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Aries sits between the constellations of Pisces and Taurus as the sun makes it's way into the Northern celestial hemisphere at the end of March and marks the beginning of spring. Aries is Latin for "ram" and marks the first astrological sign on the wheel of the modern zodiac.

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It was once part of the Babylonian star catalog as well, modern-day Aries was known as MULLÚ.ḪUN.GÁ "the hired worker" and in later Babylonian times would be associated with both a hired worker and the ram of their shepherd god Dumuzi. In the MUL.APIN, an account of the Babylonian zodiac, Aries was the "final station" along the plane of earth's orbit around the sun.

 

Later, the Greeks would adapt these stories of the stars to tell their own mythos on the origins of the universe and how the ram came to be among the stars. Aries was indexed by the Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in his work Almagest in the 2nd century CE. In Greek mythology, the constellation Aries tells the story of Chrysomallos, his golden fleece and his quest to save Phrixus and Helle from their evil step-mother.

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The Story of Chrysomallos (Χρυσόμαλλος) - 

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Once upon a Greek Myth, there lived a Boeotian King, Athamas. King Athamas and his first wife, the cloud-nymph Nephele, had twins Phrixus and Helle. The King would go on to marry two others and have a lot more children, but for now we'll focus on his first wife, the children she bore, and his second wife Ino.

 

You see, Ino hated the twins - so much so that she devised a plot to have them murdered. She scorched the harvest seeds so the crops of the land would not grow and caused a famine. The King, fearing for his people went to the Oracle of Delphi, whose men had been bribed by Ino. They demanded he sacrifice his children Phrixus and Helle to end the curse upon his kingdom. 

 

Nephele, knowing the plot to murder her children, called to Zeus for aid. Hearing her cries, Hermes sent Chrysomallos. Chrysomallos was a glorious winged ram with a beautiful golden fleece, his name literally meaning "having a golden fleece". 

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Just before Phrixus was killed on Mt. Laphystium, Chrysomallos flew in and gathered the children on his back. As they travelled across the Dardanelles, a natural waterway forming part of the boundary between Europe and Asia, they were instructed not to look down. Helle, unable to resist, gazed down and fell to her death.

 

In honor of Helle, the ancient Greeks named that portion of the sea the “Hellespont,” or “Sea of Helle”.

 

Phrixus was obviously devastated by his sisters death, but managed to hold on to Chrysomallos until they landed at the far end of the Black Sea in the city-state of Colchis. Chrysomallos instructed the boy to kill him and lay his golden fleece in the grove of Ares as a sacrifice to Zeus and the gods.

 

Phrixus walked into Colchis where he was greeted by King Aeetes, a demi-god and son of Helios. Because the grove was in his kingdom, Phrixus offered the fleece to the king and in exchange the king offered his daughter, Chalciope, for marriage.

 

Knowing that the fleece was a symbol of authority and kingship and also the power of healing, Aeetes prayed to Ares to deliver a protector. Ares sent a razor-toothed dragon that never slept as the guardian of the grove and the golden fleece.

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Chrysomallos' soul was placed among the stars as the constellation Aries and his shining fleece became the later quest of Jason and the Argonauts.

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