Jason, Medea,
and the Argonauts
The Golden Fleece
A golden ram given by Hermes saved the young prince Phrixus
from a wrongful human sacrifice. It carried him to Colchis,
where king Aeetes (son of Helius, brother of Circe and Pasiphae)
took him in. Phrixus sacrificed the ram and gave the golden
fleece to Aeetes.
Jason and Pelias
Pelias is the villain of the piece:
•he usurped the throne that rightfully
belonged to Jason’s father
•he slighted Hera by refusing to sacrifice to her
•he knew from a prophecy to “beware the man
with one sandal”
Jason is the hero:
•like Achilles, he was raised by Chiron – though
in exile from his rightful kingdom
•when returning home, he helped an old woman across the stream,
losing a sandal in the process
•the old woman was Hera, working with and through Jason as his
immortal mentor.
Jason and Pelias
Pelias promised to give Jason the throne if he returned from
Colchis with the Golden Fleece. As with the evil king of the
Perseus story, Pelias could expect the mission to be fatal.
Jason set about
building a ship for the
mission – the Argo –
which had a talking
figurehead which
relayed advice from
Hera.
Athena too
supported the
mission, and is shown
here helping build the
phenomenal ship.
The Argonauts
•Heracles
•Orpheus
Jason gathered
together a group of
young heroes to
assist him on the
mission:
•Castor and Pollux
The Argonauts
Also included were the fathers
of many Trojan war heroes
(Achilles, Ajax, etc.), and
many other heroes from the
generation before the Trojan
war.
Some of these had magical
powers – for example, Zetes
and Callais, sons of the North
Wind, who had wings . . .
The roster of Argonauts is different in the different stories, and this
is one of the myths (like the Trojan War and the Calydonian Boar
Hunt) which tended to bring local heroes together into a shared
national narrative – a unifying function of some Greek myths.
Sources
The Argonaut story changed over time . . .
•Homer mentions Jason, the Argonauts, and the Golden
Fleece (but not Medea)
•Pindar (early 5th c. BCE) tells about Jason winning the
fleece and escaping with Medea, and that Medea destroys
Pelias
•Euripides’ play Medea (431 BCE) tells about Medea and
Jason, with some mention of the mission to Colchis
•Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd c. BCE) tells about the whole
mission, in an often melodramatic way; Jason is somewhat
less than heroic
•Ovid (BCE/CE) tells the story of Jason in a heroic way, and
also writes of Medea’s passions
The Argonauts
The Argonauts had several adventures before they reached Colchis,
losing Heracles along the way.
•The Lemnian women, who had killed their husbands, greeted
them kindly . . .
•They saved the
prophet Phineas
from the Harpies
•Thetis helped
them through the
Symplegades
(clashing rocks),
which were fixed
forever after
The Argonauts
In Colchis, Aeetes offered to
give Jason the fleece if he
could defeat the dragon
guarding it.
As with Theseus and Ariadne,
the king’s daughter fell in love
with the foreign hero and
helped him against her own
father.
Medea, practiced in magic (in
some accounts more than in
others) gave Jason knowledge
and weapons to defeat the
dragon.
Jason had to harness fire-breathing
bulls, plow a field, sow a field with
dragon’s teeth, and when
supernatural warriors were born (as
from the teeth Cadmus sowed in
Thebes), he had to defeat them.
Medea gave him ointment to
protect and strengthen him.
Who gets the credit? Versions
vary:
•Jason bravely killed the serpent
and took the fleece;
•or he drugged it with more of
Medea’s potions;
•or Medea was responsible:
Jason’s Quest
Medea speaks: I
saved you . . . I
killed the serpent,
which unsleeping
guarded the golden
fleece, and I brought
you the light of
salvation!
Euripides, Medea
This vase painting shows
another tradition: Jason
is defeated by the
serpent, but Athena
makes it cough him up.
The Argonauts Flee
Jason seizes the golden fleece
(again, with Athena
supervising). What happens
next varies:
•Jason leaves with Medea, and
Aeetes pursues him
•Aeetes goes back on his
word. Medea helps the
Argonauts escape with the
fleece, and goes with them.
•Medea’s role can be terrible:
e.g., she kills her younger
brother and throws his limbs
over the side so Aeetes has to
stop to pick them up.
Pelias’ Death
Jason and Medea
returned to Iolcus, where
Pelias had vowed to
return the kingdom to
Jason. Now he refused.
Medea used her magic to
rejuvenate a ram by
cutting him up and
boiling him with herbs in
a cauldron.
She told Pelias’daughters
that they could
rejuvenate their father
the same way.
Pelias’ Death
They cut him up and
cooked him, but all they
got was soup.
Jason and Medea were
tainted with miasma and
were driven out of
Iolcus. They fled to
Corinth.
Other stories give a very
different account of
Medea: they define her
as hereditary queen of
Corinth, which was
affiliated with Colchis.
Medea
Queen Medea had resisted the
advances of Zeus, and Hera offered to
reward her by making her children
immortal. But when Medea left her
children in Hera’s sactuary, they died.
OR: Medea was the enemy of King
Creon, and killed him, then fled to
Athens, leaving her children in Hera’s
sanctuary. The Corinthians killed
them in revenge.
There was an altar to Medea’s children
in Corinth in historical times.
Both stories agree that Medea went to
Athens, where she became the
mother of Medus (future king of
Persia) by Aegeus.
Medea
The playwright Euripides tells a far more frightening story, and
one which has become the classic version of the Medea story:
That Medea killed her own children for revenge on Jason.
Medea
In exile, Jason and Medea struggle. When they settle in Corinth,
Jason has the opportunity to marry the princess and establish
himself. Euripides presents Jason as self-serving and Medea and
genuinely wronged. The children are an issue – Jason says they
will benefit by their
future step-brothers;
Medea thinks they
will be worse off
whether they go with
her into exile, or stay
in Corinth.
She sends them to
the princess with a
gift . . .
Medea
a poisoned garment which begins to dissolve her flesh when she puts it
on. Creon tries to save his daughter and is also killed by the poison.
Medea
Medea has already planned her escape
– but what about the children?
Women, my task is fixed: to kill
my children quickly, and leave this
land, and not, by wasting time, let
my children be killed by a hand
less kindly to them. Force every
way will have it that they must die
. . . Arm yourself in steel, my
heart! Do not hang back from
doing this fearful and necessary
wrong. Do not be a coward, do
not think of them, how sweet
they are – weep afterward . . .
Medea
Having killed her
children, and having
gotten her terrible
revenge on Jason, Medea
shows her divine (and
therefore inhuman) side
and flies away on her
dragon chariot.
Jason, like many heroes,
has a less than heroic
death: the prow of the
Argo rots off and falls on
him while he is sitting
underneath it.
finis
Zeus in Olympus is
the overseer of
many doings.
Many things the
gods achieve
beyond our
judgment. What
we thought is not
confirmed and what
we did not think,
god contrives. And
so it happened in
this story.
Euripides, Medea