Aries Traditional Cache

In Greek myth, Aries is identified with the golden ram that rescued Phrixus and took him to Colchis, where he sacrificed the ram to the gods. The ram’s skin, which he placed in a temple, was the Golden Fleece, which later appears in the story of Jason and the Argonauts. Phrixus was the son of a Boeotian king. He had a twin sister, Helle. The children had a stepmother, Ino, who hated them and wanted to get rid of them. She came up with a plan to put the land of the brink of famine by making sure the wheat crops failed. When a man was sent to consult the Oracle at Delphi, Ino bribed him to lie and say the Oracle asked for the king’s children to be sacrificed if they did not want the people to starve. Phrixus and Helle were about to die when a winged ram with golden wool came to their rescue. The ram was sent by their real mother, the cloud nymph Nephele. It took both children and flew east to Colchis. Only Phrixus survived the journey. Helle fell off the ram and drowned in the Dardanelles. The strait was later renamed to Hellespont, or sea of Helle, in her memory. Phrixus was welcomed by King Aeëtes of Colchis, to whom he presented the Golden Fleece. In return, the king gave Phrixus his daughter Chalciope’s hand.