Apollonius of Rhodes

Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century bce) is the author of the Argonautica, the only full-scale epic surviving from the seven centuries that separate Virgil’s Aeneid from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. In almost six thousand lines, the Argonautica narrates the quest of Jason and the Argonauts for the Golden Fleece: their journey from Iolcus in Greece through the Clashing Rocks to Colchis in modern Georgia (Books 1–2); Jason’s completion, with the help of Medea, of “impossible” tasks set by the Colchian king Aeetes (Book 3); and the Argonauts’ journey back to Greece with Medea and the...

Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century bce) is the author of the Argonautica, the only full-scale epic surviving from the seven centuries that separate Virgil’s Aeneid from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. In almost six thousand lines, the Argonautica narrates the quest of Jason and the Argonauts for the Golden Fleece: their journey from Iolcus in Greece through the Clashing Rocks to Colchis in modern Georgia (Books 1–2); Jason’s completion, with the help of Medea, of “impossible” tasks set by the Colchian king Aeetes (Book 3); and the Argonauts’ journey back to Greece with Medea and the Fleece (Book 4). Little survives of Apollonius’s other works, which included scholarly prose and ktiseis, poetic accounts of the foundation of cities.