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Historical person

Medea

Medea was a princess and sorceress of Colchis who helps Jason obtain the Golden Fleece. Greek tragedy follows the consequences of her exile and Jason’s betrayal, presenting her as both victim and terrifying agent of revenge.

Other traditions give different accounts of the deaths of her children and of her subsequent movements, including a period at Athens. Across antiquity she remained a figure through whom writers explored foreignness, female agency, magic, betrayal and the destructive logic of revenge.

Henry Treece’s Jason makes Medea the Colchian princess whose intelligence and forbidden knowledge allow Jason to obtain the Golden Fleece at the cost of betraying her own family. Apollonius of Rhodes’ Jason and the Argonauts and The Voyage of Argo present the older epic tradition in which Jason’s success depends decisively on Medea’s intervention and flight from Colchis. Euripides’ Medea and Other Plays moves to Corinth after Jason abandons her for a politically advantageous marriage, turning exile, wounded honour and revenge into one of Greek tragedy’s most destructive family conflicts. Ovid’s Heroides gives Medea a first-person epistolary voice, recasting the myth through the abandoned woman’s memory of what she sacrificed for Jason.

Periods

Periods linked to Medea

Athenian Tragedy and the City Dionysia5th century BCE

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Medea (2 series)

Penguin Classics: Ancient World in Order

by various authors 32 books 4.6(13,212)

Penguin Classics: Ancient World brings together foundational works of literature, history, philosophy, drama and poetry from the earliest civilisations through classical Greece and Rome. The wider Penguin Classics series began in 1946 with E. V. Rieu’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey, reflecting its original aim of making important texts…

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Mycenaean Greek Trilogy in Order

by Henry Treece 3 books 3.6(70)

The Mycenaean Greek Trilogy retells three groups of Greek myths as violent dynastic histories. Jason follows the Argonauts and the destructive marriage of Jason and Medea. Electra examines the murder of Agamemnon and the revenge taken by his children. Oedipus reconstructs the Theban king’s rise and discovery of…

All books in this series

Standalone books

Standalone books featuring Medea (1 book)