The Lemnian Women and King Cyzicus. Source: Tale and Mythology website.
The Lemnian Women and King Cyzicus
About a year before this, the Lemnian men had quarrelled with their wives, complaining that they stank, and made concubines of Thracian girls captured on raids. In revenge the Lemnian women murdered them all without pity, old and young alike, except King Thoas, whose life his daughter Hypsipyle secretly spared, setting him adrift in an oarless boat. (The Lemnian Women and King Cyzicus, The Greek Myths by Robert Graves, pp 585-589).
The Argonauts’ first landfall at the commencement of their voyage was the island of Lemnos, and the women, anxious not to be blamed for the massacre of their men, initially donned their dead husbands’ armour and made ready to resist the landing. However the counsel of Hypsipyle’s nurse, Polyxo, prevailed and the Lemnian women elected instead to welcome Jason and his crew and to make them their lovers, and so repopulate the island, with Hypsipyle herself choosing Jason as her lover. Many children were indeed conceived during the Argonauts’ sojourn on Lemnos. Heracles however ultimately broke the reverie up, reminding the crew of their mission and the men reluctantly left the Lemnian women and resumed their course to Colchis.
The Argonauts avoided the Hellespont, jealously guarded by King Laomedon of Troy and instead they headed for Dolionia and were greeted warmly by the Dolionian king, Cyzicus. After a pleasant stay, the heroes resumed their voyage only to be driven off course by a storm and beached at night on an unknown shore. The Argonauts were attacked by well-armed warriors and it was only after they had driven the attackers off, that Jason discovered the body of Cyzicus, dead on the beach. The Argonauts had unknowingly landed on the southern side of the Dolionian peninsula and the king had attacked them, mistaking them for pirates. The remorseful Argonauts held funeral games in Cyzicus’ honour.
Graves suggests the story of the Lemnian women may be a memory of historical Aegean or North African warrior-priestesses who defended their Goddess shrines against patriarchal male adventurers.