Medea in Outline

Welcome to a myth “in outline,” one way this course will present book-length myths in ways that
preserve the story and reduce the word count. We’ll use bullet points to cover the major parts of the plot
following a context section that provides points of interest and background information helpful to follow
the story.

Context

• Medea’s role in mythology, like other feminine characters in ancient Greek mythology, quite often involves and at times revolves around other men. In Medea’s case, she is first introduced in the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece, so we will start there; by the time that quest is over, we have a good picture of who Medea is and can see her take center stage in the events after the Golden Fleece quest.
• Medea and Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece is one of the great “put as many heroes together as possible” tales of all time.
• It’s been retold many times and in many ways. The best surviving accounts today are two works in particular. One is called The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, a Greek who became head librarian at the famed library of Alexandria in Egypt. He wrote his account in the early 200s BC, based on previous works that no longer exist. His account tends to look at the psychological underpinnings of the characters, unusual for ancient times.
• The second major source, and the one that will occupy most of the time in this outline, is the tragic play Medea by Euripides, a playwright from Athens who put his account together in 431 BC, about a hundred and fifty years before Apollonius. Euripides is one of the great Greek playwrights, and his play also delves into unusual psychological depth.
• A major theme of both stories is that Medea is a sorceress or witch, a woman who knows how to use drugs, potions, and other concoctions to accomplish her aims, which she is stunningly unafraid to do in a world where nearly all formal power belonged to men.
• Though Medea and Jason do have stories that are each their own, they overlap so much that it’s almost easier to put it together as a single story. Here is their combined myth.

Jason’s Origins, and Starting the Quest for the Golden Fleece

• Aeson, king of Iolcus, and his wife give birth to Jason, but Pelias, Jason’s uncle and Aeson’s brother, usurps the throne and kills Aeson; Jason’s mother spirits him away to safety, and he is raised in the wild by Chiron the wise centaur. Jason comes of age and returns to Iolcus, but in crossing a river stops to help an old woman cross—this woman, it turn out, is Hera in disguise, who repeatedly assists Jason in the trials to follow. Jason loses a shoe in the ordeal.
• Pelias, having been warned in an omen concerning a traveler arriving with only one shoe, is rightly frightened by Jason. The two realize their relationship, and Pelias is willing to give up the throne to Jason… if only Jason will retrieve the Golden Fleece for Pelias (he is being harassed by a ghost named Phrixus who demands it). The Golden Fleece is located in Colchis, what is today the land between the Black and Caspian seas, and it is guarded by a never-sleeping dragon.
• Jason agrees to the errand, and has a gent named Argus build a boat named the Argo, which Athena helps construct. He sent a call across Greece for heroes to join him, and several do, including Hercules, Peleus, Castor, Pollux, and various sons of Hermes and Apollo and Poseidon.
• They have a very eventful voyage, including a stop where Hercules simply managed not to get back on the boat, but eventually the Argonauts arrive in Colchis, which is ruled by King Aeetes.

Medea, Jason, and Acquiring the Fleece

• King Aeetes is enraged that the Argonauts are there to retrieve his Golden Fleece. He plans to avoid giving it up by having Jason complete an impossible test: yoke two fire-breathing bulls, plow a field, and sow it with some dragon’s teeth which Athena had given Aeetes.
• Hera, anxious for Jason, asks Aphrodite to help her help Jason; and Aphrodite sends Eros (his Latin name is Cupid) to fire a dart into Medea, daughter of King Aeetes, so that she falls madly in love with Jason. Medea decides to betray her father and tell Jason how he can succeed his trial. In return, Jason promises to take Medea with him to Iolcus and marry her there.
• Following Medea’s instructions, Jason receives the Charm of Prometheus, making him invulnerable for one day. Once he plows the field, however, armed men spring up from the dragon’s teeth; Jason throws a stone among them and they are tricked into killing each other.
• Aeetes, angry and aware that Jason could only have succeeded with Medea’s help, plots to capture and kill Jason. Medea tells Jason; she lulls to sleep the never-sleeping dragon that guards the fleece and Jason steals it. Together with the Argonauts, they flee.
• As they flee, Aspyrtus the brother of Medea joins them; depending on the version you read, either Medea herself or Jason with Medea’s help cuts Aspyrtus to pieces and flings his body parts into the sea, halting Aeetes’s pursuit as he stops to gather up his son’s corpse.
• Because of the murder of Aspyrtus, Jason must take the Argo to Circe’s island, which Odysseus also visited in The Odyssey, where the enchantress purifies him. Up to this point, their journey home had been plagued by challenges, but the problems stop once Jason is purified.

Finishing the Quest

• Landing in Corcyra near Iolcus, Aeetes finally catches up with Jason and demands Medea. The king and queen of Corcyra immediately arrange a wedding, and Jason and Medea are married; thus, by custom she can no longer return to her father’s home.
• Returning to Iolcus in victory, Jason learns thatPelias has just killed Jason’s mother and brother. But, before Jason could exact vengeance, Medea used her magic to dispose of Pelias. Out of fear of vengeance, Jason arranges good marriages for the daughters of Pelias and resigns the throne to Acastus, the son of Pelias. Jason returns the Golden Fleece to the Temple of Zeus from which it had originally come before Colchis, and he dedicates the Argo to Poseidon in Corinth, where Jason and Medea live for many years happily.

The Medea of Euripides

• Ten years later, Jason and Medea are still living in Corinth and have anywhere from four to seven children together. Jason never got his throne in Iolcus; and a prince without a throne is easily enticed.
• Creon, the king of Corinth, sees the princely renown of Jason and makes him a proposal: if he leaves Medea and their children, he can marry Creon’s daughter Glauce and eventually become king of Corinth after Creon.
• Medea reminded Jason of the debts he owed her—she helped him get the golden fleece, defeated Aeetes’ pursuit, overcame the usuper Pelias—but Medea is abandoned anyway, left only with an offer from Jason to make sure to provide for her and their children.
• Enraged (and jealous, according to the legends), Medea has her revenge. Appearing to be accept Jason’s terms of divorce, she sends a robe to Glauce as a wedding gift, but it is covered in magical poisons which cause Glauce to be consumed by flames and die the moment she tries it on. Creon, too close to the flames, is also killed.
• Note: the next stage of the myth diverges in two directions. Euripides’s version will come first.
• Out of a mixture of protecting her children from retribution and getting vengeance against Jason, Medea then murders her and Jason’s own children. Euripides’s telling of this part of the story is very emotional.
• Note: The other major sources of this myth have Medea’s children being murdered by the citizens of Corinth, as vengeance against her robe killing both the king Creon and the princess Glauce; it has been suggested that Euripides was bribed by the city of Corinth to change his version.

The Ending of Medea’s Legends

• Medea fled Corinth, and Jason too was forced to live in exile from the city for his unfaithfulness to Medea. Jason, resting against the hull of the Argo where it is on display outside the city, is killed when its prow falls on his head. The Argo itself was is then made into a constellation by the gods.
• Medea for her part flees in a chariot drawn by dragons to Aegeus, the king of Athens for whom the Aegean Sea is named. Medea has a son by Aegeus named Medeus, but he is second in line to the throne behind Theseus, who has been raised his entire life on the other side of the Aegean sea and who has never met his father. (Theseus later becomes famous for killing the Minotaur). Needless to say, Medea aims to have her son Medeus become the heir to the throne.
• Medea’s plans are thrown into jeopardy when Theseus arrives as prophesied, carrying his father’s sword as proof of his parentage. Medea resorts to her sorcery and devises a potion which will poison Theseus and kill him.
• When Medea’s plot to poison Theseus is discovered, she and Medeus return to Colchis, where Medeus becomes king after Aeetes. Medeus’s people are then named the Medes, who in actual history joined with the Persians to defeat the Babylonian Empire in modern-day Iraq in the 400s BCE.

To cite this reading, use the following format:

“Medea in Outline.” Colorado Community College System, 2023.