The cloud Nephele, by whom Athamas of Boeotia begat Phrixus and Helle before he married Ino. When the suborned oracle doomed her son to the altar, she caught up both children and gave them a ram with a golden fleece that she had received from Hermes, and the ram bore them away through the sky.1
Of the sons of Aeolus, Athamas ruled over Boeotia and by Nephele begat a son Phrixus and a daughter Helle. He then took a second wife, Ino, who bore Learchus and Melicertes and plotted against the children of Nephele: she persuaded the women to parch the seed-grain in secret, so that the sown earth yielded no crop, and when Athamas sent to Delphi for relief, Ino suborned the messengers to report that the dearth would cease only if Phrixus were sacrificed to Zeus. Forced by the people of the land, Athamas brought the boy to the altar.2
But Nephele caught up her son and her daughter and gave them a ram with a golden fleece, which she had received from Hermes; carried through the sky upon its back, the children crossed land and sea. As they passed over the sea that lies between Sigeum and the Chersonese, Helle slipped into the deep and was drowned, and after her the sea was called the Hellespont. Phrixus alone came on to the Colchians, whose king was Aeetes; there he sacrificed the ram to Zeus and gave the fleece to Aeetes, who nailed it to an oak in a grove of Ares.3
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