Medea
Also known as: Medea (Euripides), Medea — Euripides, Medea (Greek: Μήδεια)
Euripides’ tragedy dramatizes Medea’s revenge after Jason abandons her to marry the Corinthian princess. Exiled and betrayed, Medea destroys Jason’s new house with poisoned gifts and kills their children before escaping in Helios’ chariot.
Description
Set in Corinth, the play opens with a household in crisis: Jason has forsaken Medea, the foreign wife who saved his life and bore his sons, to wed King Creon’s daughter. Threatened with banishment, Medea feigns submission, secures a day’s reprieve, and elicits an oath of sanctuary from Aegeus of Athens. She then sends a robe and diadem, an ostensibly conciliatory gift for the princess, laced with lethal poison that also consumes Creon when he tries to save her. In the climax, Medea murders her own children to inflict an irrevocable wound on Jason and to prevent their enemies’ vengeance. She ascends above the stage in the sun-god Helios’ chariot, denying Jason burial rites for the boys and proclaiming she will found their cult in Athens. The drama interrogates oaths, marriage, exile, and justice with Euripidean psychological intensity and a notorious deus ex machina.
Historiography
The surviving text derives from medieval manuscripts, notably a 10th–14th-century tradition with scholia that inform staging and interpretation. Ancient sources suggest earlier Corinthian variants blamed townsmen—not Medea—for the children’s deaths, indicating Euripides’ version was controversial and influential. The play’s reception spans Roman (Seneca’s Medea), Hellenistic and Byzantine commentaries, and modern adaptations. Its famous crane-borne ending exemplifies the staged deus ex machina and has shaped discussions of tragic closure.
Date Notes
Premiered at the City Dionysia in 431 BCE with the tetralogy including Philoctetes, Dictys, and the satyr play Theristai; placed third.
Major Characters
- Medea
- Jason
- Creon
- Glauce
- Aegeus
Myths
- Medea’s Exile in Corinth
- The Gifted Robe and the Death of Glauce
- The Slaying of the Children
- Escape in the Dragon Chariot
Facts
- Set in Corinth; action unfolds before Jason and Medea’s house.
- First performed at the City Dionysia in 431 BCE; Euripides placed third.
- Part of a lost tetralogy with Philoctetes, Dictys, and Theristai (satyr play).
- Euripides’ version makes Medea the direct agent of filicide, diverging from earlier Corinthian traditions.
- Aegeus’ oath provides Medea legal-religious protection and a route to Athenian sanctuary.
- The princess (often called Glauce or Creusa) and Creon die from contact with a poisoned robe and crown.
- The ending employs a crane mechanism: Medea departs aloft in Helios’ chariot (deus ex machina).
- The play interrogates the binding force of oaths (horkoi) and the fragility of marriage alliances.
- Manuscript tradition is medieval with scholia; no complete contemporary performance scripts survive.
- Seneca’s Latin Medea and Ovid’s treatments helped transmit the myth to Roman and later audiences.