The tale of Aries the ram begins with a spat between Zeus and Hera.  There once was an outcast named Ixion (pronounced: x EYE on) who betrayed the rules of hospitality by killing a guest.  Zeus, however, invited him up to Olympus.  Once there, Ixion fell in love with Hera, angering his generous host.  Zeus created a nymph named Nephele out of clouds in Hera’s image and Ixion fell for the ruse.  Their offspring was the first Centaur.  Hera, now feeling badly about how the nymph Nephele was treated, asked King Athamas of Boeotia  (pronounced:  bee OH sha) to marry her.  The couple had two children; a son named Phrixus (pronounced:  FRICK sis) and a daughter named Helle. But Nephele did not hold the King’s heart, and he eventually remarried.  His second wife, Ino was very jealous of his children with Nephele.  To eliminate the source of her animosity, Ino tricked her husband into arranging the sacrifice of Nephele’s children.  Nephele pleaded with Zeus to spare their lives.  He sent a golden ram to carry Phrixus and Helle to Colchis.  Sadly, Helle fell to her death over a stretch of water that flows between Europe and Asia.  But Phrixus made it to Colchis, where he sacrificed the ram to Zeus and gave the golden fleece to King Aeetes.  The king held this gift in great regard and had it placed in a grove guarded by a dragon that never slept.  Zeus placed the ram in the heavens as the constellation of Aries.  Phrixus married the king’s daughter and remained forever in exile.  Eventually, the fleece became the centerpiece of another drama inspiring the quest by Jason and his friends, the Argonauts.