Jason was the Greek hero who yoked fire-breathing bulls and then sowed dragon’s teeth during his quest for the Golden Fleece.
King Aeëtes of Colchis set Jason this seemingly impossible task. The bronze-footed bulls breathed fire, but Medea gave Jason magical protection so he could harness them and plow a field. He then planted dragon’s teeth supplied by Athena, and armed warriors sprang from the earth.
Medea advised Jason to throw a stone among the warriors. Unable to identify who had attacked them, they turned on one another until none remained. Jason’s episode is often confused with Cadmus’s dragon-teeth story: both heroes produced armed men from planted teeth, but Cadmus’s survivors were called the Spartoi, while Jason’s warriors were part of Aeëtes’s challenge. The episode appears in the wider Argonautica tradition surrounding the voyage of the Argo.