands on the shore holding up the baby Achilles to wave goodbye.

Location precision: The pin marks ancient Iolcus, now part of Volos; the poem's beach is not identified.

Visitor guidance: Volos's archaeological museum covers ancient Iolcus and Thessaly; the slopes of Mount Pelion start just outside the city.

The first landfall is Lemnos, an island without men: a year before, its women killed their husbands and every male, and only Queen Hypsipyle secretly saved her old father Thoas. Short of defenders, the women welcome the Argonauts, and the heroes stay so long that Heracles, who has stayed on the ship, has to shame them into sailing on. Jason leaves Hypsipyle pregnant. The island's main town, Myrina, has a good harbour under a castle, and Lemnos kept up the legend: Hypsipyle and Myrina are both Amazon names.

Location precision: The poem doesn't name the women's city; the pin marks Myrina, the island's main harbour.

Visitor guidance: Myrina's castle on its rocky headland gives views across the sea towards Mount Athos.

Young King Cyzicus of the Doliones feasts the heroes on his peninsula in the Sea of Marmara. They leave, but a storm blows them back in the dark, and the Doliones, thinking they are raiders, attack. In the night battle Jason kills his host. At dawn both sides see what they have done, and Cyzicus's young wife hangs herself. The real Greek city of Cyzicus stood on the neck of the Kapıdağ peninsula, which was once an island. Earthquakes ruined it; walls, an amphitheatre and the base of a vast temple of Hadrian remain.

Location precision: The pin marks the ruins of Cyzicus; the poem's battle takes place on the shore nearby.

Landing near the mouth of the river Cius, Heracles' young companion Hylas goes to fetch water at a spring called Pegae, and a water nymph, struck by his beauty, pulls him under. Heracles rushes off searching for him, the Argo sails at dawn without either of them, and the strongest hero is out of the voyage. Apollonius says the people of Cius were still searching for Hylas every year in his own day. Cius is the modern port of Gemlik, on the gulf of the same name south of Istanbul.

Location precision: Pegae is not identified; the pin marks Gemlik, ancient Cius.

On the Thracian shore of the Bosporus the heroes find the blind prophet Phineus, starved by the Harpies, who snatch or foul his food. The winged sons of the North Wind chase them off, and Phineus tells the crew how to pass the Cyanean rocks that smash together at the mouth of the Black Sea: first send a dove through. The dove loses its tail feathers, the Argo only the tip of its stern, and the rocks stand still for ever. They are traditionally identified with an islet off Rumelifeneri, at the Bosporus's northern entrance.

Location precision: The clashing rocks are mythical; the pin marks Rumelifeneri, near the islet traditionally identified with them.

Visitor guidance: The islet, joined to the shore by a breakwater, carries an ancient altar known as the Pillar of Pompey.

Along the south coast of the Black Sea the Argonauts are welcomed by King Lycus of the Mariandyni, near a steep headland where a path leads down to the underworld and the river Acheron reaches the sea. It is a sad stop: the seer Idmon is killed by a wild boar and the helmsman Tiphys dies of illness. The Greek city here, Heraclea Pontica, is now Karadeniz Ereğli. Local tradition still points to a cave above the town, Cehennemağzı, "the mouth of hell", as the place where Heracles went down to fetch Cerberus.

Location precision: The pin marks the Cehennemağzı caves at Ereğli, traditionally the entrance to the underworld.

Visitor guidance: The Cehennemağzı caves are on the northern edge of Ereğli and are open to visitors.

Off the island of Ares, birds shoot feathers like arrows at the crew and wound Oileus in the shoulder. Remembering Phineus's advice, the heroes land in helmets and drive the birds away with a din of spears on shields. On the island they find the four shipwrecked sons of Phrixus, the man who flew to Colchis on the golden ram, and take them along as guides. The island is identified with Giresun Island, 1.2 km off the Turkish coast. Its ruined temple was later said to belong to the Amazons.

Location precision: The poem's island of Ares is traditionally identified with Giresun Island.

Visitor guidance: The island is in plain view from Giresun's seafront; during the town's yearly Aksu festival people sail round it and visit its wishing stone.

Up the river Phasis lies Aea, city of King Aeëtes. He will give up the fleece only if Jason yokes his fire-breathing bulls, ploughs a field and sows it with dragon's teeth. The king's daughter Medea, a sorceress made to fall in love with Jason, gives him a protective charm; later she puts the serpent guarding the fleece to sleep, and they flee together. Colchis was real: at Vani, a hill town above a tributary of the Phasis (now the Rioni), archaeologists have found temples and dazzling local goldwork from the 8th to the 1st century BC.

Location precision: Aea has never been located; the pin marks Vani, the best-known city of ancient Colchis.

Visitor guidance: The Vani Archaeological Museum stands beside the excavated hilltop; more Colchian gold is in the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi.