The Medes were an Iron Age Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media between western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, they occupied the mounta
Artistic representation of a Median man
Excavation from ancient Ecbatana, Hamadan, Iran
The Apadana Palace, 5th century BCE Achaemenid bas-relief shows a Median soldier behind a Persian soldier, in Persepolis, Iran
Stone relief of a Median man
In Greek mythology, Medea is the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis. Medea is known in most stories as a sorceress, an accomplished pharmakís, a worker in pharmakeía, and is often depicted as a high p
Medes
…the origin of such an ethnonym. According to his Histories (ca.440 BC): The Medes were formerly called by everyone Arians, but when the Colchian woman Medea came from Athens to the Arians, they changed their name, like the Persians [did after Perses, son of Perseus and Andromeda]. This is the Medes' own…
Medea and the daughters of Pelias, 2nd-century Roman copy of a 420 BC original, Antikensammlung Berlin
Medea in a c. 70 AD fresco from Herculaneum
Jason and Medea by John William Waterhouse (1907)
Bas relief of Medea, 2nd century BC, in the Ancient Agora Museum, Athens