Medea

Not to be confused with Euripides’ tragedy Medea or Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1969 film Medea.

Who Was Medea?

Medea was a princess of Colchis, a kingdom on the far shore of the Black Sea, and one of the most powerful sorceresses in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of King Aeetes, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and niece of the enchantress Circe. She used her gifts first to help the hero Jason win the Golden Fleece and later, as his wife, to avenge herself when he betrayed her. Her story runs from Colchis to Iolcus, Corinth and Athens.

Family and Background

In Hesiod’s Theogony, Perseis bore Circe and Aeetes to Helios, and Aeetes took Idyia, a daughter of Ocean, as his wife; she bore him Medea (Theogony 956–962). Apollodorus gives the same parents (Library 1.9.23). Aeetes was king of Colchis and kept the Golden Fleece hanging on an oak in a grove of Ares, guarded by a sleepless dragon (Library 1.9.16). Her brother was Absyrtus, whom Apollonius calls the son of Aeetes by a Caucasian nymph, Asterodeia, and who was also called Phaethon (Argonautica 3.241–246); her sister was Chalciope, whom Aeetes gave as wife to Phrixus (Library 1.9.1).

By Jason, Medea had children whose names and number differ from source to source. Apollodorus names two sons, Mermerus and Pheres, and Pausanias says the same (Library 1.9.28; Pausanias 2.3.6). Diodorus Siculus names the twins Thessalus and Alcimenes and a younger son, Tisandrus (4.54.1). Hesiod gives Jason and Medea a son Medeus, raised by Cheiron (Theogony 1000–1002), and the epic poet Cinaethon, as reported by Pausanias, a son Medeus and a daughter Eriopis (2.3.9). Euripides, whose tragedy is the best-known source for the killing of the children, never names them. By her second husband, Aegeus of Athens, she is said to have had a son, Medus (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.28), though Hellanicus, according to Pausanias, called the boy Polyxenus and made Jason his father (2.3.8).

Was Medea a Witch or a Goddess?

Medea was mortal, not divine, but her family was close to the gods. Through Helios she was the granddaughter of the Sun, and in Euripides she says that the Sun, “my father’s sire”, gave her the chariot that carried her out of Corinth (Medea 1321–1322). In Euripides she also swears by Hecate, whom she calls the goddess she reveres above all others, “who dwells within my inmost chamber” (Medea 395–397). In Apollonius she is the priestess of Hecate and spends her days in the goddess’s temple; Hecate taught her to handle magic herbs, and she goes to Hecate’s temple to prepare the charm for Jason (Argonautica 3.251–252, 3.528–530, 3.915). Diodorus tells a different family story, in which her mother was Hecate, daughter of Perses, and Circe was her sister, and Medea learned the powers of drugs from them (Diodorus 4.45.5, 4.46.1, 4.50.6).

What Does the Name Medea Mean?

The name Medea is generally connected with the Greek word mêdea, meaning “plans” or “counsels”, which is also the base of Hesiod’s name for her son Medeus (Theogony 1000). The ancient sources do not themselves explain the name.

Medea and the Argonauts

Medea Meets Jason

Medea met her future husband when Jason and the Argonauts arrived in Colchis to claim the Golden Fleece, which Pelias had sent him to fetch (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.16). In Apollonius of Rhodes, Hera and Athena, who favoured Jason, asked Aphrodite to make Medea fall in love with him, and Aphrodite sent her son Eros, who shot Medea with an arrow in the hall of Aeetes (Argonautica 3.7–166, 3.275–286). Pindar tells it differently: Aphrodite brought the wryneck bird to men for the first time and taught Jason prayers and charms so that he could rob Medea of respect for her parents (Pythian 4.213–219). In Apollodorus, Medea simply fell in love with Jason as he puzzled over the tasks, and promised to help him if he swore to marry her and take her to Greece (Library 1.9.23). Aeetes agreed to give up the Fleece only if Jason first yoked his bronze-footed, fire-breathing bulls and sowed the field with dragon’s teeth (Library 1.9.23).

The Fire-Breathing Oxen and the Sown Warriors

Medea gave Jason a drug with which to anoint his shield, spear and body, so that for a single day neither fire nor iron could harm him (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.23; Pindar, Pythian 4.221–223). Jason yoked the bulls and sowed the teeth. Armed men sprang up from the earth, and, as Medea had warned him, he threw stones into their midst, so that they fought each other and he killed them (Library 1.9.23).

The Sleepless Dragon and the Golden Fleece

Aeetes still would not hand over the Fleece. Medea led Jason by night to the grove, put the dragon to sleep with her drugs, took the Fleece and went with Jason to the Argo (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.23). In Diodorus’ rationalized account she killed the dragon with poisons (4.48.3).

The Voyage Home

The Death of Absyrtus

Aeetes pursued the Argo, and to stop him Medea’s brother Absyrtus was killed. The accounts disagree. In Apollodorus, Absyrtus sailed with Medea and the Argonauts, and when Aeetes drew near she cut him into pieces and threw them into the sea, so that Aeetes had to stop and gather his son’s remains (Library 1.9.24). In Apollonius, Absyrtus led the Colchian fleet in pursuit; Medea lured him to a meeting on an island sacred to Artemis, and Jason leapt from ambush and struck him down while she turned her eyes away (Argonautica 4.452–481). In Euripides, Medea laments that she killed her brother, and Jason reproaches her with killing him at their own hearth (Medea 166–167, 1334).

Circe and the Rites of Purification

Zeus was angry at the murder and, in Apollonius, ordained that they cleanse themselves with the help of Circe (Argonautica 4.557–561). Medea’s aunt Circe received them at Aeaea and, recognising them as suppliants stained by blood, performed the rites of purification (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.24; Argonautica 4.698–717).

Talos, the Bronze Guardian of Crete

The Argonauts could not land on Crete because of Talos, a bronze man whom Zeus had given to Europa as the guardian of the island and who strode round it three times a day; his only weak point was a vein under the sinew of his ankle (Apollonius, Argonautica 4.1638–1648). Accounts of his death differ. In Apollonius, Medea called on the spirits of death and bewitched Talos’ eyes with her glance, so that he grazed his ankle on a rock and the ichor flowed out (Argonautica 4.1665–1688). In Apollodorus, she either drove him mad with drugs or promised to make him immortal and then drew out the bronze nail in his vein, so that the ichor poured out and he died; some said Poeas shot him in the ankle (Library 1.9.26).

Aeson Restored to Youth

When the Argo reached Iolcus, Jason’s father Aeson was too old and weak to attend the sacrifices. In Ovid, Medea drained Aeson’s old blood and replaced it with a magic brew, making him young again (Metamorphoses 7.251–294). The lost epic Returns (Nostoi) already told how Medea made Aeson a young boy again with herbs boiled in her golden cauldrons (Returns, fragment quoted in the ancient argument to Euripides’ Medea).

Iolcus and the Death of Pelias

Hera’s Scheme

Pelias had sent Jason after the Fleece in the hope that he would die, and he did not give up the throne when Jason returned. In Apollodorus, Jason answered Pelias’ question about a man destined to be killed by a fellow citizen by saying that he would send him for the Golden Fleece, whether by chance or because the angry Hera, whom Pelias did not honour, had inspired him so that Medea would prove a curse to Pelias (Library 1.9.16). Euripides opens his Medea by lamenting that the Argo ever sailed, because Medea would not otherwise have gone to Iolcus and persuaded the daughters of Pelias to kill their father (Medea 1–10).

The Daughters of Pelias

Medea persuaded the daughters of Pelias that she could make their father young again by cutting him up and boiling him in a pot with drugs, and to win their trust she cut up a ram and produced a lamb from the cauldron. They believed her, cut up their father and boiled him (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.27; Pausanias 8.11.2–3). Diodorus tells a longer version in which Medea, disguised as an old woman and carrying a hollow statue of Artemis, persuaded the daughters to carry out the killing, while Alcestis alone refused (4.50–52). Acastus buried his father with the help of the Iolcians and expelled Jason and Medea from Iolcus (Library 1.9.27). Euripides makes Medea say plainly that she caused Pelias’ death “by his own children’s hand” (Medea 486–487).

Medea in Corinth

Jason’s Betrayal

Jason and Medea went to Corinth and lived there happily for ten years, until Creon, the king of Corinth, betrothed his daughter Glauce to Jason, who married her and divorced Medea (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.28; Diodorus 4.54.1–4). Pausanias, following Eumelus, says that the Corinthians had in fact sent for Medea from Iolcus to take the throne of Corinth; Jason was king through her, and she left when he abandoned her (2.3.10–11).

The Poisoned Gifts

Medea invoked the gods by whom Jason had sworn and sent the bride a robe steeped in poison. When Glauce put it on, she was consumed by fire together with her father, who ran to help her (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.28). Pausanias adds that Glauce was said to have thrown herself into a spring in the belief that the water would cure the drugs; it was afterwards called the Well of Glauce (2.3.6). In Diodorus, Medea set fire to the palace by night with a root that Circe had found, and some writers say instead that it was her sons who brought the poisoned gifts (4.54.5–6).

The Death of the Children

In the best-known version, dramatized by Euripides, Medea killed her own children by Jason and escaped from Corinth in a chariot sent by the Sun (Medea 1271–1322, 1393–1414). Apollodorus follows Euripides and says that she fled to Athens in a car drawn by winged dragons that she got from the Sun (Library 1.9.28). There is an older rival version. In Pausanias, the sons were named Mermerus and Pheres, and the Corinthians stoned them to death because of the gifts they had brought to Glauce; their tomb stood near the Odeum, and the Corinthians afterwards made yearly sacrifices to them at the command of an oracle (2.3.6–7). In the account Pausanias takes from Eumelus, Medea had carried each child to the sanctuary of Hera and hidden it there, believing it would become immortal; when she learned her hopes were vain, Jason discovered what she had done, refused her plea for pardon and sailed away to Iolcus (2.3.10–11).

Thebes and the Healing of Heracles

In Diodorus’ account, Medea came to Thebes and found Heracles in a frenzy after he had killed his sons, and cured him with drugs. Since Eurystheus was pressing Heracles with his commands, she gave up hope of help from him and took refuge in Athens with Aegeus (4.55.4). The episode is found only in this one writer.

Medea in Athens and After

Marriage to Aegeus and the Birth of Medus

Euripides has Aegeus meet Medea in Corinth on his way home from Delphi and promise her refuge in Athens in return for her help in ending his childlessness (Medea 663–758). In Athens she married him and, in Apollodorus, bore him a son, Medus (Library 1.9.28; also Pausanias 2.3.8; Diodorus 4.55.5).

The Plot Against Theseus

Plutarch tells how Medea learned beforehand who Theseus was when he came to Athens, and persuaded the elderly, anxious Aegeus to entertain him as a stranger and poison him at a banquet. Theseus drew his sword as though to carve the meat, so that his father would recognise it (Plutarch, Theseus 12.2–3). Apollodorus’ Library adds that Aegeus knocked the cup from his lips (Library, Epitome 1.5–6). In Ovid the poison was aconite (Metamorphoses 7.406–424).

Two Endings

After the failed plot Medea fled Athens with her son. In Apollodorus, Medus conquered many barbarians, called the land under him Media and died fighting the Indians; Medea went unrecognised to Colchis, found that Aeetes had been deposed by his brother Perses, killed Perses and restored the kingdom to her father (Library 1.9.28). In Diodorus, other writers say it was Medus who killed Perses (4.56.1), while another account has Medea go to Phoenicia and then to inner Asia, where she married a king and bore a son Medus who named the Medes (4.55.6–7). Pausanias says she went to the land then called Aria, whose people took the name Medes from her (2.3.8).

Medea’s Role and Symbolism

The Foreign Sorceress

Medea is a foreigner among the Greeks: a Colchian princess, who in Euripides’ play says she is a captive from a foreign shore with no mother, brother or kinsman (Medea 255–258).

Mistress of Pharmaka

Nearly every episode of her story turns on drugs (Greek pharmaka). The ointment that protects Jason from fire, the herbs that put the dragon to sleep, the brew that renews Aeson, the lamb she produces from the cauldron for the daughters of Pelias and the poisoned robe for Glauce are all examples (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.23–28; Ovid, Metamorphoses 7).

An Agent of Vengeance

In Euripides, Medea names what she did for Jason: she betrayed her father, killed her brother and brought about the death of Pelias (Medea 483–487). When he left her for another bride she took revenge on Glauce, Creon and her own sons.

Medea in Ancient Literature

Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica

The fullest account of Medea’s early life, from her infatuation with Jason to the killing of Absyrtus, comes from Apollonius of Rhodes’s Argonautica, an epic poem devoted to the voyage of the Argo.

Euripides, Medea

Medea’s later years in Corinth, her betrayal by Jason, and her revenge against Glauce and her own children are dramatized in Euripides’s tragedy Medea, the version of that episode most familiar to later readers.

Pseudo-Apollodorus, Library

The mythographic handbook known as the Library, attributed to Apollodorus, gives a compact summary of Medea’s whole career (1.9.23–28) and is a key source for stitching the episodes of her story together.

Ovid, Metamorphoses

The Roman poet Ovid retells much of Medea’s story in Book 7 of the Metamorphoses, with particular attention to her magic, including the rejuvenation of Aeson.

Misconceptions and Lesser-Known Facts

Did Medea Kill Her Children Alone?

The image of Medea deliberately murdering her own children can seem like the only version of the story, but Pausanias reports that the Corinthians stoned them to death (2.3.6–7), and Apollodorus records another tradition, that she left the children as suppliants at the altar of Hera of the Height and the Corinthians took them away and wounded them to death (Library 1.9.28). Euripides’ version became the standard account.

Medea Was Not Greek

Colchis lay on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, well outside the Greek world, and Medea is treated in the sources as a foreigner among the Greeks she lived with; in Euripides she calls herself a woman carried off from a barbarian land (Medea 255–258).

Medea the Healer

Medea is remembered above all as a poisoner, but the same skills were used to heal: she rejuvenated Aeson (Ovid, Metamorphoses 7), and in Diodorus she healed Jason and other wounded Argonauts with roots and herbs (4.48.5) and cured Heracles of madness (4.55.4).

A Name Behind a People

Ancient writers connected the Medes with Medea or her son Medus (Pausanias 2.3.8; Apollodorus, Library 1.9.28; Diodorus 4.55.5–7). Diodorus says that the tragedians’ love of the marvellous produced so varied and contradictory an account of her that it is hard to speak of one tradition (4.56.1).

Unraveling Medea: Love, Power, and Vengeance

Medea’s story has no single shape in the ancient sources. She begins as a Colchian princess who, struck by Eros, betrays her father to help a stranger (Argonautica 3.275–286; Euripides, Medea 483–487); she heals the wounded Argonauts and makes Aeson young again (Diodorus 4.48.5; Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.251–294); and in Euripides she ends as the killer of her rival and of her own sons (Medea 1271–1322).

Medea Sources

The earliest account of Medea’s parents and of her marriage to Jason is in Hesiod’s Theogony (956–962, 992–1002). Pindar’s Pythian 4 tells of the voyage and of Aphrodite’s love charm (213–223). Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica (3.7–286, 3.528–530, 4.452–481, 4.557–717, 4.1638–1688) is the fullest account of the Colchian episode, the death of Absyrtus, the purification by Circe and Talos. Euripides’ Medea (1–10, 166–167, 255–258, 395–397, 483–487, 663–758, 1271–1322, 1334, 1393–1414) covers her years in Corinth and Athens. The lost epics Returns and Eumelus’ Corinthian poem and the poet Cinaethon are known through later quotations and Pausanias.

Later summaries are Apollodorus, Library (1.9.16, 1.9.23–28) and Epitome 1.5–6; Diodorus Siculus (4.45–56); Plutarch, Theseus 12; Pausanias (2.3.6–11, 8.11.2–3); and Ovid, Metamorphoses (7.251–294, 7.406–424).

See Also: Jason, Argonauts, Aeetes, Absyrtus, Circe, Helios, Talos, Pelias, Aegeus, Theseus