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Introduction: Medea in Greece and Rome

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Introduction: Medea in Greece and Rome INTRODUCTION: MEDEA IN GREECE AND ROME A J. Boyle maiusque mari Medea malum. Seneca Medea 362 And Medea, evil greater than the sea. Few mythic narratives of the ancient world are more famous than the story of the Colchian princess/sorceress who betrayed her father and family for love of a foreign adventurer and who, when abandoned for another woman, killed in revenge both her rival and her children. Many critics have observed the com­ plexities and contradictions of the Medea figure—naive princess, knowing witch, faithless and devoted daughter, frightened exile, marginalised alien, dis­ placed traitor to family and state, helper-màiden, abandoned wife, vengeful lover, caring and filicidal mother, loving and fratricidal sister, oriental 'other', barbarian saviour of Greece, rejuvenator of the bodies of animals and men, killer of kings and princesses, destroyer and restorer of kingdoms, poisonous stepmother, paradigm of beauty and horror, demi-goddess, subhuman monster, priestess of Hecate and granddaughter of the sun, bride of dead Achilles and ancestor of the Medes, rider of a serpent-drawn chariot in the sky—complex­ ities reflected in her story's fragmented and fragmenting history. That history has been much examined, but, though there are distinguished recent exceptions, comparatively little attention has been devoted to the specifically 'Roman' Medea—the Medea of the Republican tragedians, of Cicero, Varro Atacinus, Ovid, the younger Seneca, Valerius Flaccus, Hosidius Geta and Dracontius, and, beyond the literary field, the Medea of Roman painting and Roman sculp­ ture. Hence the present volume of Ramus, which aims to draw attention to the complex and fascinating use and abuse of this transcultural heroine in the Ro­ man intellectual and visual world. The present introduction briefly outlines Medea's Greek history before examining in detail her journey through Republi­ can Rome. It concludes with a survey of her imperial configurations and a pre­ liminary framing of the studies which follow. The contradictions and complexities of the Medea myth were mentioned above. To them should be added its instability. Here is a succinct retelling of the main elements of the myth as they appear in several of the main Greek and Roman sources: The mythical time is that of the generation before the Trojan War. Medea is the daughter of the Oceanid, Iduia, and Aeetes, ruler of Col­ chis, a kingdom at the south east coiner of the Black Sea; she is the granddaughter of the sun god and niece of the sorceress Circe. 1 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.139, on 01 Oct 2021 at 02:10:00, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0048671X00000230 A.J. BOYLE Jason and the Argonauts arrive in Colchis from Greece on their quest/ task to capture the golden fleece taken from the ram of the Greek Phrixus.' The ram had carried Phrixus through the air from Orchomenus in Greece to Colchis and had subsequently been sacrificed to Zeus/Jupi­ ter. Its fleece was kept as a religious object by the Colchians, guarded by a serpent. The young Medea falls in love with Jason and through the use of her own magic enables him to overcome the obstacles set by king Aeetes and to capture the golden fleece. She helps Jason escape with the fleece by killing Apsyrtus (Absyrtus), her brother, or by having him killed, and (in most versions) scattering his dismembered corpse. On the return voyage Medea helps the Argonauts reach their destination safely. After disembarking in Jason's home-town of Iolcus in Thessaly, Greece, Medea rejuvenates Jason's father, Aeson, and offers to rejuvenate the aged king Pelias, Jason's uncle, who had set Jason the task of recovering the fleece. Medea deliberately misleads the daughters of Pelias into kill­ ing their father rather than rejuvenating him. Medea and Jason flee to Corinth, where they and their children receive sanctuary. At Corinth Jason abandons Medea and marries the king's daughter. Medea is exiled (in some non-Senecan versions, together with her sons). Medea responds by killing the king and his daughter and her own children by Jason. She escapes in a flying chariot sent by the sun god. In some versions (e.g. those of Euripides and Ovid, but not Seneca) she flies to Athens and marries the Athenian king, Aegeus. There she tries but fails to kill Aegeus' son, Theseus. Some versions have Medea escap­ ing to the east, where she helps restore her deposed father to the throne of Colchis or places her son, Medus, upon it. Medea or Medus becomes the ancestor of the Medes. As for Medea's ultimate destination, one leg­ end originating in the Greek archaic period places Medea in the Elysian fields, married to Achilles. Her ex-spouse, Jason, dies an ignoble death (in most versions killed by a falling beam of the Argo). Many of the details of the above narrative vary in addition to those already noted: the name of Medea's mother (Iduia or, in one variant, Hecate); the na­ ture of the tasks set by Aeetes and performed by Jason (yoking of fire-breathing bulls, ploughing a field with the same, sowing the field with dragon's teeth, killing the earth-born warriors who arise, some of the above);2 the presence or otherwise of a serpent guarding the golden fleece and the method of overcom­ ing the serpent (killing or tranquillising); the age of Medea's brother (a baby, a 2 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.139, on 01 Oct 2021 at 02:10:00, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0048671X00000230 INTRODUCTION: MEDEA IN GREECE AND ROME boy, a young adult) and the place where he is killed and his corpse dismem­ bered and (in most versions) scattered (in Aeetes' palace, at Tomis, out at sea, over fields, on an island); the name of Medea's brother (Apsyrtus, Absyrtus, Aegialeus), his precise relationship to Medea (full or half brother) and the iden­ tity of his killer (Medea or Jason); the route of the return voyage of the Argo (four main variations);3 the political situation in Iolcus on Jason's return (Pelias a usurper, not a usurper, the crown promised to Jason, not promised to him); Medea's rejuvenations in Iolcus (of the ram, of Jason's father, of Jason, of her­ self, of one, two or three of the above); the number and gender of Medea's and Jason's children (seven sons and seven daughters, one son, two sons, three sons, one son and one daughter); the name of the Corinthian princess whom Jason marries (Creusa or Glauce); the motives for the new marriage (self- advancement, protection of the children, fear of Acastus); the gifts sent to Ja­ son's new bride (cloak/robe, necklace, headband/crown, one, two or three of the above); the departure of Medea in a flying chariot or not, and the absence or presence of serpents/dragons drawing the chariot; Medea's destination after Corinth (Athens, Thebes, the heavens); the method Medea uses in her attempt to kill Theseus (poison or a dangerous trial or both); Jason's death (killed by a falling beam of the Argo or suicide); the father of Medea's son, Medus/Medeus (Jason or Aegeus). Even Medea's intentional infanticide is omitted in the earli­ est versions, in one of which Medea seems to kill her children unintentionally in the attempt to make them immortal and in another the children are killed by the Corinthians.4 There is also a partial infanticide account (first century BCE),5 in which Medea kills two of three sons but the third escapes. Medea in Greece Medea is not in Homer, although Circe, Medea's aunt (in most accounts), famously is {Od. 10-12), as, briefly, are Jason, Aeetes and the Argo (Od. 12.69- 72). Medea is, however, in Hesiod (c.700 BCE), where she seems to be re­ garded as a goddess married to the mortal Jason after the completion of the tasks imposed on him by Pelias (Theog. 992-1002). Hesiod also names a son born to the pair: Medeus. If ancient testimonia are to be believed, Medea seems also to have been mentioned in several archaic epics, one of which is reported as dealing with her taking of an unguarded golden fleece, her flight with Jason and the death of Pelias, another with her rejuvenation of Aeson (with lines cited to that effect), another with her children by Jason (a boy Medeus, a girl Erio- pis).6 One (perhaps eighth century) epic purportedly has Medea as queen of Corinth and Jason as king, and is said to tell of Medea burying her children in the temple of Hera, as soon as they were born, in order to make them immor­ tal.7 This seems to have been the first mention of Medea as an (but, note, unin­ tentional) infanticide.8 The sixth century lyric poet Ibycus mentions Medea and is the first to tell of Medea's marriage to Achilles in Elysium (frag. 291 Camp­ bell vol. 3). He was followed in this by Simonides, in whom the scholiasts re­ port that Medea boils Jason to rejuvenate him and is herself queen of Corinth 3 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.139, on 01 Oct 2021 at 02:10:00, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.
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