Editing Medea (section)

===Various myth endings===
[[Image:Medeia child Louvre K300.jpg|thumb|upright|Medea murdering one of her children, [[Amphora|neck amphora]], {{Circa|330 BC}}, [[Louvre]].]]In Corinth, Jason abandoned Medea for the king [[Creon (king of Corinth)|Creon]]'s daughter, [[Glauce]]. Before the fifth century BCE, there seem to have been two variants of the myth's conclusion. According to the poet [[Eumelus of Corinth|Eumelus]], to whom the fragmentary epic ''Korinthiaka'' is usually attributed, Medea killed her children by accident.<ref>As noted in a [[scholium]] to [[Pindar]]'s ''Olympian Ode'' 13.74; cf. [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] 2.3.10–11.</ref> She buried them alive in the Temple of Hera, believing this would make them immortal.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=West|first=M. L.|date=2007|title=A New Musical Papyrus: Carcinus, ''Medea''|journal=Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik|volume=161|pages=1–10|jstor=20191275}}</ref> The poet [[Creophylus]], however, blamed their murders on the citizens of Corinth.<ref>As noted in the scholium to ''Medea'' 264.</ref>

According to [[Euripides]]'s [[Medea (play)|version]], Medea took her revenge by sending Glauce a dress and golden coronet, covered in poison.<ref name=":0">[[Euripides]], ''[[Medea (play)|Medea]] line 788''</ref> This resulted in the deaths of both the princess and the king, [[Creon (king of Corinth)|Creon]], when he went to save his daughter. Medea then continued her revenge, murdering two of her children herself and refusing to allow Jason to hold the bodies. Afterward, she left Corinth and flew to Athens in a golden chariot driven by dragons sent by her grandfather, Helios, god of the sun.

[[File:Medea and a nurse protecting a child, 2nd c. BC, Archaeological Museum, Dion (7080071423).jpg|thumb|Statuette of Medea and a nurse protecting the child, [[Dion, Archaeological Museum|Archaeological Museum of Dion]], [[Greece]].|left]]

Although Jason in Euripides calls Medea most hateful to gods and men, the fact that the chariot is given to her by Helios indicates that she has the Gods on her side. As [[Bernard Knox]] points out, Medea's last scene parallels that of a number of indisputably divine beings in other plays by Euripides. Just like these gods, Medea "interrupts and puts a stop to the violent action of the human being on the lower level" and "justifies her savage revenge on the grounds that she has been treated with disrespect and mockery" so that she "takes measures and gives orders for the burial of the dead, prophesies the future," and "announces the foundation of a cult."<ref>B.M.W. Knox. ''Word and Action: Essays on the Ancient Theatre.'' Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979, p. 303.</ref> This deliberate murder of her children by Medea appears to be Euripides's invention, although some scholars believe [[Neophron]] created this alternate tradition.<ref>See McDermott 1985, 10–15.</ref> Her [[filicide]] would go on to become the standard for later writers.<ref>[[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]] ''Fabulae'' 25; [[Ovid]] ''Met''. 7.391ff.; [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] ''Medea''; ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]]'' 1.9.28 favors Euripides's version of events, but also records the variant that the Corinthians killed Medea's children in retaliation for her crimes.</ref> [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], writing in the late 2nd century CE, records five different versions of what happened to Medea's children after reporting that he has seen a monument for them while traveling in Corinth.<ref>Pausanias 2.3.6–11</ref> Fleeing from Jason, Medea made her way to [[Thebes, Greece|Thebes]], where she healed [[Heracles]] (the former Argonaut) from the curse of Hera (that led him to slay his sons).<ref name=":12">Diodorus Siculus, 4.55–4.56</ref>

After the murder of her children, Medea fled to [[Athens, Greece|Athens]], where she met and married [[Aegeus]]. They had one son, [[Medus]]. Another version from Hesiod makes Medus the son of Jason.<ref>[[Hesiod]] ''Theogony'' 1000-2</ref> Her domestic bliss was once again shattered by the arrival of Aegeus's long-lost son, [[Theseus]]. Determined to preserve her own son's inheritance, Medea convinced her husband that Theseus was an imposter, making him a threat and that he needed to be disposed of. To do this, Medea was planning on poisoning him as she previously had other victims. As Medea handed Theseus a cup of poison, Aegeus recognized the young man's sword as his own, which he had left behind many years previously for his newborn son as soon as he came of age. Knocking the cup from Medea's hand, Aegeus embraced Theseus as his own.[[File:Pittore di policoro (ambito), cratere a calice con scene della medea e del telephos di euripide, lucania 400 ac ca. 03.jpg|thumb|Medea flying on her chariot, (detail), [[krater]], {{Circa|480 BC}} [[Cleveland Museum of Art|Cleveland Museum]].|285x285px]]

Medea returned to Colchis and found that Aeëtes had been deposed by his brother [[Perses (brother of Aeetes)|Perses]], which prompted her to kill her uncle and restore the kingdom to her father. [[Herodotus]] reports another version, in which Medea and her son Medus fled from Athens, on her flying chariot. They landed in the Iranian plateau and lived among the [[Indo-Aryan peoples|Aryans]], who then changed their name to the [[Medes]].<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Recounting the many variations of Medea's story, the 1st century BCE historian [[Diodorus Siculus]] wrote, "Speaking generally, it is because of the desire of the tragic poets for the marvelous that so varied and inconsistent an account of Medea has been given out."<ref name=":12" />

These are extreme actions, yet in many ways understandable, logically situated within the confines of her position and societal constraints. In Euripides' play, Medea is a foreign woman living within the patriarchal society, abandoned by her husband Jason for another woman. Her choices are born from a place of rational calculation to reclaim agency in a world that has taken it from her. In fact, in the analysis of Greek tragedy made by Sarah Iles Johnston, the revenge of Medea serves "as a means of reasserting her identity and ensuring that her enemies pay for their betrayal".<ref>Johnston, S. I. (1997). Desire and Deception in Medea. Helios, 24(1), 31-49.</ref> Having killed Jason's new bride and their children, she made his betrayal cause suffering and not success. While her actions certainly go against conventional morality, they do follow a tragic logic that is determined by the need for justice and the need of self-preservation. This underlines even further the rational approach of Medea's intelligence and strategic planning, evidenced by how she manipulated others in order to get what she wanted. In a society where women had limited means for justice, Medea's revenge takes the form of balance--however harsh--which is calculated in righting the books. Thus, in the light of her situation, her actions bring out rationality in extreme measures.