Androktasia

Androktasia, the ancient Greek word for battle killings, little vignettes in which the poet, in what is almost a list, mentions the names of those who meet in conflict (one to die, one to survive), with the barest contextual attention to weaponry, fatal injuries, and death throes.' (http://www.greekworks.com/)

We meet this word in Jason and the Argonauts. Apollonios Rhodios is presenting us with his idea of what a hero should be, reflecting the later period of Hellenistic Greece. The Romans we learn loved his interpretation. We learn of a far more romantic, hesitant, and flirtatious hero. He presents us with a young man who wishes to experience women, the world and the sea, without a battle per se. He will kill as he gains experience, but through need rather than to prove himself a 'killer of men'.

'myths are open to change and interpretation' - we are now in a very different environment to that of 5th century BCE Athens - Alexander the Great made sure that the Hellenic world would never be the same again. There might be a sense in which not just the people, but their mythology needs to adapt to the new world order

After Alexander the Great, heroes had to be more charismatic and less brutal - more charm and less grunt. Jason can fight when he needs to, but over and over again he charms women into helping him. This is interesting in itself as he would not have succeeded in retrieving the fleece without those women helping him. Odysseus was helped by women too ... Herakles was not, in fact Herakles was destroyed by a woman. If the Jason story pre-dates Odysseus, then women's status and acknowledgement of their contribution receeded gradually over the centuries.