Greek myth seeks to honor 'founders of sport'

VOLOS, Greece -- Jason and the Argonauts will sail again, this time as part of a musical "supershow" days before the Olympic soccer preliminaries.

Volos, one of four Greek cities hosting soccer matches, hopes to capitalize on its connection to one of antiquity's best-known myths - the bloody deeds of Medea and the hunt for the golden fleece - with a new twist. The spectacle will try to promote the theory that Jason's crew was composed of athletes who took part in games that were forerunners of the ancient Olympics.

It also could be a hint of what could occur at the main Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony Aug. 13.

Olympic organizers have refused to offer details of the opening ceremony. But the stadium apparently will flooded to evoke images of Greece's interplay of sea and land and possibly its ties to the ancient myths.

"The organizing committee believes that reporting on the contents of the opening ceremony is spoiling for the spectators one of the most awaited surprises of the games," Michalis Zacharatos, 2004 communications general manager, said in a statement. "You will just have to wait and see."

Volos officials also were cautious. They would neither confirm nor deny links with Athens' opening ceremony.

"(The Argonaut myth) combines the local tradition of a country organizing the Olympic Games with an international appeal because Jason and Medea are symbols that are very well known," said Dimitris Marangopoulos, the creator and composer of the show planned for Aug. 8-10 in Volos, about 200 miles northwest of Athens.

According to the myth, King Pelias of Iolkos - near modern day Volos - promised nephew Jason his rightful kingdom if he could return with the fleece. Pelias thought Jason would never make it back alive, because the fleece was located in Colchis on the Black Sea, the eastern edge of the world known to the Greeks.

Medea, the daughter of the Colchis king, aided Jason with magic and helped the Argonauts escape. She slowed the pursuit of the Colchis warriors by cutting up the king's brother and throwing pieces into the sea.

Back in Greece, myths say she claimed to have a youth-restoring potion and tricked the daughter of Pelias to butcher the king and place the remains in a cauldron.

The Volos show, however, mostly seeks to encourage the new idea that the Argonauts were the fathers of ancient sports.

"They organized games that were before the Olympic Games ... were athletes," said Nikos Tsaknis, a journalist from Volos whose book about an Argonaut-athlete link was the basis for the musical. "They are mythical Olympians. They are founders of sports."

Tsaknis said there is evidence of athletic contests on the island of Limnos and other games during the height of Mycenaean civilization about 1200 B.C. The Olympic Games were born in southern Greece in 776 B.C. and held every four years until the Roman emperor Theodosius abolished them in 393 A.D. after Christianity took root and he deemed the games pagan.

Archaeologist Vasso Adrimi, in charge of excavations in the Volos area and a leading expert in the Jason myth, believes traders from Iolkos reached far-flung ports in the Black Sea and might have provided the foundation for the myths of Jason and Medea.

She notes literary sources suggest athletic contests in an area near Colchis far back in antiquity. These pre-Olympic games were always in honor of someone's death.

"Only princes and people of elite classes participated in the games in honor of the dead," Adrimi said. "The (mythical) Argonauts are not random people. Those 50 people that got into the Argos are all relatives among themselves, princes of various kingdom of Mycenaean period ... They are not just simply strong boys of the Mycenaean society. They are nobles."

The "multi-media" rendition of the myth will include "movement, dance, acrobats and images" by a Czech theater troupe Laterna Magika. Most of the scenes occur in the ancient ship, called the Argos.

Marangopoulos used instruments known to ancient Greeks, including stringed musical instruments called lyres, and the Balkan lute called the uti. He also used electronics.

"We have a number of indications of ancient Greek music. We do not have an exact image, but through my eyes I approached this world," Marangopoulos said.

Officials in Volos are also re-creating the Argos and building a large model that will be on display during the Olympics in the area known as Pefkakia, where the myth says the original ship was launched.

"We are at the heart of this myth," said Marangopoulos.