Source Verification: Medea
Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.
What the Sources Attest
Was Medea a hero or a villain?
Ancient sources give sharply different answers. Apollonius of Rhodes, writing the fullest account of Colchis, presents Medea sympathetically. She is a young woman shot with love against her will by Eros, tormented by fear before she betrays her own father to save a stranger. Euripides's later tragedy makes her far more frightening: a wronged wife whose intelligence and magic turn entirely toward revenge, killing a princess, a king, and finally her own sons. Both readings come from real, surviving ancient texts, not one distorting the other.
Source: Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, Book 3
How did Medea help Jason win the Golden Fleece?
Aeetes set Jason a task meant to kill him: yoke two fire-breathing bronze bulls, sow a field with dragon's teeth, and defeat the armed warriors that sprang up from them. Medea, already in love with Jason, secretly gave him a protective drug to smear on his body and shield before the trial. She also told him to throw a stone into the crowd of earth-born warriors so they would turn on each other. She then lulled the guardian serpent to sleep so Jason could take the fleece from its sacred grove.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 1.9.23
Did Medea kill her own brother Apsyrtus?
Sources disagree on both the manner of the killing and who did it. Apollodorus's Library has Medea kill Apsyrtus herself during the escape from Colchis, cutting his body into pieces and scattering them in the sea to delay their pursuing father. Apollonius of Rhodes tells a different story. There, Medea lures her brother into an ambush at a temple, but it is Jason who draws his sword and kills him, while Medea turns her eyes away rather than watch.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 1.9.24
Did Medea really kill her own children?
In Euripides's Medea, the most famous version, yes. She kills her two sons by Jason as the final act of her revenge after he abandons her for a political marriage in Corinth, then escapes in a chariot sent by her grandfather Helios. But Apollodorus also records another tradition in which Medea leaves the children as suppliants at Hera's altar and the Corinthians kill them instead. Pausanias found this second version fixed in Corinth's own local cult, naming the children Mermerus and Pheres and recording their tomb and the yearly sacrifices offered to appease their deaths.
Source: Euripides, Medea 1236-1250
What happened to Medea after she left Jason?
She fled to Athens and married King Aegeus, bearing him a son, Medus. When Aegeus's unrecognized son Theseus arrived in the city, Medea saw him as a rival to her own son's inheritance. She persuaded Aegeus to poison him at a banquet. Aegeus recognized Theseus by the sword and sandals he carried only moments before the cup was drunk. He knocked it from his hands and banished Medea from Athens instead.
Source: Apollodorus, Epitome 1.5-1.6
Where Accounts Differ
- who killed Apsyrtus
- who killed Medea's children
- Who kills Apsyrtus, and how, differs by source. Apollodorus's Library has Medea murder and dismember her brother herself during the escape from Colchis, while Apollonius of Rhodes has her lure him into an ambush where Jason, not Medea, deals the fatal blow.
- Whether Medea or the Corinthians killed her children is the corpus's central disagreement. Euripides's tragedy, the most influential version, has Medea kill them herself. Apollodorus records a rival tradition in which the Corinthians kill the children at Hera's altar. Pausanias found that version fixed in Corinth's own local cult and cult-founding legend, independent of Euripides's play.
- Hesiod's Theogony, the earliest surviving source on Medea, describes only her birth and her marriage to Jason, ending in a son, Medeius, raised by Chiron. It contains no trace of the Corinthian tragedy that later tradition, especially Euripides, built around her.
Sources
- Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, Book 3
- Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, Book 4
- Apollodorus, Library 1.9.23
- Apollodorus, Library 1.9.24
- Apollodorus, Library 1.9.27
- Apollodorus, Library 1.9.28
- Apollodorus, Epitome 1.5-1.6
- Euripides, Medea 1236-1250
- Euripides, Medea 1317-1322
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.3.6-2.3.11
- Hesiod, Theogony 956-962
- Hesiod, Theogony 992-1002
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)