The Golden Fleece

Lord Jason held up the great fleece in his arms. The shimmering wool threw a fiery glow on his fair cheeks and forehead... The ram's skin with its golden covering was as large as the hide of a yearling heifer... The long flocks weighed it down and the very ground before him as he walked was bright with gold... Dawn was spreading over the world when they rejoined the rest. The young men marveled when they saw the mighty fleece, dazzling as the lightning of Zeus...

– Argonautica

The Golden Fleece is the pelt of the Golden Ram who took Phrixus across the Aegean and Black Seas to Colchis, and was immortalized as the constellation Aries.

The Fleece is also part of the legend of Jason and the Argonauts, which Strabo interpreted as a mythologization of the gold panning technique used in Colchis (a theory still popular to this day).

There are different versions of the legend describing how Jason overcomes the dragon guarding the Golden Fleece to attain the prize.

The Colchian Dragon guarding the Golden Fleece is described as both deathless and unsleeping, yet in the legends it is either put to sleep by Medea, or killed by Jason.

For miniatures, the Golden Fleece is available from Crocodile Games (WarGods of Olympus WGO-121b), while the Colchian Dragon is available from Mythic Battles: Pantheon by Monolith Games.

I was a bit unsure about the exaggerated curves of the Dragon, but it does look like a somewhat flattened representation of the corkscrew appearance of dragons in ancient Greek art.

The model of the Golden Fleece is excellent, but I cut away the helmet that was attached to the tree bearing the Fleece since it was too big, and I couldn't really find a reason for it to be there. The miniature was then primed, and the Fleece painted gold.