Colchis
In pre-Hellenistic Greco-Roman geography, Colchis was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi located on the coast of the Black Sea, centred in present-day western Georgia. It has been described in modern scholarship as "the earliest Georgian formation" which, along with the Kingdom of Iberia, would contribute to the development of the medieval Georgian statehood and the Georgian nation. Internationally, Colchis is best known for its role in Greek mythology, most notably as the destination of the Argonauts, as well as the home to Medea and the Golden fleece, it was described as a land rich with gold, iron and honey that would export its resources to ancient Greece. Colchis was populated by Colchians, an early Kartvelian-speaking tribe, ancestral to the contemporary western Georgians, namely Svans and Zans, its geography is assigned to what is now the western part of Georgia and encompasses the present-day Georgian provinces of Samegrelo, Guria, Abkhazeti, Racha. Colchís, Kolkhís or Qulḫa which existed from the c. 13th to the 1st centuries BC is regarded as an early ethnically Georgian polity.
The name Colchis is thought to have derived from the Urartian Qulḫa, pronounced as "Kolcha". In the late eighth century BC, Sarduri II the King of Urartu, inscribed his victory over Qulḫa on a stele; some scholars argue the name Qulḫa referred to a land to the west of Georgia. According to the scholar of Caucasian studies Cyril Toumanoff: Colchis appears as the first Caucasian State to have achieved the coalescence of the newcomer. Colchis can be justly regarded as not a proto-Georgian, but a Georgian kingdom.... It would seem natural to seek the beginnings of Georgian social history in Colchis, the earliest Georgian formation. A second South Caucasian tribal union emerged in the thirteenth century BC on the Black Sea coast. According to most classic authors, a district, bounded on the southwest by Pontus, on the west by the Black Sea as far as the river Corax, on the north by the chain of the Greater Caucasus, which lay between it and Asiatic Sarmatia, on the east by Iberia and Montes Moschici, on the south by Armenia.
The westward extent of the country is considered differently by different authors: Strabo makes Colchis begin at Trabzon, while Ptolemy, on the other hand, extends Pontus to the Rioni River. The name of Colchis first appears in Pindar; the earlier writers only speak about it under the name of Aea, the residence of the mythical king Aeëtes: "Kolchian Aia lies at the furthest limits of sea and earth," wrote Apollonius of Rhodes. The main river was the Phasis, according to some writers the south boundary of Colchis, but more flowed through the middle of that country from the Caucasus west by south to the Euxine, the Anticites or Atticitus. Arrian mentions many others by name, but they would seem to have been little more than mountain torrents: the most important of them were Charieis, Chobus or Cobus, Tarsuras, Astelephus, several of which are noticed by Ptolemy and Pliny; the chief towns were Dioscurias or Dioscuris on the seaboard of the Euxine, Phasis, Apsaros, Archaeopolis and Cyta or Cutatisium or Aia, the traditional birthplace of Medea.
Scylax mentions Mala or Male, which he, in contradiction to other writers, makes the birthplace of Medea. In physical geography, Colchis is defined as the area east of the Black Sea coast, restricted from the north by the southwestern slopes of the Greater Caucasus, from the south by the northern slopes of the Lesser Caucasus in Georgia and Eastern Black Sea Mountains in Turkey, from the east by Likhi Range, connecting the Greater and the Lesser Caucasus; the central part of the region is Colchis Plain, stretching between Kobuleti. Marginal parts of the region are mountains of the Lesser Caucasus and Likhi Range, its territory corresponds to what is now the western part of Georgia and encompasses the present-day Georgian provinces of Samegrelo, Guria, Abkhazia, Racha. The climate is mild humid; the dominating natural landscapes of Colchis are temperate rainforests, yet degraded in the plain part of the region. The Colchis has a high proportion of Neogene and Palaeogene relict plants and animals, with the closest relatives in distant parts of the world: five species of Rhododendrons and other evergreen shrubs, Caucasian salamander, Caucasian parsley frog, eight endemic species of lizards from the genus Darevskia, the Caucasus adder, Robert's snow vole, endemic cave shrimp.
The eastern Black Sea region in antiquity was home to the well-developed Bronze Age culture known as the Colchian culture, re
Jason
Jason was an ancient Greek mythological hero, the leader of the Argonauts whose quest for the Golden Fleece featured in Greek literature. He was the son of the rightful king of Iolcos, he was married to the sorceress Medea. He was the great-grandson of the messenger god Hermes, through his mother's side. Jason appeared in various literary works in the classical world of Greece and Rome, including the epic poem Argonautica and the tragedy Medea. In the modern world, Jason has emerged as a character in various adaptations of his myths, such as the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts and the 2000 TV miniseries of the same name. Jason's father is invariably Aeson. According to various authors, she could be: Alcimede, daughter of Phylacus Polymede, or Polymele, or Polypheme, a daughter of Autolycus Amphinome Theognete, daughter of Laodicus Rhoeo Arne or ScarpheJason was said to have had a younger brother Promachus. By Medea: Alcimenes, murdered by Medea. Thessalus, twin of Alcimenes and king of Iolcus.
Tisander, murdered by Medea Mermeros killed either by the Corinthians or by Medea Pheres, as above Eriopis, their only daughter Medus or Polyxemus, otherwise son of Aegeus Argus seven sons and seven daughtersBy Hypsipyle: Euneus, King of Lemnos and his twin Nebrophonus or Deipylus or Thoas Pelias was power-hungry and sought to gain dominion over all of Thessaly. Pelias was the progeny of a union between their shared mother, the daughter of Salmoneus, the sea god Poseidon. In a bitter feud, he overthrew Aeson, he spared his half-brother for unknown reasons. Aeson's wife Alcimede I had a newborn son named Jason whom she saved from Pelias by having female attendants cluster around the infant and cry as if he were still-born. Fearing that Pelias would notice and kill her son, Alcimede sent him away to be reared by the centaur Chiron,. Pelias, fearing that his ill-gotten kingship might be challenged, consulted an oracle, who warned him to beware of a man wearing only one sandal. Many years Pelias was holding games in honor of Poseidon when the grown Jason arrived in Iolcus, having lost one of his sandals in the river Anauros while helping an old woman to cross.
She blessed him. When Jason entered Iolcus, he was announced as a man wearing only one sandal. Jason, aware Pelias. Pelias replied, "To take my throne, which you shall, you must go on a quest to find the Golden Fleece." Jason accepted this condition. Jason assembled for a number of heroes, known as the Argonauts after their ship, the Argo; the group of heroes included the Boreads who could fly, Philoctetes, Telamon, Orpheus and Pollux, Atalanta and Euphemus. The isle of Lemnos is situated off the Western coast of Asia Minor; the island was inhabited by a race of women. The women had neglected their worship of Aphrodite, as a punishment the goddess made the women so foul in stench that their husbands could not bear to be near them; the men took concubines from the Thracian mainland opposite, the spurned women, angry at Aphrodite, killed all the male inhabitants while they slept. The king, was saved by Hypsipyle, his daughter, who put him out to sea sealed in a chest from which he was rescued; the women of Lemnos lived for a while with Hypsipyle as their queen.
During the visit of the Argonauts the women mingled with the men creating a new "race" called Minyae. Jason fathered twins with the queen. Heracles pressured them to leave, he had not taken part, unusual considering the numerous affairs he had with other women. After Lemnos the Argonauts landed among the Doliones, he forgot to mention what lived there. What lived in the land beyond Bear Mountain were the Gegeines, which are a tribe of Earthborn giants with six arms and wore leather loincloths. While most of the crew went into the forest to search for supplies, the Gegeines saw that few Argonauts were guarding the ship and raided it. Heracles was among those guarding the ship at the time and managed to kill most them before Jason and the others returned. Once some of the other Gegeines were killed and the Argonauts set sail. Sometime after their fight with the Gegeines, they sent some men to find water. Among these men was Heracles' servant Hylas, gathering water while Heracles was out finding some wood to carve a new oar to replace the one that broke.
The nymphs of the stream where Hylas was collecting were attracted to his good looks, pulled him into the stream. Heracles returned to his Labors. Others say that Heracles went to Colchis with the Argonauts, got the Golden Girdle of the Amazons and slew the Stymphalian Birds at that time; the Argonauts departed, landing again at the same spot that night. In the darkness, the Doliones took them for enemies and they started fighting each other; the Argonauts killed many of the Doliones, among them. Cyzicus' wife killed herself; the Argonauts realized their horrible mistake when dawn held a funeral for him. Soon Jason reached the court of Phineus of Salmydessus in Thrace. Zeus had sent the harpies to stea
Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax
The Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax is an ancient Greek periplus describing the sea route around the Mediterranean and Black Sea. It dates from the mid-4th century BC the 330s, was written at or near Athens, its author is included among the ranks of'minor' Greek geographers. There is only one manuscript available; the author's name is written Pseudo-Scylax or Pseudo-Skylax abbreviated as Ps.-Scylax or Ps.-Skylax. The only extant, medieval manuscript names the author as "Scylax"', but scholars have proven that this attribution is to be treated as a so-called "pseudepigraphical appeal to authority": Herodotus mentions a Scylax of Caryanda, a Greek navigator who in the late sixth century BC explored the coast of the Indian Ocean on behalf of the Persians. Many details in the work, reflect fourth-century BC knowledge of the world. There remains Parisinus suppl. Gr. 443. Two copies of this manuscript, notoriously corrupt, add nothing of substance; the principal manuscript was inaccessible to scholars for over two centuries until the 1830s, when it was bought by the Bibliothèque Nationale of France.
The narrative attributed to this "Pseudo-Scylax" simulates a clockwise circumnavigation of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, starting in Iberia and ending in West Africa, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the entrance to the Straits of Gibraltar. The NW African section is sometimes claimed to have been derived from the earlier Periplus of Hanno the Navigator, but a close comparison makes the differences between the two texts apparent. Rather than the record of a voyage like Hanno's, or a compilation of eye-witness accounts of voyages, the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax is an attempt at a quasi-scientific geographical account of the parts of the world accessible to Greeks in the 4th century BC, it can plausibly be associated with philosophical and scientific activities at Athens under Plato's successors in the Academy. One of the aims of the work seems to be to calculate a total sailing length for the coasts of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, a geographical undertaking in which Aristotle's pupil Dikaiarchos of Messana went further explicitly building upon the work of our unknown author.
The Periplus of Scylax, along with other minor ancient Greek geographers, was first published in Augsburg in 1600 by David Hoeschel. In Amsterdam, the Periplus was published by Gerardus Vossius in 1639 and by John Hudson in his Geographi Graeci Minores. In Paris, the Periplus was published in 1826 by Jean François Gail and in Berlin it was published in 1831 by Rudolf Heinrich Klausen; the Greek texts of Karl Müller and B. Fabricius have been superseded by P. Counillon Pseudo-Skylax: le périple du Pont-Euxin: texte, commentaire philologique et historique. and G. Shipley, Pseudo-Scylax's Periplus: Text and Commentary. Wikisource - The original Greek text, based on Müller, Paris 1855-61 - Περίπλους τῆς θαλάσσης τῆς οἰκουμένης Εὐρώπης καὶ Ἀσίας καὶ Λιβύης English translation by Brady Kiesling from the 1878 Greek edition of B. Fabricius. Geographica antiqua, Johann Friedrich Gronovius, Lugduni Batavorum, apud Jordanum Luchtmans, 1697, pp. 1-132. Geographi graeci minores, Karl Müller, editoribus Firmin-Didot et sociis, 1882, vol. 1 pp. 15-96.
Hecataei Milesii fragmenta. Scylacis caryandensis periplus, Rudolf Heinrich Klausen, impensis G. Reimeri, 1831, pp. 1-132. Fragments des poemes géographiques de Scymnus de Chio et du faux Dicéarque, M. Letronne, Librairie de Gide, 1840. Anonymi vulgo Scylacis Caryandensis periplum maris interni, B. Fabricius, typis et sumtibus B. G. Teubneri, 1878. Patrick Counillon, Pseudo-Skylax, Le Périple du Pont-Euxin. Graham Shipley, Pseudo-Skylax's Periplous: The Circumnavigation of the Inhabited World. Text and Commentary, 2011. ISBN 978-1-904675-82-2 hardback, 978-1-904675-83-9 paperback. For details see http://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=11&AS1=shipley D. Graham J. Shipley, ‘Pseudo-Skylax and the natural philosophers’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 132. Pre-print published in FirstView by Cambridge University Press on 6 Sept. 2012. Doi:10.1017/S0075426912000092
Aeson
In Greek mythology, Aeson was a king of Iolcus in Thessaly. Aeson was the son of Tyro, he had Amythaon. Through his mother Tyro who consorted with the sea god Poseidon, he had two half-brothers and Pelias. Aeson was the father of Promachus with Alcimede, daughter of Phylacus and Clymene. Other sources say the mother of his children was Polymede or Polymele, or Polypheme a daughter of Autolycus, Theognete, daughter of Laodicus, Rhoeo or Arne or Scarphe Pelias was power-hungry and he wished to gain dominion over all of Thessaly. To this end, he locked Aeson in the dungeons in Iolcus. Aeson sent Jason to Chiron to be educated while Pelias, afraid that he would be overthrown, was warned by an oracle to beware of a man wearing one sandal. Many years Pelias was holding the Olympics in honor of Poseidon when Jason, rushing to Iolcus, lost one of his sandals in a river while helping Hera, in the form of an old woman, cross; when Jason entered Iolcus, he was announced as a man wearing one sandal. Suspicious, Pelias asked him.
Jason responded. Pelias sent Jason to retrieve the Golden Fleece. During Jason's absence, Pelias intended to kill Aeson. However, Aeson committed suicide by drinking bull's blood, his wife killed herself as well, Pelias murdered their infant son Promachus. Alternatively, he survived until Jason and his new wife, came back to Iolcus, she slit Aeson's throat put his corpse in a pot and Aeson came to life as a young man. She told Pelias' daughters she would do the same for their father, they slit his throat and Medea refused to raise him, so Pelias stayed dead
Demetrius I of Macedon
Demetrius I, called Poliorcetes, son of Antigonus I Monophthalmus and Stratonice, was a Macedonian Greek nobleman, military leader, king of Macedon. He was its first member to rule Macedonia. At the age of twenty-two he was left by his father to defend Syria against Ptolemy the son of Lagus, he was defeated at the Battle of Gaza, but soon repaired his loss by a victory in the neighbourhood of Myus. In the spring of 310, he was soundly defeated when he tried to expel Seleucus I Nicator from Babylon; as a result of this Babylonian War, Antigonus lost two thirds of his empire: all eastern satrapies fell to Seleucus. After several campaigns against Ptolemy on the coasts of Cilicia and Cyprus, Demetrius sailed with a fleet of 250 ships to Athens, he freed the city from the power of Cassander and Ptolemy, expelled the garrison, stationed there under Demetrius of Phalerum, besieged and took Munychia. After these victories he was worshipped by the Athenians as a tutelary deity under the title of Soter.
In the campaign of 306 BC, he defeated Ptolemy and Menelaus, Ptolemy's brother, in the naval Battle of Salamis destroying the naval power of Ptolemaic Egypt. Demetrius conquered Cyprus in 306 BC. Following the victory, Antigonus assumed the title "king" and bestowed the same upon his son Demetrius. In 305 BC, he endeavoured to punish the Rhodians for having deserted his cause. Among his creations were a battering ram 180 feet long, requiring 1000 men to operate it. In 302 BC, he returned a second time to Greece as liberator, reinstated the Corinthian League, but his licentiousness and extravagance made the Athenians long for the government of Cassander. Among his outrages was his courtship of a young boy named Democles the Handsome; the youth one day found himself cornered at the baths. Having no way out and being unable to physically resist his suitor, he took the lid off the hot water cauldron and jumped in, his death was seen as a mark of honor for his country. In another instance, Demetrius waived a fine of 50 talents imposed on a citizen in exchange for the favors of Cleaenetus, that man's son.
He sought the attention of Lamia, a Greek courtesan. He demanded 250 talents from the Athenians, which he gave to Lamia and other courtesans to buy soap and cosmetics, he roused the jealousy of Alexander's Diadochi. The hostile armies met at the Battle of Ipsus in Phrygia. Antigonus was killed, Demetrius, after sustaining severe losses, retired to Ephesus; this reversal of fortune stirred up many enemies against him—the Athenians refused to admit him into their city. But he soon afterwards ravaged the territory of Lysimachus and effected a reconciliation with Seleucus, to whom he gave his daughter Stratonice in marriage. Athens was at this time oppressed by the tyranny of Lachares—a popular leader who made himself supreme in Athens in 296 BC—but Demetrius, after a protracted blockade, gained possession of the city and pardoned the inhabitants for their misconduct in 301 BC. After Athens' capitulation, Demetrius formed a new government which espoused a major dislocation of traditional democratic forms, which anti Macedonian democrats would have called oligarchy.
The cyclical rotation of the secretaries of the Council and the election of archons by allotment, were both abolished. In 293/3 - 293/2 B. C. two of the most prominent men in Athens were designated by the Macedonian king and Phillipides of Paiania. The royal appointing is implied by Plutarch who says that "he established the archons which were most acceptable to the Demos." In 294 BC, he established himself on the throne of Macedonia by murdering Alexander V, the son of Cassander. He faced rebellion from the Boeotians but secured the region after capturing Thebes in 291 BC; that year he married Lanassa, the former wife of Pyrrhus, but his new position as ruler of Macedonia was continually threatened by Pyrrhus, who took advantage of his occasional absence to ravage the defenceless part of his kingdom. After besieging Athens without success he passed into Asia and attacked some of the provinces of Lysimachus with varying success. Famine and pestilence destroyed the greater part of his army, he solicited Seleucus' support and assistance.
However, before he reached Syria hostilities broke out, after he had gained some advantages over his son-in-law, Demetrius was forsaken by his troops on the field of battle and surrendered to Seleucus. His son Antigonus offered all his possessions, his own person, in order to procure his father's liberty, but all proved unavailing, Demetrius died after a confinement of three years, his remains were given to honoured with a splendid funeral at Corinth. His descendants remained in possession of the Macedonian throne till the time of Perseus, when Macedon was conquered by the Romans in 168 BC. Demetrius was married five times: His first wife was Phila daughter of Regent Antipater by whom he had two children: Stratonice of Syria and Antig
Kutaisi
Kutaisi is the 3rd most populous city in Georgia, second in importance, after the capital city of Tbilisi. Situated 221 kilometres west of Tbilisi, on the Rioni River, it is the capital of the western region of Imereti. One of the major cities of Georgia, it served as the capital of the Kingdom of Georgia in the Middle Ages, as the capital of the Kingdom of Imereti. From October 2012 to December 2018, Kutaisi was the seat of the Parliament of Georgia as an effort to decentralise the Georgian government. Kutaisi was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Colchis. Archaeological evidence indicates that the city functioned as the capital of the kingdom of Colchis in the sixth to fifth centuries BC. It's believed that, in Argonautica, a Greek epic poem about Jason and the Argonauts and their journey to Colchis, author Apollonius Rhodius considered Kutaisi their final destination as well as the residence of King Aeëtes, it was capital of the kingdom of Lazica until being occupied by the Arabs. An Arab incursion into western Georgia was repelled by Abkhazians jointly with Lazic and Iberian allies in 736, towards c.786, Leon II won his full independence from Byzantine and transferred his capital to the Kutaisi, thus unifying Lazica and Abasgia via a dynastic union.
The latter led the unification of Georgian monarchy in the 11th century. From 1008 to 1122, Kutaisi served as capital of the united Kingdom of Georgia, from the 15th century until 1810, it was the capital of the Imeretian Kingdom. In 1508, the city was conquered by Selim I, the son of Bayezid II, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. During the 17th century, Imeretian kings made many appeals to Russian Empire to help them in their struggle for independence from the Ottomans. All these appeals were ignored. Only in the reign of Catherine the Great, in 1768, were troops of general Gottlieb Heinrich Totleben sent to join the forces of King Heraclius II of Georgia, who hoped to reconquer the Ottoman-held southern Georgian lands, with Russian help. Totleben helped King Solomon I of Imereti to recover his capital, Kutaisi, on August 6, 1770; the Russian-Turkish wars ended in 1810 with the annexation of the Imeretian Kingdom by the Russian Empire. The city was the capital of the Kutais Governorate. In March 1879, the city was the site of a blood libel trial that attracted attention all over Russia.
Kutaisi was a major industrial center before Georgia's independence in 1991. Independence was followed by the economic collapse of the country, and, as a result, many inhabitants of Kutaisi have had to work abroad. Small-scale trade prevails among the rest of the population. In 2011 Mikheil Saakashvili, the president of Georgia, signed a constitutional amendment relocating the parliament to Kutaisi. On 26 May 2012, Saakashvili inaugurated the new Parliament building in Kutaisi; this was done in an effort to decentralise power and shift some political control closer to Abkhazia, although it has been criticised as marginalising the legislature, for the demolition of a Soviet War Memorial at the new building's location. Kutaisi is located along both banks of the Rioni River; the city lies at an elevation of 125–300 metres above sea level. To the east and northeast, Kutaisi is bounded by the Northern Imereti Foothills, to the north by the Samgurali Range, to the west and the south by the Colchis Plain.
Kutaisi is surrounded by deciduous forests to the northwest. The low-lying outskirts of the city have a agricultural landscape; the city centre has many gardens and its streets are lined with high, leafy trees. In the springtime, when the snow starts to melt in the nearby mountains, the storming Rioni River in the middle of the city is heard far beyond its banks. Kutaisi has a humid subtropical climate with a well-defined on-shore/monsoonal flow during the Autumn and Winter months; the summers are hot and dry while the winters are wet and cool. Average annual temperature in the city is 14.8 degrees Celsius. January is the coldest month with an average temperature of 5.4 degrees Celsius while August is the hottest month with an average temperature of 24.7 degrees Celsius. The absolute minimum recorded temperature is −17.0°C and the absolute maximum is 43.1°C Average annual precipitation is around 1,500 mm. Rain may fall in every season of the year; the city experiences heavy, wet snowfall in the winter, but the snow cover does not last for more than a week.
Kutaisi experiences powerful easterly winds in the summer. Kutaisi has an ancient cultural tradition. Here is a list of the cultural centers in Kutaisi. 1. Kutaisi State Historical Museum 2. Kutaisi Museum of Sport 3. Kutaisi Museum of Martial Art 4. Museum of Zakaria Paliashvili 5. Kutaisi State Historical Archive 6. Kutaisi State Scientific-Universal Library 7. David Kakabadze Fine Art Gallery 8. Art Salon 9. Akaki Tsereteli State University 1. Kutaisi Lado Meskhishvili State Academic Theatre 2. Kutaisi Meliton Balanchivadze State Opera House 3. Kutaisi Iakob Gogebashvili State Puppet Theatre 4. Cinema and Entertaining Center “Suliko” 5. Hermann-Wedekind-Jugendtheater Georgian Writers’ Union Georgian Painters’ Union Folk Palace Local newspapers include: Kutaisi, Imeretis Moabe, PS, Akhali Gazeti, Kutaisuri Versia. Other publications include Chveneburebi, a journal published by the Ministry of Diaspora Issues, Gantiadi, a scientific journal. TV: "Rioni".
Medea
In Greek mythology, Medea is the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, a niece of Circe and the granddaughter of Helios, the sun god begat by the Titan Hyperion. Medea figures in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, appearing in Hesiod's Theogony around 700 BC, but best known from a 3rd century BC literary version by Apollonius of Rhodes called the Argonautica. Medea is known in most stories as a sorceress and is depicted as a priestess of the goddess Hecate. There have been many different accounts of Medea's family tree. One of the only uncontested facts is that she is a direct descendant of the sun god Helios through her father King Aeëtes of Colchis. Helios and his wife Perse had four children: Aeëtes, Circe and Perses. Aeëtes married Idyia and Medea was one of their children; this is. By some accounts, Aeëtes and Idyia only had two daughters and Chalciope and Apsyrtus was the son of Aeëtes through Asterodea. According to others, Idyia gave birth to Medea and Apsyrtus and Asterodea gave birth to Chalciope.
Medea marries Jason, although the number and names of their children are contested by different scholars. Euripides mentions two unnamed sons, others have suggested three sons two sons or a son and a daughter. After Medea leaves Jason in Corinth, she bears him a son. Scholars have questioned whether her son Medeius is the son of Jason or of Aegeus, but Medeius goes on to become the ancestor of the Medes by conquering their lands; the importance of Medea's genealogy is to help define what level of divinity. By some accounts, like the Argonautica, she is depicted as a mortal woman, she is directly influenced by the Greek gods and while she possesses magical abilities, she is still a mortal with divine ancestry. Other accounts, like Euripides' play Medea, focus on her mortality, although she transcends the mortal world at the end of the play with the help of her grandfather Helios and his sun chariot. Hesiod's Theogony places her marriage to Jason on the list of marriages between mortals and divine, suggesting that she is predominantly divine.
She has connections with the Hecate, the goddess of magic, which could be one of the main sources of which she draws her magical ties. Medea's role began after Jason came from Iolcus to Colchis, to claim his inheritance and throne by retrieving the Golden Fleece. In the most complete surviving account, the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, Medea fell in love with him and promised to help him, but only on the condition that if he succeeded, he would take her with him and marry her. Jason agreed. In a familiar mythic motif, Aeëtes promised to give him the fleece, but only if he could perform certain tasks. First, Jason had to plough a field with fire-breathing oxen. Next, Jason had to sow the teeth of a dragon in the ploughed field, the teeth sprouted into an army of warriors. Unable to determine where the rock had come from, the soldiers killed each other. Aeëtes made Jason fight and kill the sleepless dragon that guarded the fleece. Jason took the fleece and sailed away with Medea, as he had promised.
Apollonius says that Medea only helped Jason in the first place because Hera had convinced Aphrodite or Eros to cause Medea to fall in love with him. Medea distracted her father. In some versions, Medea was said to have dismembered her brother's body and scattered his parts on an island, knowing her father would stop to retrieve them for proper burial. During the fight, Atalanta, a member of the group helping Jason in his quest for the fleece, was wounded, but Medea healed her. According to some versions and Jason stopped on her aunt Circe's island so that she could be cleansed after murdering her brother, relieving her of blame for the deed. On the way back to Thessaly, Medea prophesied that Euphemus, the helmsman of Jason's ship, the Argo, would one day rule over all of Libya; this came true through a descendant of Euphemus. The Argo reached the island of Crete, guarded by the bronze man, Talos. Talos had one vein, bound shut by a single bronze nail. According to Apollodorus, Talos was slain either when Medea drove him mad with drugs, deceived him that she would make him immortal by removing the nail, or was killed by Poeas's arrow.
In the Argonautica, Medea hypnotized him from the Argo, driving him mad so that he dislodged the nail, ichor flowed from the wound, he bled to death. After Talos died, the Argo landed. Jason, celebrating his return with the Golden Fleece, noted that his father Aeson was too aged and infirm to participate in the celebrations. Medea withdrew the blood from Aeson's body, infused it with certain herbs, returned it to his veins, invigorating him; the daughters of king Pelias wanted the same service for their father. While Jason searched for the Golden Fleece, still angry at Pelias, conspired to make Jason fall in love with Medea, whom Hera hoped would kill Pelias; when Jason and Medea returned to Iolcus, Pelias still refused to give
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Iolcus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.